#353: Thirty-six views of The Shard

A series of woodblock prints, each showing a view of The Shard from a different point in London.

The complete series comprises of:

#	Title	Description
1	Children playing in Claybury Woods	View from the playground in Claybury Woods with children playing on the equipment while their parents watch.
2	Nearly Home	View through the front windscreen of a car on the M11 just after Junction 5 going South.
3	The greatest view from a urinal	View from the urinal of the male toilets in the Shangri-La restaurant inside The Shard looking straight down - out of the window! - showing the side of the building and trains coming in and out of London Bridge Station.
4	Medieval and Modern	View from the traffic lights opposite the Tower of London showing crowds of people going to and coming from the tower.
5	From above	View through an aeroplane window looking down on The Shard.
6	Blackfriars Station Platform	View from the second nearest platform at Blackfriars Station showing empty tracks, people on the final platform and the view down the River Thames beyond.
7	Three figures flying balloons on Hampstead Heath	A view from Hampstead Heath showing three figures (one adult and two children) each having just released a balloon with a letter attached to its string.
8	The View from The Eye	View from inside a capsule on the London Eye that is at the topmost position.
9	The Olde Viewing Spotte	View from the platform at the top of The Monument, including the metal net in the foreground.
10	For Andi and Marquita Oliver	View from the top of Trellick Tower in Kensal Town.
11	Cyclists in Redbridge	View from Redbridge Cycling Centre showing cyclists on the track and the London skyline beyond.
12	Going down the hill	View through the front windscreen of a car going down Shooter’s Hill towards Greenwich.
13	London, Old and New	View from outside the Mail Rail building on Phoenix Place with a view of new buildings along the street and older buildings at the end, with The Shard beyond.
14	After Hokusai	View of The Shard against a blue and cloudy sky with a mist obscuring the buildings in front.
15	The New Viewing Spot	View from the Sky Gardens balcony with people lined up along the barrier.
16	Fireworks Night	View from Alexandra Palace during a fireworks display.
17	Market, Pub and Porter, or Market Day	View from the end of Park Street showing Borough Market and the Market Porter Pub on a Market Day.
18	Two arches and hope	View from just beyond Wembley Stadium. The stadium is lit brightly from behind but ahead is a dark sky above with a rainbow across the sky.
19	A Day at the Cricket	View of and from a cricket match at The Oval.
20	Heading up to the City	View through the front windscreen of a car heading north on the A20.
21	From Home	A Shard fridge magnet on a fridge alongside magnets from other attractions and those representing various countries and cities.
22	From the Gurdwara	View from the road outside Barking Gurdwara showing the old and new Gurdwara buildings as well as the road heading toward London and the skyline beyond.
23	After Hokusai	An imaginary view looking out of an upper window at the front of the British Museum looking across the courtyard and with the top of a column in the foreground.
24	A Couple Enjoying More London	View from More London Place showing Couple (a 2003 artwork by Stephan Balkenhol) and London Bridge Station in the foreground.
25	From the Land of the Stags	View from Richmond Park with a stag surrounded by does.
26	Between Essex and Kent	View from the road at the top of the Queen Elizabeth II (QEII) Bridge at the Dartford Crossing.
27	Looming Behind	View across the river from Columbia Wharf with The Shard directly behind the wharf buildings.
28	A Clearer View	The view from Southwark Street showing nearly the whole side of The Shard.
29	Winter Lights	View from Westferry Circus in the Docklands, at night, during the Winter Lights Festival.
30	Outside Waterloo Station	View from outside Waterloo Station including the station’s entrance, buses and railway arches with The Shard appearing behind them.
31	With Tower Bridge	View from the Hermitage Riverside Memorial Garden.
32	The Viewers and the View	View from The Lookout viewing platform showing both the view across to The Shard through its glass window and the reflection of those looking out.
33	London, Old and New II	View from just outside Dock X at Canada Water.
34	From above	View from directly above The Shard showing it and the area around.
35	From below	View from the bottom of The Shard looking straight up its side.
36	Green Bridge	View from The Green Bridge inside Mile End Park looking west up Mile End Road.

After Hokusai and Hiroshige.

What views would you choose?

#352: David Hockney

Be in bright sunlit places - by pools, in the countryside - whether you are in darkness or in light.  Admire the people, admire the scenes.  Learn to look.  

