London's most conspicuously cool landmark?

It’s come a long way since its original conception around 12 years ago, but today The Shard will be officially opened to the public.An extraordinary feat of engineering has taken place to create the mega-monolith - just take a look at the photo gallery of the construction project at Wikipedia (see link above). During the course of the building works, I’ve also taken quite a few photographs from various angles and locations, several of which can be seen here:

Despite what the advertisement hoarding next to the Shard says, there’s no longer any need to travel to America - at least not to see the towering, shimmering glass of colossal high rise buildings.What’s more - the Shard is so conspicuous, it’s difficult to escape from, wherever you are in London...

With penthouses on offer at around £50 million apiece, the residential accomodation on offer is a tad pricey, but if you’re looking for something tall, with a bit of English provenance, how about these curiously collectable twisted wood antique candlesticks from ShopCurious? I’m not sure how well they'd suit a contemporary apartment in The Shard, but if you love old fashioned British style and subtle lighting (as opposed to laser light displays), these may be just what you’re looking for.

 

Are you?

Arty, edgy and in demand...

Does anyone else have a soft spot for old gasometers? These photographs were taken in Hackney. You can read more about Empress Coaches, shown here (and featured in the film Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), at Spitalfields Life.






















I didn’t see any coaches, but I did spot this curiously arty ice cream van parked in a street nearby.





















Oh, and apparently, there’s a planning application to build an 18 storey block on this site… eek!


Another potential victim of developers is a little known shrine called Cross Bones, located in the shadow of The Shard. Read more about this in ShopCurious's post at The Dabbler.

And just across the road from the memorial this lovely, though rather neglected, old building (below) sits next to Borough Market. The sign says ‘goods inwards’ – which in a few years time will no doubt have been replaced by ‘luxury goods outwards’.












London is a constantly evolving curiosity. I hope it's changing for the better.

Do you?