ABSTRACT
City pride The planning department of the City of London is particularly proud of two recent offi ce buildings. Each — in entirely disparate ways — epitomises their aspirations for City architecture. The most obvious of this pair is Foster’s Swiss Re building at 33 St. Mary Axe – what is colloquially known as the ‘Erotic Gherkin’. Its merits are obvious, but it remains fi rmly within a typology of tower designs using a simple piazza:tower equation, much like the ageing Commercial Union building that sits opposite and represents what was, until the Foster building was completed, the best example of this type in the UK.
