30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin)

30 세인트 메리 액스 (거킨)

Foster + Partners' 41-storey office tower in the City of London: a bullet-shaped steel diagrid clad in diamond-shaped glass, with dark bands of glass spiralling up around its light wells.

See it on the 3D globe →

At a glance

Country: United Kingdom
Location: London, UK
Built: 2003
Height: 180 m
Type: Skyscraper

Quick answers

Where is 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin)?

30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) is in London, UK, United Kingdom.

When was 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) built?

30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) was built in 2003.

How tall is 30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin)?

30 St Mary Axe (The Gherkin) is about 180 m tall.

30 St Mary Axe, nicknamed the Gherkin, is a 41-storey office tower in the City of London, the capital's main financial district. It is 180 metres tall and was designed by Foster + Partners with the engineers Arup. Building began in 2001, the tower was finished in December 2003, and it opened on 28 April 2004. It is also called the Swiss Re Building after its first main tenant, although that name was never official.

It is shaped like a bullet, or like a gherkin, the small pickled cucumber that gave it a nickname. Its glass skin has 744 panels, and it has become one of the best-known pieces of modern architecture in London. It won the Stirling Prize for architecture in 2004 and the Emporis Skyscraper Award in 2003.

A strong shell and a clever shape

The outside is a net of triangles made from steel, called a diagrid. This holds the tower up without extra supports in the middle. Gaps in each floor create six shafts that act as natural ventilation for the whole building.

The shafts work like a giant double-glazed window, with air sandwiched between two layers of glass. They pull warm air out in summer and help warm the building in winter, and they let sunlight reach deep inside. The building uses only about half the power of a typical tower of its size.

Only one curved glass

Even though the building looks round, only one piece of glass is curved: the lens-shaped cap at the very top. Every other panel is flat. Dark glass bands spiral up around the tower along the ventilation shafts.

What stood here before

The tower stands on the site of the Baltic Exchange, a famous market for shipping contracts. In April 1992 an IRA bomb badly damaged it. A very tall plan called the Millennium Tower, 386 metres high, was dropped as out of scale for the City, and a lower tower was accepted instead.

The dome at the top, called the Lens, recalls the glass dome of the old Exchange. Much of that old glass is now displayed at the National Maritime Museum.

Fun facts

The only curved piece of glass on it is the lens at the very top.
Only one of its 744 glass panels is curved.
It won the Stirling Prize in 2004.
The nickname was in use at least as early as 1999, years before the tower was finished.
It uses only about half the power of a typical tower of its size.