It's now well over a year since I first blogged about The Shard becoming the tallest building in the UK.
A year later it has finally reached its pinnacle of 310m in height, becoming the tallest inhabited building in Europe.
The Topping-out ceremony was completed on the 30th March with the final steel spire weighing 500 tonnes going into place on a perfect blue sky day.
The project began back in February 2009 with an estimated £450million being spent on its construction so far.
As mentioned previously the building is very much a ‘mixed use’ scheme with 28 floors of offices, a 19 storey five star hotel, ten apartments over 12 floors and the public viewing gallery right at the top.
The apartments will be seven times larger than a semi-detached house and likely to fetch tens of millions of pounds each, probably aimed at rich Russian oligarchs and foreign investors.
People may look at the building as a symbol for the super rich and the top 1%, however I feel the project is a great achievement for the UK in times of recession and a low period for construction.
The building has been very much a multinational project, with a fifth of the workers from other EU nations, as well as Brazil, Albania and Australia.
Apparently co-ordination of languages written on signs - including Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Russian, Albanian, Lithuanian and Punjabi - has been an achievement in itself.
Two-thirds of the workers however have been British and I was happy to hear the top of The Shard was constructed in Thirsk, Yorkshire by Severfield- Reeve Structures.
The building may end up being occupied by the rich and famous, but businesses and people have benefitted from its construction up and down the country.
But remember it's reign is only for 4 years! Thanks to Norman - See SoVibrant blog 16th February 2011.
Images courtesy of Flickr
Architecture and Design
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