I used to hate the Shard. When it was first erected, famously the tallest building in the United Kingdom, Renzo Piano’s towering stick of glass and steel offended me deeply.
Not only did its position, in relation to the buildings around it (including, at the time, my office), create a ridiculous wind tunnel that was hazardous to hair and pedestrians on all but the calmest day, but also, viewed from the other side of the river, I loathed the way it lurched into the sky, a posturing vulgarity dwarfing all its neighbours. It seemed to me like a big, boorish bloke at a party, loud and annoying, trying too hard to be the life and soul and ruining it for everybody.
