30 St Mary Axe (formerly the Swiss Re Building, and informally also known as "the Gherkin") is a skyscraper in London's financial district, the City of London, completed in December 2003 and opened at the end of May 2004. With 41 floors, the tower is 180 metres (591 ft) tall, and stands on the site of the former Baltic Exchange, which was extensively damaged in 1992 by the explosion of a bomb placed by the Provisional IRA.
After the plans to build the Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Norman Foster and Arup engineers, and was erected by Skanska in 2001–2003.
The building has become an iconic symbol of London and is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of modern architecture.
Read more about 30 St Mary Axe: History, Planning Process, Design and Construction, After Completion, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the word axe:
“He will not idly dance at his work who has wood to cut and cord before nightfall in the short days of winter; but every stroke will be husbanded, and ring soberly through the wood; and so will the strokes of that scholar’s pen, which at evening record the story of the day, ring soberly, yet cheerily, on the ear of the reader, long after the echoes of his axe have died away.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)