Dare to be yourself, even if who you are is looked down upon or even if it is illegal. 

Find the place you can be you.  Find the place you can relax and be you.

#351: Love with all your being

Oil on canvas.  A person shining with love and surrounded by everything they love.

#350: Marjane Satrapi

Support and raise the voices of those who are not heard.

Love with all your being.

Walk with Marjane in Persepolis and eat Chicken with Plums to see how.

#349: I'm afraid of their words

It could be a flag, it could be a person, it could be any other symbol, sign or signifier that fits the title.

#348: I'm afraid I can't and I'm afraid I can

One person.  Two scared faces.

#347: A Brighter Future Beneath

Oil on canvas.  An urban scene from the view of a driver on a dual carriageway.  There are buildings on either side of the road, and ahead there is a roundabout and flyover with housing estates visible beyond.  

All this is well lit by the sun that is coming from behind.  Most of the painting is sky, though, a sky that is dark grey above a complete, bright and vivid rainbow, and a lighter grey underneath the rainbow.

Along the bottom edge of the frame, on a small brass plaque, is engraved: “the rainbow contains / a brighter future beneath / but will we reach it?”

#346: Holiday Landscapes

Landscapes from holidays that are stored in your memory to be retrieved when needed on a cold, rainy or bad day.  

#345: Conversation Piece

A conversation with a work of art.  Imagined or otherwise.

#344: *That* thing

Something that fulfills your needs just by being there.

#343: En plein air

The perfect outdoor scene.

Conceived while driving across Northern France.

#342: In plain air

#341: Life is a solo, or is it?

Two music scores.  

The first shows a solo piece that cuts out suddenly in the last line.  Spread out underneath the bars and across several lines, as if lyrics, are the words: Life is a solo, and it continues to the last line.  

The second score shows a piece played by several instruments.  To end the piece there is a solo played by one instrument that cuts out suddenly in the last line, although the rest of the band carry on until the end.  Spread out underneath the bars and across several lines, as if lyrics, are the words: Life is a solo, but you still need the rest of the band.

---

After: Associated Press (2022) Renowned jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis dies aged 87. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/12/jazz-artist-ramsey-lewis-death (28th September 2022)

#340: Living Landscape II

Find a landscape (or cityscape or seascape or other scene).  

Sit still.  

Relax.  

Watch.  

Listen.  

See.  

Feel.

After Hoppers (2026).

#339: A Place to Reach an Understanding, or Sacred Gray

A round concrete building with a central octagonal domed part. Wood has been used throughout while moulding and setting the concrete, giving all the walls the texture, and appearance, of wood.  

Around the outside of the building is a wide colonnade with stone benches running the length of it on the inside.  The roof is a quarter arch, the floor a black and white chequered pattern.  This colonnade runs around the outside of the building starting from either side of an open foyer that stands before the entrance to the kitchen and library block at the rear.  It is held up by simple columns with semi-circle cut-outs between each one.

Between the colonnades, a triangular pediment rests above an open foyer, beyond which is the main entrance to the building.  Etched into the otherwise plain frieze under the pediment are the words: 

A Place to Reach an Understanding

This appears in both English and all local language(s).

A mosaic made up of shades of grey creating a horizontal gradient (from front to back) fills the floor of the foyer, with the colours getting lighter as they reach the entrance.

The entrance is made up of two grand wooden doors, one black and one white on the outside, each grey on the inside.  

Inside the door, a corridor runs around the central part of the building with the same flooring as outside and just as wide.  Benches run along both sides of the corridor.  To the left hand side the corridor ends at a cafe that serves food and drink from the surrounding areas.  There is also a door leading out to the gardens outside and outdoor seating for the cafe, the latter being both within the colonnade and in the open, depending on the weather.  

The floor immediately on entry is a mosaic containing the word welcome in all local languages.  The floor of the corridor leading to the gardens shows the flowers and foods of the local areas.

At the right hand end there is a library and archive and the main entrance into the main space (the kitchen, stores and library and archives are housed at the rear of the building with additional storage and administration offices underneath).

Straight ahead from the entrance, on the other side of the corridor, are oversized grey wooden doors.  These are false doors, an art installation called The Past - there is only wall behind them but they are designed to look operational.  The doors are mostly plain but have a series of square panels running across carved with pictures of an androgynous (in race and gender) figure being pursued by a spectre-like figure that gradually fades to a skeleton, then dust that blows away in the wind.  The figures are heading from left to right, the first one disappearing off the edge of the final panel.

