|
The Gherkin
30 St Mary Axe, previously known as the Swiss Re Building, is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. Its nickname, The Gherkin, is due to its resemblance to gherkin, the vegetable. It was completed in December 2003 and opened in April 2004. With 41 floors, it is tall and stands on the sites of the former Baltic Exchange (building), Baltic Exchange and Chamber of Shipping, which were extensively damaged in 1992 in the Baltic Exchange bombing by a device placed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, Provisional IRA in St Mary Axe, a narrow street leading north from Leadenhall Street. After plans to build the 92-storey Millennium Tower (London), Millennium Tower were dropped, 30 St Mary Axe was designed by Foster + Partners and the Arup Group. It was built by Skanska; construction started in 2001. The building has become a recognisable landmark of London, and it is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of contemporary a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Mary Axe
St Mary Axe was a medieval parish in the City of London whose name survives as that of the street which formerly occupied it. The Church of St Mary Axe was demolished in 1561 and its parish united with that of St Andrew Undershaft, which is situated on the corner of St Mary Axe and Leadenhall Street. The site of the former church is now occupied by Fitzwilliam House, a fact acknowledged by a blue plaque on the building's façade. Nearby parishes include the medieval Great St Helen's (1210) and St Ethelburga (14th century). The street name may derive from a combination of the church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and a neighbouring tavern which prominently displayed a sign with an image of an axe, or simply from the church name itself, which may have come from the axes used by the Worshipful Company of Skinners, who were patrons. The sign of an axe is reported to have been present over the east end of the church. The street St Mary Axe is now most notable for the Baltic Exchan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Millennium Tower (London)
The London Millennium Tower was one of several ideas for the site of the former Baltic Exchange at 30 St Mary Axe in the City of London, which had been destroyed beyond repair by a Provisional IRA bomb blast in April 1992. Designed by Foster + Partners, for then owner Trafalgar House, the plan was for the building to be the tallest in Europe and the sixth-tallest in the world at that time, behind the twin Petronas Towers in Malaysia, the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower) in Chicago, and the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Its height was planned at , with 92 floors, which means it would have been 48th-tallest in the world as of 2023, and would be overtaken in Europe by the Federation Tower. A public viewing platform was planned for above ground level. The scheme featured a highly unorthodox floor layout, essentially two asymmetrical ellipses joined at one end. When the plans were first unveiled in 1996, ''The Guardian'' newspaper coined the term " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and administratively lies in the Harju County, Harju ''Counties of Estonia, maakond'' (county). Tallinn is the main governmental, financial, industrial, and cultural centre of Estonia. It is located northwest of the country's second largest city, Tartu, however, only south of Helsinki, Finland; it is also west of Saint Petersburg, Russia, north of Riga, Latvia, and east of Stockholm, Sweden. From the 13th century until the first half of the 20th century, Tallinn was known in most of the world by variants of its other historical Names of Tallinn in different languages, name Reval. “Reval” received Lübeck law, Lübeck city rights in 1248; however, the earliest evidence of human settlement in the area dates back nearly 5,000 years. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trafalgar House (company)
Trafalgar House was a British conglomerate with interests in property investment, property development, engineering, construction, shipping, hotels, energy and publishing. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. During its later years of operation, it was routinely referred to as being the largest contracting organisation in the UK. The entrepreneur Nigel Broackes, who would be the chairman of Trafalgar House throughout much of its existence, played a key role in the company's emergence during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Broackes worked with the ''Eastern International Investment Trust'' and Commercial Union to build a portfolio of assets that would be the initial footings of the company. Shortly after its floatation during 1963, Trafalgar House leveraged the issuing of shares to fuel its acquisition of various other businesses, which included The Cementation Company, John Brown Engineering, Cleveland Bridge, Redpat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
City Of London Corporation
