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30 St Mary Axe (known previously as the Swiss Re Building), informally known as The Gherkin, 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 floors, it is 180 metres (591 ft) tall and stands on the former sites of the Baltic Exchange and Chamber of Shipping, which were extensively damaged in 1992 in the Baltic Exchange bombing by a device placed by the Provisional IRA in St Mary Axe, a narrow street leading north from Leadenhall Street.
After plans to build the 92-storey Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Norman Foster and Arup Group. It was erected by Skanska; construction started in 2001.The building has become a recognisable landmark of London, and it is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of contemporary architecture.
The building stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange (24-28 St Mary Axe), which was the headquarters of a global marketplace for shipping freight contracts and also soft commodities, and the Chamber of Shipping (30-32 St Mary Axe). 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 Baltic Exchange's old façade onto St Mary Axe. The Exchange Hall was a celebrated fixture of the shipping market.
English Heritage then discovered that the damage was far more severe than initially thought, and they stopped insisting on full restoration, albeit over the objections of architectural conservationists. The Baltic Exchange and the Chamber of Shipping sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995. Most of the remaining structures on the Baltic Exchange site were then carefully dismantled, and the interior of Exchange Hall and the façade were preserved, hoping for a reconstruction of the building in the future.[16] The salvaged material was eventually sold for £800,000 and moved to Tallinn, Estonia, where it awaits reconstruction as the centrepiece of the city's commercial sector.
In 1996, Trafalgar House submitted plans for the London Millennium Tower, a 386-metre (1,266 ft) building with more than 140,000 m2 (1,500,000 sq ft) of office space, apartments, shops, restaurants and gardens. This plan was dropped after objections that it was totally out-of-scale in the City of London, and anticipated disruption to flight paths for both London City and London Heathrow airports; the revised plan for a lower tower was accepted.
The tower's topmost panoramic dome, known as the "lens", recalls the iconic glass dome that covered part of the ground floor of the Baltic Exchange and much of which is now displayed at the National Maritime Museum.
The Gherkin nickname was applied to the current building at least as long ago as 1999, referring to that plan's highly unorthodox layout and appearance. I hope you liked this post the first time i saw this building was when i went to work with my dad in London i saw it and thought one day i could own that building if i really wanted to so im dedicating this post to my dad mr David White
The Gherkin
After plans to build the 92-storey Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Norman Foster and Arup Group. It was erected by Skanska; construction started in 2001.The building has become a recognisable landmark of London, and it is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of contemporary architecture.
The building stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange (24-28 St Mary Axe), which was the headquarters of a global marketplace for shipping freight contracts and also soft commodities, and the Chamber of Shipping (30-32 St Mary Axe). 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 Baltic Exchange's old façade onto St Mary Axe. The Exchange Hall was a celebrated fixture of the shipping market.
English Heritage then discovered that the damage was far more severe than initially thought, and they stopped insisting on full restoration, albeit over the objections of architectural conservationists. The Baltic Exchange and the Chamber of Shipping sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995. Most of the remaining structures on the Baltic Exchange site were then carefully dismantled, and the interior of Exchange Hall and the façade were preserved, hoping for a reconstruction of the building in the future.[16] The salvaged material was eventually sold for £800,000 and moved to Tallinn, Estonia, where it awaits reconstruction as the centrepiece of the city's commercial sector.
In 1996, Trafalgar House submitted plans for the London Millennium Tower, a 386-metre (1,266 ft) building with more than 140,000 m2 (1,500,000 sq ft) of office space, apartments, shops, restaurants and gardens. This plan was dropped after objections that it was totally out-of-scale in the City of London, and anticipated disruption to flight paths for both London City and London Heathrow airports; the revised plan for a lower tower was accepted.
The tower's topmost panoramic dome, known as the "lens", recalls the iconic glass dome that covered part of the ground floor of the Baltic Exchange and much of which is now displayed at the National Maritime Museum.
The Gherkin nickname was applied to the current building at least as long ago as 1999, referring to that plan's highly unorthodox layout and appearance. I hope you liked this post the first time i saw this building was when i went to work with my dad in London i saw it and thought one day i could own that building if i really wanted to so im dedicating this post to my dad mr David White
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