The Shard Tower in London

[cybertect]

Fortuitously, I happened to have taken the day off for my birthday yesterday and I'd got a tip the night before that topping out was going to occur, so I made my way up to Southwark with my camera.

Apols for the pic heavy post.

A little after 10am and the first of the new sections of steel are just in place, seen here from Empire Square on Long Lane.

SE view from Weston Street

Ladder being lifted to the top

From the top of Guy's Hospital, it looked like this through the rather mucky windows.

Lunch at a café on St Thomas Street, then a little before 1pm the last section of steel was peeking over the top of the hoarding at Gate 1.

For some reason, at this point, I had Republica's Ready To Go going round and round in my head

I made my way to Leathermarket Gardens, which I figured would afford the best view of events, and passed my time lounging in the spring sunshine waiting for something to happen.

The BBC's helicopter turned up about an hour later

Then the action started. Here's the sequence

All done!

 

[TitanSound]

Nice one Mr Tect, must be very satisfying seeing as you've been documenting it from the start. Your pics here and on SSC have been the best by a country mile. Top job

My only burning question left is, how the fuck are they going to get that crane down?

 

[cybertect]

Ta. I exchanged emails of congratulations with the architects at RPBW working on the project just after the last bit of steel was installed, which was nice. My pics got a mention from one of them in a recent interview he had done for a French paper.

I have this feeling I'm going to find myself at a bit of a loose end over lunch times once the crane comes down.

 

[quimcunx]

Happy birthday for yesterday cyber.

 

[paolo]

Yeah, I'd like to add to the applause. It's the kind of project I would have loved to have done, but my location these days would have meant my attempt would have been shoddy and incomplete compared with yours. I can't think of any major construction that's had such brilliant and comprehensive photographic coverage. I run the main flickr group for the Olympics, and it's nowhere near this.

A request from me, please shoot as much of the crane take-down as you can. Skip work. Get sacked. Just for us.

 

[TitanSound]

I have this feeling I'm going to find myself at a bit of a loose end over lunch times once the crane comes down.

Well, there is the station redelopment coming up, and the new building that's flying up now. But I suppose they're far less impressive than the Shard.

And yes, happy belated bday

 

[DJWrongspeed]

I just find it weird to watch people on this thread admire it when really it is a very big, very pointy cock destined for all our arses And it's true there are any number of big pointy cocks fucking us at the moment, in the form of the corporate takeover of the state, and the freeing of money from all obligations to nations and citizens, but this one really makes no effort to disguise itself. Zero marks out of ten for stealth skills

For all you cock lovers it's time to quote Brainaddict here before people get carried away.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

As today is one of the first non-hazy days for a while, I took another photo. You can actually see the red on it now.

This is for you Cybertect. Belated greetings. I was going to put it in a frame for you, but I think the fact that I stuck my head out in the cold is present enough. Now don't go flogging my picture 'cos I know it's worth loads of dosh

 

[cybertect]

That's cool. Mind if I post it on skyscrapercity.com?

 

[bi0boy]

As today is one of the first non-hazy days for a while, I took another photo. You can actually see the red on it now

That tall red column is just temporary though isn't it? It's where the construction lift is fitted.

 

[cybertect]

That tall red column is just temporary though isn't it? It's where the construction lift is fitted.

Yes. The doors to the hoist entrance on each floor are red. They will be disappearing and replaced by normal glazing panels in due course.

You can see them clearly in the helicopter photo on this page.

There's also the blind boxes which are red, but I'd be surprised if you can see them from Brixton without some fairly good binoculars.

I could always be proved wrong about that, though

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

That's cool. Mind if I post it on skyscrapercity.com?

Are you taking the piss?

I showed my sister your pictures today. She said they were absolutely fantastic. However, she's still trying to figure out how many sides the Shard has

 

[cybertect]

No, I'm entirely serious, it's a good skyline that well illustrates the difference in height between the Shard and the rest of the buildings in The City.

Depending how you count them there are about seven sides on the main tower at its base reducing to four at the top.

 

[cybertect]

Here's a few other photos I took on Friday

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

No, I'm entirely serious, it's a good skyline that well illustrates the difference in height between the Shard and the rest of the buildings in The City.

Depending how you count them there are about seven sides on the main tower at its base reducing to four at the top.

Oh. If you like. If you can do anything to make it look better, feel free to do so as I don't understand all that photo editing stuff. Strange, because years ago, St Paul's clearly stood out, along with the Nat West Tower, and then suddenly more and more buildings appeared, so I suppose it's good to compare with a picture of the skyline from St Paul's up to The Shard before all these new buildings appeared. Maybe someone on SSC has one? If they do, maybe you could post it on here?

Seven sides? That's the reason I got my sister to look at your photos as we didn't know how many sides were on it. We still didn't know after looking

 

[cybertect]

Ta. Will see what I can do then

There's an interactive thingy with floor plans on the official site for The Shard.

http://the-shard.com/offices/schedule#

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Oh no, I can't do floor plans. They do my head in. Would rather see proper pictures

 

[teuchter]

It would be good to do a kind of redux of this thread with a selection of all the pictures posted by various people from start to end.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Yes, that would be good for people who can't be arsed reading

 

[TitanSound]

It would be good to do a kind of redux of this thread with a selection of all the pictures posted by various people from start to end.

Get to work then.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I reckon Kyser or Cyber should do it as it's Kyser's thread, and Cyber's posted the most pictures

 

[teuchter]

I also agree that it should be done without me doing any work.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

However, as it's teuchter who wants it, maybe he should do a new pictures thread

 

[skyscraper101]

How about an Urban Flickr album? Much better to browse through.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

How about an Urban Flickr album? Much better to browse through.

I don't really like Flickr. Prefer being able to scroll through here and seeing them a nice large size

 

[OneStrike]

Some good pics and a wee story of their adventure from up high on placehacking co.uk.

 

[tommers]

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

who, what, why, where, when and how?

 

[bi0boy]

who, what, why, where, when and how?

http://www.silentuk.com/?p=3782

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

http://www.silentuk.com/?p=3782

Hope there's no terrorists planning to go up there as the security obviously isn't all that