The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the local authority of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United Kingdom's financial sector. In 2006, the name was changed from Corporation of London to distinguish the body governing the City of London from the Greater London Authority, the regional government of the larger Greater London administrative area. It is a corporation in the sense of being a municipal corporation rather than a company; it is deemed to be the citizens and other eligible parties acting as one corporate body to manage the City's affairs. The corporation is based at the Guildhall. Both businesses and residents of the City, or "Square Mile", are entitled to vote in corporation elections. In addition to its functions as the local authority (analogous to those undertaken by the 32 boroughs that administer the rest of Greater London) the Cit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Heritage
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Listed building, listed ruins, and architecturally notable English country houses. The charity states that it uses these properties to "bring the story of England to life for over 10 million people each year". Within its portfolio are Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Tintagel Castle, and the "best-preserved" parts of Hadrian's Wall. English Heritage also manages the London blue plaque scheme, which links influential historical figures to particular buildings. When originally formed in 1983, English Heritage was the operating name of an executive non-departmental public body of the Her Majesty's Government, British Government, officially titled the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England, that ran the national system of heritage prot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Nicknames For London Skyscrapers
Londoners have a habit of nicknaming new buildings based upon their shape. In 2003, the then Prince Charles said "it looks as though London seems to be turning into an absurdist picnic table—we already have a giant gherkin, now it looks as if we are going to have an enormous salt cellar." Nicknames for London buildings The Gherkin Officially 30 St Mary Axe and previously known as the Swiss Re Building, The Gherkin is a commercial skyscraper in London's primary financial district, the City of London. The Pickled cucumber#Gherkin, Gherkin nickname was applied to the current building at least as early as 1999, referring to the plan's layout and appearance. The Walkie-Talkie 20 Fenchurch Street is a commercial skyscraper. It has been nicknamed The Walkie-Talkie because of its distinctive shape, said to resemble a walkie-talkie handset. The Scalpel Located at 52 Lime Street, London, Lime Street, The Scalpel was originally a nickname but subsequently designated as its official na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pickled Cucumber
A pickled cucumber – commonly known as a pickle in the United States, Canada and Australia and a gherkin ( ) in Britain, Ireland, South Africa, and New Zealand – is a usually small or miniature cucumber that has been Pickling, pickled in a Brine (food), brine, vinegar, or other solution and left to ferment. The fermentation process is executed either by immersing the cucumbers in an acidic solution or through souring by lacto-fermentation. Pickled cucumbers are often part of mixed pickles. Historical origins It is often claimed that pickled cucumbers were first developed for workers building the Great Wall of China, though another hypothesis is that they were first made as early as 2030 BC in the Tigris Valley of Mesopotamia, using cucumbers brought originally from India. According to the New York Food Museum, archaeologists believe ancient Mesopotamians pickled food as far back as 2400 B.C. while, centuries later, cucumbers native to India were being pickled in the Tig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, it has no general admission charge; there are admission charges for most side-gallery temporary exhibitions, usually supplemented by many loaned works from other museums. Creation and official opening The museum was created by the National Maritime Museum Act 1934 under a Board of Trustees, appointed by HM Treasury. It is based on the generous donations of Sir James Caird (1864–1954). King George VI formally opened the museum on 27 April 1937 when his daughter Princess Elizabeth accompanied him for the journey along the Thames from London. The first director was Sir Geoffrey Callender. Collection Since the earliest times Greenwich has had associations with the sea and navigation. It was a landing place for the Romans, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltic Exchange Memorial Glass
The Baltic Exchange Memorial Glass comprises several stained glass windows designed by English artist John Dudley Forsyth which were installed over a staircase at the Baltic Exchange in London in 1922, as a memorial to the members of the exchange who were killed while serving during the First World War. The memorial glass was damaged in an IRA bombing in 1992. With funding from Swiss Re, the memorial glass was restored by glass conservators Goddard & Gibbs, and has been displayed at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich since 2005. Description The memorial forms a hemispherical half-dome about high, with 240 panels divided into five sectors, with five rectangular windows of painted coloured glass, each of which features a personification of one of the virtues – Truth, Hope, Justice, Fortitude and Faith. The dome is replete with classical and religious symbolism, featuring a winged figure of Victory stepping from a boat into a classical temple, accompanied by Roman soldie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
