The Gherkin (London)
The Gherkin is the affectionate nickname for a tower office block in the City of London.
Its official name is the 30 St. Mary Axe Tower, but it is better known as the Swiss Re Tower, after the insurance company which commissioned it, and of course even better known as the Gherkin.
Built in shades of black and grey glass to the design of Norman Foster, it won the RIBA Stirling award for Building of the Year in 2004.
The gherkin, given this name because of its shape, has become a well loved, but hardly traditional, feature of the London skyline.
It stands in St. Mary Axe, on the site of the Baltic Exchange, which was badly damaged by an IRA bomb in 1992.