Either side of The Past, on the walls of the corridor are directions to the main space, library, gardens and cafe on the walls.  

The corridor to the right has a floor with a simple mosaic in shades of grey broken up by the following words and phrases/text in darker grey on a lighter grey background in this order: 

Check yourself. What is on your mind?

Allow the bucket to be emptied. Listen.

This must be a safe space for all.

“That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”

Rebecca F. Kuang (2022) Babel, or the Necessity of Violence.

Then, finally, just before the entrances to the main space and the library:

“There isn’t a space for intimacy and immersion and nuance – really travelling into the grey…. And I think the grey is sacred. That’s where we can all meet each other.”

Dina Amer, quoted by Steve Rose (2023).

At the end of the corridor are two sets of grey wooden doors marking the entrance to the library and archives and the entrance into the central part of the building.  

The central section is an eight sided room within which are many round tables with seats all around them.  Above is a domed, glazed, roof.

Six works of art feature in this main room - a series called Sacred Gray.  #1 is on the wall opposite the entrance.  To the right the next section of wall is an exit that takes you to the coffee shop, and, beyond that, to the gardens.

To the left, the next three walls feature Sacred Gray #2, #4 and #3 in that order - while, to the right of the exit are #6 and #5 with the entrance taking up the last wall.  All are large artworks.

The artworks are as follows:

Sacred Gray #1 (Neutrality): A black and white photograph in portrait format, of an empty beach looking out to a shipless sea with a clear sky.  Each element (beach, sea, sky) takes up one third of the picture. 

Sacred Gray #2 (Everything): A tapestry divided into four equal parts that each depict a concept in shades of grey of something that everyone needs to live well.  These are: Home (somewhere to live) represented as a close-up of bricks and mortar, Food (something to eat) shown by a close-up of a slice of bread, Work (a job) pictured through a close-up of a coin and Leisure (spare time) seen as a detail from a clock face without hands.

Sacred Gray #3 (Everyone): A map of the world without any borders drawn with every country coloured in the same light grey with the sea a darker grey.  From the centre of each country is a grey piece of string (in between the shades of the land and sea) connecting it to the centre of every single other country arranged so that most of the world is obscured, even the poles and the Pacific Ocean at either side of the map. 

Sacred Gray #4 (The Future): Two large grey theatre curtains are drawn across the wall covering the same size area as The Past does on the other side.  What is behind the curtains is not fully known.

Sacred Gray #5 (Find me where we meet): Oil on canvas: Two overlapping circles are pictured on a white background - one is white, the other black but the section where they overlap is a mid-grey.  

Sacred Gray #6 (Onward travel): Oil on canvas: A dark grey background with a lighter grey icon on top - a version of the motorway symbol but the two lines come in from different points and join together as they cross the bridge (which appears vertically) and carry on together, side by side, on the other side of the bridge - although not in a straight line.

Outside, on the approach to the building is a paved courtyard but beyond the whole building, accessible by going through it, is a garden with paths leading to places to sit and talk or reflect, as well as flowers and trees from the surrounding areas, with the aim of having blooms and colour all year round as far as is possible.  

As you enter the garden, a plaque reads: 

“Gardens are a “common paradise”. They are there to be shared, to gather in, to converse in, to share ideas and to have a dialogue with those past and present. They are sites to feel inspired by, places of possibility, and, ultimately, to see the beauty of the world anew.” 

Katy Hessel (2024) quoting Olivia Laing (2024).

At the far end of the gardens is a gift shop and exit

The building is to be set up wherever there is a need for different peoples to sit somewhere neutral, or liminal, and talk things over until they can find a way forward by combining their colours into a new one.  Or by taking all that is black or white and making it grey.

Bibliography and Influences

Online resources

Forman, Lisa (2023) Dalí or not Dalí? The uncanny eye of Hiroshi Sugimoto – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2023/oct/24/dali-or-not-dali-the-uncanny-eye-of-hiroshi-sugimoto-in-pictures?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other (Accessed: 24th October 2023).

Hessel, Katy (2024) The great women's art bulletin: Thrill me, hide me, restore me: what can we learn about artists from their gardens? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/may/13/artists-gardens-niki-de-st-phalle-barbara-hepworth-st-ives (Accessed: 14th May 2024). 

