London bridge tower (the shard of glass)

Is a £350m, 66-storey (1016ft) office actually needed in Londons skyline?
There is, of course, going to be opposition against building a skyscraper in London, namely from the British heritage, but what really needs to be looked at is what will the building bring to London.
The building will be 1000ft high, making it the tallest multi-purpose building in Europe. It will mostly encompass offices but will also have residential floors, a restaurant, viewing floors and even a hotel will be included into the mix. From the early computer generated pictures the design looks fantastic and very modern, which is what the canary wharf side of the Thames is rapidly becoming.

The tapering spire, to me, gives it the look of something that is part of the earth, like if two continents collide and force it from the depths like a mountain, but this is just me. Others have described it as a ‘dart that has been thrown too many times and has damaged its end’.
It is hard to find a bad description of the look of the building, other than “it will ruin the aged look of London”, but surely this is what we should be striving for, not to ruin it but to improve it. Even when the chairman of English Heritage tried to use “the Shard of Glass” as a derogative nickname it backfired because it is now used as a sales pitch by engineers working on the building. The designer, Renzo Piano, originally designed it to look as if the pointed top will disappear into the sky, reducing the appearance of height, with the larger bottom giving the surrounding area a real landmark of size. The windows are going to be made from extra white glass, which will apparently reflect the weather, thus giving it a seasonal change. My opinion on this is that it is a bad thing, why would you want to reflect the weather in London, it is terrible.
Well, so far so good, I haven’t found anything drastically wrong with the building, other than the reflective windows.

What sort of people will it attract?
Other than the already huge tourism that London attracts from around the world, I think the viewing galleries will give people who live in this country, and already know London, the chance to see it from a different light. This, in my opinion, is where its negative aspects come to light because you will have to either work in the building or be of the slightly richer persuasion to experience anything else the building has to offer. For example, the residential floors will be from 186m to 224m, making it the highest residential property in London. One of the apartments will take up a whole floor, costing roughly £10million. The Shangri La will have a five star luxury hotel occupying 18 floors and the restaurants will be of the highest quality. Now, to me, this means nothing; I will not be able to experience these things and neither will a large number of other people.
Now it seems I am getting closer too an answer to my original question, but I have neglected a few key points, one being the cultural significance of this endeavour, we will be joining other European cities that already have a towering landmark that can identify a city, such as the Naberezhnaya Tower, of Moscow, with its distinctive three buildings of varying size, and also the Commerzbank Tower, which is readily regognisable as the head quarters of Commerzbank in Frankfurt. Now I am not saying London does noy have its fair share of landmarks, mostly comprising of a century old arcitecture, this excludes things like 30 St Mary Axe (The Ghurkin) and the BFI imax cinema, but these builbings do not neccessarilly have the same effect, globally, as a 1000ft skyscraper that has got a definite modern makeover.
I think that with the increasing demand of luxury offices, and the sincere lack of this in London, “The Shard” will attract big businesses with, lets face it, big money, which unfortunatly is probably the primary reason for the erection of this building. London is going through some definite changes, with the the completion of canary wharf, which was once Europes largest work site, has seen a good many businesses move to this area from all over the globe, for instance in decmber 2004 canary wharf had a working population of 64,000. So with the completion of the London Bridge Tower set to be complete for 2010, the jobs on offer will be varied and numerous, especially with there being a hotel an restauraunt included, this I can only see as being a posotive aspect.

In conclusion, is a £350m, 66-storey (1016ft) multi-functional skyscraper actually needed in Londons skyline, I would have to answer, no, not needed, but wanted, yes. I can not find enough reasons why the building should not be built, obviously it will add to the ever increasing problem of the congestion in London, but so does the erection of every house, shop and pretty much any other building, parking will naturally fall under this heading. With the increase of employment, during and after constructing, the multi-purpose usage and the global recognition and status “The Shard of Glass” is set to become one of Englands most loved landmarks, or at least one of them, and to all the critics if your currently dwelling in London and do not want to have to gaze upon such a “monstrous contruction”, I would be looking to the estate agents if I were you.