A t 309.6 m high, the Shard is the tallest building in Europe. It stands on the south bank of the Thames opposite the high-rise buildings of the financial centre of London, such as the ‘Gherkin’. The Shard has 72 habitable floors, with a viewing gallery (for those who can afford the £25 fee to travel in the lifts to get there) and an open-air viewing deck.
The building, designed by architect Renzo Piano, is clad entirely in glass and opened in July 2012 with a spectacular laser show. It is not the tallest building in the world, in fact it is a mere midget among such giants as Burj Khalifa in Dubai at 828 m, Shanghai’s World Financial Centre towering at 492 m and the 452-m Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Figure 1).
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