The CTBUH has revealed that The Shard at London Bridge will be the venue for the networking reception during the London 2013 conference, Height and Heritage: The Unique Challenges of Building Tall in Historic Cities. The 306m tower is scheduled to open only a few weeks before the conference in June 2013.

Irvine Sellar, chairman of Sellar Property Group, the developer of The Shard, has also agreed to speak during the conference. “This will be a wonderful opportunity to experience this landmark building from the inside,” said Conference Co-Chair and CTBUH Trustee Steve Watts of Davis Langdon, an AECOM Company based in London, “and there are few better placed than Mr. Sellar to talk about the various challenges of creating an iconic tower in London.”

The confirmed list of speakers for ‘Height and Heritage’ so far reads as follows:

Paul Burgess, British Land
Phillipe Chaix, EPADESA/Paris La Défense
Richard Coleman, Citydesigner
Harry Handelsman, Manhattan Loft Company
Louisa Hutton, Sauerbruch Hutton
Christoph Ingenhoven, ingenhoven architects
Helmut Jahn, Jahn Architects
Bashar Kayali, Al Ghurair Construction
Peter Murray, New London Architecture Center
Ray O'Rourke, Laing O'Rourke
Lee Polisano, PLP Architecture
Peter Wynne Rees, City of London
Irvine Sellar, Sellar Property Group
Matthias Sauerbruch, Sauerbruch Hutton
Ken Shuttleworth, Make
Ian Simpson, Ian Simpson Architects
Werner Sobek, Werner Sobek Group
Rafael Viñoly, Rafael Viñoly Architecture
Chris Wilkinson, Wilkinson Eyre Architects