The Shard: A Climber Just Scaled the Tallest Building in Western Europe

Most people who want to get to the top of the Shard, Western Europe’s tallest building, would use the elevator. But this isn’t the case for Adam Lockwood, who, on September 4, supposedly free-climbed barefoot to the top of the Renzo Piano–designed London building.

A couple staying in a hotel on the 40th floor were startled when they woke up to find Lockwood ascending along the glass facade. Others in the city caught the stunt from the ground, filming the heart-stopping climb and sharing it on social media. The BBC reported soon after that a man had been arrested on suspicion of trespassing, linking the case to Lockwood after he shared a photo on Instagram from the top of the skyscraper. The 21-year-old seemingly confirmed the reports in a YouTube video yesterday, saying, “I’m more than likely going to prison tomorrow.”

At 72 stories and 1,016 feet, the Shard is the tallest building in Western Europe and the United Kingdom, and it’s the seventh-tallest building in Europe. Piano was inspired by nearby railroad tracks, ship masts, and English spires when designing the building that appears to emerge from the River Thames. One of AD’s most beautiful skyscrapers in the world, the cone-like structure isn’t only admired by architecture lovers. 

“I’d never seen anything like it. It looked like something had been placed in the present from the future,” George King, who free-climbed the building in 2019, said in a mini documentary by Channel 4.  In the documentary, King explained that most of the building has poles along the corners of the glass facade, making it scalable with the right training. In videos posted on social media, it appears that Lockwood followed a similar methodology.