I realized, on reaching the tube station on my way home yesterday, that the famous London Gherkin was only a short distance away. Never having been so close, I decided to go have a look at it. I liked it! It’s a delightful bit of architectural exuberance and beautifully, impressively made. It looks as if it would be a nice place to work, with lots of daylight and wonderful views. The ground floor has a bar, named Sterling, running around about half of its circumference. The rest of the building is closed, alas, with airport style security, except to those who work there.
There are innumerable blog posts about the building; here’s one. Not surprisingly for such an iconic landmark it’s featured in Googlesightseeing.com (here), it has a website and it features in at least one webcam view of the City of London. I’ve yet to see a photo of the building that captures the essence of it. It can be seen at different levels. As a now familiar part of the skyline, the streetscape, or even something odd among the trees. It’s more rocketship than building. And sometimes it looks hilariously out of place, or, at the least, unexpected. But as the sun goes down… electric light blends old and new in harmony. I like this one. I’ll update with a photo of my own later.
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Thanks very much for linking to my article on The Gherkin. I see that you found the building from the tube station, much as I did.
That picture you found from the South Bank is wonderful.
Here is a marvellous panorama from Tower Bridge which I think says many of the same things about The Gherkin, and perhaps even more about London itself.
I should have said your post on the Gherkin was the best available, or at least that I could find! I chose it carefully as I did the photos I linked to! Thanks for the panorama and for the blogroll link (can you change it to Wombat Diet? Sorry, I didn’t notice it was all lower case in the About section above; fixed now). Am gradually finding my feet with WordPress.
Gosh, a link to one of my photos! (among the trees).
[...] view of the Gherkin is obscured by another building but this one should be an unmissable addition to the London [...]