During the talk I will present a recent construction of observables for General Relativity invariant under spatial diffeomorphisms. The construction involves introducing a local structure representing the "observer" (based on arXiv:1403.8062). I will also present how those observables can be used to reduce the phase space of canonical General Relativity (based on arXiv:1506.09164).

If time permits, I will argue that the construction is particularly useful in spherically symmetric situations. This realization lead to a proposal of a scheme of reducing Loop Quantum Gravity to its spherically symmetric sector, which completes the standard, midisuperspace approach (based on arXiv:1410.5609).