Funding

The funding began in late 2007 but due to the economys state the funding was
short lived as it needed a Qatari investor to bring 150,000,000 to the project.
This gave the Qatari 80% of the shareholders stake. This meant that the Shard
would contain different businesses within the building as previously planned. The
Qatari changed some businesses to the Qatar National Bank, Qinvest, Qatari
Islamic Bank, and the Qatarui developer, Barwa Real Estate.

Construction/Development

2009

The Shard began its building in February when a small piling rig appeared on
site. The core of the building was then erected by putting steel beams into the
ground. The full construction began on the 16 th March. The London Bridge House
was demolished in May as part of the concurrent London Bridge Place Project.
The first steel work was erected in on the 27 th April as part of the Shards piles.

It took five cranes to build the shard with four out of the five cranes used as
jumping cranes. They are called jumping cranes because they rise to different
levels to cope with the height of the building. Crane one was erected in
September, and crane two was erected at the beginning of October. In October
they managed to get the steel beams in and concreting them in for the ground
structure at the Northern side of The Shard.

2010

By March, the concrete core was rising at a steady pace of 3meters/9.8ft per day.
This resulted the construction reaching the 33 rd floor by mid-June. This put the
Shard almost level with the top of Guys Hospital which stands at
134meters/469ft.by the 27th July the core of the Shard stopped rising at the 38 th
floor as it required re-configuring the construction for further heights.

During the month of November the core had reached the 68 th floor. The towers
steel works reached heights of the 40th floor. Also by November the glass
cladding had reached an impressive 33% of the Shard. By the end of November,
the core of the Shard reached a record breaking 235meters/ 771ft. this broke the
One Canada Squares 18 year reign as Britains tallest building.

2011

By the beginning of the 2011 season of construction the Shard reached the 72 nd
floor, standing at 245meters/804ft. In January the installation of hydraulic
screens were started and completed making up the concrete floors of the hotel
and apartment section of the tower completing 69 floors of the Shard. On the
25th January the concrete pumps started pouring the first the 41 st floor.

By the end of February they had completed a further five floors resulting in them
reaching the 46th floor. It averaged out that they completed a full floor/level
every week.
The construction was coming along very steadily as by August the cladding
enveloping was over half the buildings exterior. By this time, pouring of the floors
reached the 67th floor and progression with the towers cladding reached the 58 th
floor. On the 19th September the towers steel was approaching completion of the
Shards core, reaching 244meters/801ft.

The 24th September saw the final crane being erected to construct the final part
of the Shards exterior structure, the skyscrapers upper spire. Based on 3D
models created by computer software, the spire was pre-fabricated, and pre-
assembled before being constructed onto the Shard. The spire also had a couple
of test runs in Yorkshire before it was fixed to the Shard. At the point the Shard
had become the tallest building in Europe, superseding the German building
Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt.

2012

On the 30th March the steel structure had been complete when its 66meter/217ft,
500 tonne spire had become permanently fixed to the Shard. At this point the
Shard became 308.5meters/1012ft tall.

The final 516 pains of glass were added which sealed the building of the
elements. The glass had also extended the building height to its maximum level
of 310meters/1020ft tall.

The Shard was formally opened on the 5th July by the Prime Minister of Qatar,
Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jaber Al Thani. This ceremony drew the attention of
officials such as the Duke of York, Prince Andrew.