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VIEWS SITE LINES
The fi nal member of the Shard family earns its Place
Albert Giralt of Renzo Piano Building Workshop refl ects on Shard Place, the fi nal piece of the Shard Quarter, and how its design completes a 25-year vision for London Bridge.
A
lmost 25 years have passed since Renzo Piano Building Workshop was commissioned to design The Shard. With the completion of Shard Place, the vision we set out with
all those years ago has fi nally come to fruition. This offers an opportune moment to refl ect on that journey, and on the urban quarter it has produced.
It was never about a single landmark. From the outset, the ambition was to build a piece of city: a group of buildings that could transform London Bridge not only through its skyline but through its public realm and the way people move through the area. The Shard, The News Building and now Shard Place have each contributed to this transformation, turning a fragmented and diffi cult-to-navigate part of London into a coherent urban destination. Before the project began, London Bridge was one of the city’s most important transport interchanges, yet a confusing place to navigate. Below lay an intricate network of pedestrian routes; above, a concourse whose natural arrival point was blocked by a huge bus station, obscuring the railway entrance and denying the
area any real civic presence. Between the two, a weak system of vertical connections did little to tie them together. The three buildings have progressively transformed this condition. The Shard established a new identity for London Bridge and gave the station a recognisable main facade. The News Building made it possible to relocate the bus station away from the railway entrance, freeing space for a new public square that reconnected the station to the life of the street. Shard Place extends this transformation southwards: its fl oating mass carries the public realm beneath the building towards Guy’s Quad and Southwark, widens Joiner Street, and strengthens the connection between street and concourse with a generous south-facing staircase – designed both as a route and as a place to sit and enjoy the sun. Together, these interventions have done more than create three related buildings. They have reorganised the urban realm, clarifi ed movement through a complex transport interchange, brought new commercial life to the site, and created a new centre for London Bridge. The buildings function as both architecture and urban infrastructure – defi ning streets, squares and connections while
A SENSE OF PLACE
“The challenge with Shard Place was not to repeat The Shard or The News Building, but to understand what connects them beneath the surface” – Albert Giralt © Will Pryce
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
ADF SEPTEMBER 2026
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