Inaugurated in 2012 beside London Bridge station, the Shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom, rising 1,016 feet in 95 stories. Its architect, Renzo Piano, is said to have first sketched it on the back of a restaurant menu as a spire rising from the River Thames.
Piano imagined a slender, spire-like form whose angled facades of glass, some 11,000 panes in all, would reflect the sky and change appearance with the weather and the seasons. The name came from its critics: English Heritage warned it would be "a shard of glass through the heart of historic London." The tower stacks offices, restaurants, a hotel and apartments.
The View from the Shard, an observation deck that opened in 2013, includes an open-air level on the 72nd floor, about 800 feet above the city.
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