THE GHERKIN

30 St Mary Axe is popularly known as The Gherkin .

For many years Peter Rees worked in the Department of the Environment's Historic Areas Conservation Division. His achievements there included the creation of the single, pale, yellow line in heritage districts as an alternative to the painting of double yellow lines. In 1985 he was appointed to be the City of London's Controller of Planning.

In 1992 the I.R.A. placed a bomb in St Mary Axe that killed three people and severely damaged the Baltic Exchange building, an important centre for the global shipping trade that had a Grade II* listing. Both Mr Rees and English Heritage were insistent that the Exchange should be restored to its previous condition. The market's members were of the view that this would be too expensive and sold the site to Trafalgar House, a conglomerate that had a property development business. In 1995 the company submitted a design for a modern building that incorporated a restored version of the Exchange's trading floor. The City authorities approved the scheme. However, no prospective tenants were prepared to commit themselves to renting space in the proposed office block. All the time, the remains of the old Exchange hall that had survived the blast were physically deteriorating.

In spring 1996 English Heritage and Rees gave up the plan of retaining something of the old Exchange building. They agreed that it could be demolished subject to its being replaced by a contemporary scheme of real quality...by an architect of international repute . The developers then availed themselves of a provision in the City planning regulations that allowed for the construction of tall buildings if they were located a mile or so away from St Paul's Cathedral¹ - the St Mary Axe site lay in this strip of land. In autumn 1996 Norman Foster unveiled a plan for a 385m-tall, 92-storey Millennium Tower glass finger that would have been topped by rabbit's ear-like wings. The design was too extreme for Rees. However, the Corporation felt that they were under pressure to preserve the City's position in the financial world. The development of Canary Wharf in east London and the ambitions of Frankfurt in Germany, where Foster had designed the Commerzbank Tower, were providing alternative locations for financial businesses that had large workforces.

In summer 1996 Swiss Re had bought M&G Re, a reinsurance business that operated from six separate buildings across the City. The former wanted to draw all of the latter s operations together upon a single site. Canary Wharf provided a means for it to do so. However, the St Mary Axe location had the attraction of being within easy walking distance of the Lloyd's of London Building. In January 1997 Swiss Re agreed to buy the site provided that it came with planning permission for a towerblock. Foster assigned Ken The Pen Shuttleworth to lead a team to produce a new design.

The thinking behind The Pen's design was informed by an awareness of a need to neutralise opposition. He sought to lessen the building's impact upon its immediate environment by opting for a circular shape. This would prevent the structure from funnelling wind at street level. He then sought to conceal some of its height by curving the roof towards its central axis. In essence, he was trying to create an edifice that would not draw attention to itself within its immediate vicinity. Rees liked the work that he saw being done and even began making suggestions of his own; he proposed that the building should be heightened so that it might be able to complement Tower 42 more effectively, while at the same time slimming its own girth. Shuttleworth, to add light and create a sense of height, created light wells by cutting out six segments on each floor. By twisting their appointment it was discovered that external air pressure upon the building could be utilised to bring fresh air into it, thereby cutting down on the need for air conditioning and providing a barber's pole motif for the edifice s exterior. Rather than topping the structure with chimneys and boilers, Shuttleworth exiled these to a neighbouring site and instead designed a glass-domed top that included a bar and a restaurant. The dome was a shape that had been featured in a number of other buildings that the Foster practice had designed.

In summer 2000 the City of London's planning committee sanctioned the design for the 590ft. (180m), 41-storey skyscraper. Its popular name soon emerged as being the Gherkin . Subsequently, the City's Court of Common Council endorsed the committee's approval of the scheme. In autumn 2002 the structure was topped out. It was reported that because of the economic downturn, Swiss Re was only going to occupy half of the building - floors two to eighteen. Originally, the company had planned to use all of it.

In late 2003 Shuttleworth left the Foster practice after Norman Foster had taken exception to an interview that he had given to Building magazine. Subsequently, The Pen founded Make, an employee-owned architectural practice. In autumn 2004 the Gherkin won the Stirling Prize architectural award. Subsequently, it was reported that, in a book about Foster's work, a photograph of practice members, that had been taken in 2002, had been altered so that Shuttleworth was no longer to be seen standing next to his former boss.

There is a story that Swiss Re did not like the way in which the Gherkin moniker had become attached to the building. Therefore, the company sent out a memo to its tenants that asked them not to refer to it by the name in their dealings with outside parties. It is reputed that an employee of one of the occupants sent back a reply that the Gherkin was being used affectionately and that Swiss Re should not get itself into a pickle over the matter.

In 2007 Swiss Re sold the building to a property business.

Together with the other skyscrapers that have grown up around the Gherkin are known as the Eastern Cluster.

Location: 30 St Mary Axe, EC3A 8BF (orange, pink)

Website: www.thegherkinlondon.com www.fosterandpartners.com www.makearchitects.com www.smlightarchitecture.com

¹. This provision had been utilised to enable Tower 42 (the NatWest Tower as many people still call it) to be developed.

David Backhouse 2024