Editing Renzo Piano (section)

===The Shard, London (2000–2010)===
[[The Shard]], built over the underground station of [[London Bridge station|London Bridge]], is sixty-six stories and {{convert|305|m|ft|-1}} high, which made it, when completed in 2012, the tallest skyscraper in Europe. Inside, it contains luxury residences and a hotel, along with offices, shops, restaurants, and cultural centers. It has a wide base and a split pinnacle point which seems to disappear into the clouds, like, as Piano described it, "a bell tower of the 16th century, or the mast of great ship...Often buildings of great height are aggressive and arrogant symbols of power and egoism," but the Shard is designed "to express its sharp and light presence in the urban panorama of London."{{Sfn|Jodidio|2016|page=79}} Like his other tall buildings, the glass sunscreen on the exterior extends slightly above the building itself, appearing to split apart at the top. The critical reaction to the tower was predictably mixed. [[Simon Jenkins]] of the ''Guardian'' of London saw it as a foreign attack on the traditional London skyline and monuments: "This tower is anarchy. It conforms to no planning policy. It marks no architectural focus or rond-point. It offers no civic forum or function, just luxury flats and hotels. It stands apart from the City cluster and pays no heed to its surrounding context in scale, materials or ground presence. It seems to have lost its way from Dubai to Canary Wharf... The Shard has slashed the face of London for ever."<ref>Simon Jenkins, ''The Guardian'', 3 July 2012</ref> However, Jonathan Glancy in the London ''Telegraph'' defended Piano's building: "The criticism – hurled against Piano like the spears of Ancient Britons fighting the civilised Romans – is, I think, a bottled up attack on our low standards of design and the beetle-browed politics that have allowed so many poor tall buildings to have been rushed up around St Paul's. The Shard, whatever its flaws – and all its many floors – is a much better building than most of the flakes below it."<ref>Jonathan Glancey, "Is the Shard really worse than the Taliban?", ''The Telegraph'', 9 February 2017</ref>