Oltermann, Philip (2024)  The heavy hand of God: Europe’s brutalist churches – in pictures. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2024/mar/07/the-heavy-hand-of-god-europes-brutalist-churches-in-pictures (Accessed: 7th March 2024).

Rose, Steve (2023) ‘I buckled when I saw her remains’ – the biopic about ‘Europe’s first female suicide bomber’. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jan/25/europes-first-female-suicide-bomber-hasna-ait-boulahcen-paris-attacks-dina-amer (Accessed: 26th January 2023).

Sinek, Simon (2021) The Art of Listening Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpnNsSyDw-g (Accessed: 19th November 2025).

Books

Kuang, Rebecca F. (2022) Babel, or the Necessity of Violence. HarperVoyager, London.

Laing, Olivia (2024) The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise. Picador, London.

Artworks

af Klint, Hilma (1915) The Swan, No. 17. [Oil on canvas].  Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden.  See: https://www.wikiart.org/en/hilma-af-klint/the-swan-no-17-1915-0 

Af Klint, Hilma and Unknown (2023) Model of The Temple, based on Hilma af Klint’s notebook drawings [Maquette]. See: https://www.tate.org.uk/documents/1844/TMEXH_0086_AfKlint_Mondrian_LargePrintGuide_web_aw_.pdf p.177 (Accessed: 3rd March 2026).

Atkinson, James (2023) #178: Work Together (A Socialist Tapestry). Available at: https://thehaberdasheryofimaginedart.blogspot.com/2023/06/178-we-should-work-together-socialist.html (Accessed: 5th March 2026).

Mark Rothko’s Colour field paintings.

Sobel, Janet (1945) The Milky Way [Enamel on canvas]. Museum of Modern Art, New York. See: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80636 

Sugimoto, Hiroshi (1997) Bay of Sagami, Atami, 1997 [Gelatin silver print, mounted on card]. Series, various collections.  See: https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/photographs/hiroshi-sugimoto-b-1948-168/253994

Architecture and Places

Gibberd, Frederick (1958-68) Fulwell Cross Library. Fulwell Cross, UK, TQ 44535 90315. See: https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1391938?section=official-list-entry 

Gibberd, Frederick (1958-68) Fulwell Cross Leisure Centre. Fulwell Cross, UK. See: https://visionrcl.org.uk/leisure/fulwell-cross-leisure-centre/

Lasdun, Denys and Softley, Peter (1976-77) National Theatre. South Bank, London, UK, 51°30′26″N 0°06′51″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_National_Theatre 

Pope, John Russell and Smith, Sidney RJ (1897) Tate Britain.  Millbank, London, UK, 51°29′27″N 0°07′38″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_Britain 

Rothko, Mark; Johnson, Philip, et al. [Renovation (2020) by Architecture Research Office] (1971) Rothko Chapel. Houston, Texas, USA, 29°44′15″N 95°23′46″W. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel 

Sheppard Robson & Partners (1970) University Building, City St George’s, University of London.  Clerkenwell, London, UK, 51.5278°N 0.1023°W.  See: https://manchesterhistory.net/architecture/1960/cityuniversity.html 

Tsambika Beach, Rhodes, Greece.

#338: Amlodipine*

A calm stream flowing through a meadow.  

* alongside a change in diet and increased exercise.

#337: 184 over 110 and 186 over 111

Oil on canvas. A painting of turbulent waters running through channels cut by the water in a rocky terrain.

#336: The Diagnosis

A switch switching on and a lightbulb lighting up.

#335: Dioramas of Good Feelings

A shoebox diorama of a time when you felt really good.  To be kept alongside other such dioramas to be opened when you need that feeling to return.

#334: Guest Artist: Joseph Wright of Derby

“Two men forming a bar of iron in to a horseshoe - from whence the light must proceed… Out of this room, shall be seen another, in which a farrier may be shoeing a horse by the light of a candle. The horse must be saddled and traveller standing by… this will be an indication of an accident having happen’d, & shew some reason for shoeing the horse by candlelight - the Moon may appear and illuminate some part of the horse if necessary.”

From this excerpt from his notes, imagine the painting that Joseph Wright of Derby went on to create.  Then find the painting to see what he did and how it differs from what you imagined.

(Apologies if you already know A Blacksmith’s Shop)