The Gherkin is the affectionate name for the commercial skyscraper in the City of London at '30 St Mary Axe'. It was also sometimes referred to as as the 'Swiss Re Building', a reinsurance company that used the building as its head office in the UK.
The building is 180 metres (591 ft) tall and has 41 floors and has become one of the most recognisable examples of contemporary architecture in London. Built by Skanska on the former site of the Baltic Exchange, the building was completed in 2003 with its opening in the following year. Prior to the approval of the Gherkin design a 92 floor skyscraper called the 'Millennium Tower' had been planned for the site, which would have been the tallest building in Europe at the time.
The top two floors of the Gherkin can be hired for events. The building was sold in 2007 for £630 million, making it Britain's most expensive office building at the time.
30 St Mary Axe was designed by architects Norman Foster and the Arup Group. The tower's elongated curved shaft with a rounded end brings to mind the shape of a stretched egg. The building is clad with glass panels uniformly to the exterior with rounded corners with a lens-like dome at the top forming an 'observation deck'. The triangulated perimeter structure gives the building rigidity without needing extra reinforcements.
The tower is extremely energy efficient with shafts creating ventilation and double glazing conserving warmth.
The Gherkin has 40 floors but the main lift only goes to the 34th floor due to the fact that there was no roof room to house the lift's mechanism. There is a separate push-from-below lift which takes visitors to the 39th floor. There is a marble stairwell and a disabled persons' lift, which takes visitors up to a bar in the dome.
The building has won a number of architectural awards.
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