30 St Mary Axe "GHERKIN"

Архитектурные особенности Башни Мэри-Экс, 30 или Сент-Мэри Экс 30 — 40-этажный небоскрёб в Лондоне, конструкция которого выполнена в виде сетчатой оболочки с центральным опорным основанием. ...

The building has become an iconic symbol of London and is one of the city's most widely recognised examples of modern architecture.
The building stands on the former site of the Baltic Exchange, the headquarters of a global marketplace for ship sales and shipping information. On 10 April 1992 the Provisional IRA detonated a bomb close to the Exchange, causing extensive damage to the historic building and neighbouring structures.
The United Kingdom government's statutory adviser on the historic environment, English Heritage, and the City of London governing body, the City of London Corporation, were keen that any redevelopment must restore the building's old façade onto St. Mary Axe. The Exchange Hall was a celebrated fixture of the ship trading company.
After English Heritage later discovered the damage was far more severe than previously thought, they stopped insisting on full restoration, albeit over the objections of the architectural conservationists who favoured reconstruction. Baltic Exchange sold the land to Trafalgar House in 1995. Most of the remaining structures on the site were then carefully dismantled, the interior of Exchange Hall and the façade were preserved, hoping for a reconstruction of the building in the future. The architectural salvage, its eventual sale for £800,000 and move to Tallinn awaiting reconstruction as the centrepiece of the city's commercial sector can be seen in the Baltic Exchange listing.
In 1996 Trafalgar House submitted plans for the Millennium Tower, a 386 metres (1,266 ft) building with more than 140,000 m2 (1,500,000 sq ft) office space, apartments, shops, restaurants and gardens. This plan was dropped after objections for being totally out-of-scale with the City of London and anticipated disruption to flight paths for both City and Heathrow airports; the revised plan for a lower tower was accepted.
The tower's topmost panoramic dome, known as the "lens", recalls the iconic glass dome that covered part of the ground floor of the Baltic Exchange.
The gherkin name was applied to the current building at least as far back as 1999, referring to that plan's highly unorthodox layout and appearance.

St Mary Axe is an insignificant street named after a vanished church that is said to have contained an axe used by Attila the Hun to behead English virgins. It is now known for Lord Foster's 30 St Mary Axe, arguably London's finest contemporary building. The building is known as 'the Gherkin' (and, occasionally, more suggestive nicknames) for reasons that are obvious. On curved stone benches either side of 30 St Mary Axe are inscribed the 20 lines of Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay's 'Arcadian Dream Garden', a curious counterpart to Lord Foster's popular tower. The building is closed to the public apart from very occasionally during events such as Open House London when it is, understandably, a red-hot ticket.