Wide-Angle view of the base of 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin),
30 St Mary Axe (widely known informally as The Gherkin and previously as the Swiss Re Building) is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 storeys, it is 180 metres (591 ft) tall and stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange, which was extensively damaged in 1992 by the explosion of a bomb placed by the Provisional IRA in St Mary Axe, the street from which the tower takes its name. After plans to build the 92-storey Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Norman Foster and Arup Group and it was erected by Skanska, with construction commencing in 2001. The building has become an iconic symbol of London and is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of contemporary architecture. The building stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange, the headquarters of a global marketplace for ship sales and shipping information. On 10 April 1992 the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb close to the Exchange, causing extensive damage to the historic building and neighbouring structures. The United Kingdom government's statutory adviser on the historic environment, English Heritage, and the City of London's governing body, the City of London Corporation, were keen that any redevelopment must restore the building's old façade onto St Mary Axe. The Exchange Hall was a celebrated fixture of the ship trading company.[ After English Heritage later discovered the damage was far more severe than initially thought, they stopped insisting on full restoration, albeit over the objections of the architectural conservationists who favoured reconstruction. The Baltic Exchange sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995. Most of the remaining structures on the site were then carefully dismantled, the interior of Exchange Hall and the façade were preserved, hoping for a reconstruction of the building in the future.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: 30 St Mary Axe, City of London, London,
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 30, architect, architecture, arup, axe, base, building, business, city, contemporary, diamond, foster, gherkin, glass, group, iconic, london, mary, norman, offices, shape, skanska, skyscraper, st, steel, swiss, triangles, wide-angle
