I always believed that London's skyline was inexistent, at least through my American imagination. the word Skyline creates in my mind the image of a downtown hub rising in the distance as you drive along a highway into a city. I laughed at the British conservationist idea that would opposed any high rise building in central London because it would spoil the views to St. Paul's.

Then the Swiss-re tower came up. Popularly known as the Erotic Gherkin and much less know by its proper name 30 St Mary's axe. This is a building designed by Foster and Partners. I actually don't like this building when I see it from a close range; you can read my first critical impressions which I wrote on 0lll's photos of architecture Website a while ago. I find the form of the building simplistic and incomparable to the vitality, life, and perhaps even excitingly decadent hi-fi look of its most famous neighbour Richard Rogers' Lloyds Building.

However I find something truly amazing about this building and it is that all of the sudden London has a skyline. This building is London's real icon, a structure that becomes from every point of view and from any distance the reference for everything else around it and it does so in a sympathetic way with the rest of the context. It is simply different, it is taller and its new, and it certainly doesn't ruin the views to St Paul's.
By now you must think that I contradict myself, as the main reason for the success of the tower in relation to the skyline could be attributed to its form or rather its silhouette, but that's the way it is for me, and the result is that now I am doing this website where I will be looking at other buildings, landmarks ones or less evident cases, that also contribute to the stealth and complex skyline of this flat city, London.