Sir Norman Foster’s office tower for reinsurance company Swiss Re, better known as the erotic gherkin, has been given the go-ahead by the Corporation of London's Court of Common Council.

The 180m high tower, to be built by Kvaerner on the site of the bomb-damaged Baltic Exchange, will be the first tall structure erected in the City since the development of the NatWest Tower (now Tower 42) in the 1970s.

The decision to back the planning committee's approval of the scheme is expected to trigger a wave of high-rise construction throughout the capital. London has long resisted skyscrapers because of their impact on views of the city's many historic buildings and because of the poor design quality of some of the existing tall structures.


Until recently, major occupiers have had to look to areas such as Docklands to meet high-rise office space. Now a growing number of leading architects are working on tall buildings. Within the next five years, the London skyline could be dramatically changed by a cluster of striking skyscrapers from the likes of Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, Renzo Piano (see i-FM news story 19th July), Nicholas Grimshaw and the London Eye designers David Marks and Julia Barfield.

Anna Lagerkvist