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art : features What exactly is that gherkin thing? At londonlostandfound, we know loads about architecture as well as art, so we thought we'd enlighten you about the gherkin that has appeared above the city. 30 St Mary Axe, to give the building its proper name, is a new building designed by one of Britain's most famous and well respected architects, Sir Norman Foster. It is a 40 storey building, built to house 4,000 workers and paid for by the Swiss insurance company Swiss Re, who will occupy floors 2-15, with the other floors currently still available to banking or finance companies. The top floors will not be open to the public but will be used for corporate hospitality, so if you want to see London from there then start working your way up the finance career ladder now! Building magazine has called it "the greatest addition to London's skyline in decades" and I think most people do like it, as an organic alternative to the surrounding harsh minimalist buildings. Foster himself was born in 1935 in Manchester and studied at Yale, setting up Foster Associates in 1967. Other famous works of his include the amazing steel and glass HSBC headquarters in Hong Kong and, in London, the new roof of the British Museum and Ken's GLA offices next to London Bridge. This brilliant leaning office block is designed to minimise heat loss by each floor shading the one below, but maximise light by its use of glass. The new millennium bridge between Tate Modern and St Paul's was Fosters too, but I think that with the Gherkin he has finally created his London masterpiece. TD |
Interview: Tate's
Head of Collections
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