Swiss Re United Kingdom. In Asia, the group has offices in the following countries: Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea. There are also offices in the Americas: Barbados, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and the United States. Swiss Re is headquartered in Zurich where the parent company’s main premises has stood on the shores of Lake Zurich since 1864. Its London office is located in the award-winning 30 St Mary Axe tower, which opened on 25 May 2004. 30 St Mary Axe is London's first environmentally sustainable tall building. Among the building's most distinctive features are its windows, which open
30 St Mary Axe than the old Exchange on the site. The site was special because it needed development, it was not on any of the "sight lines" (planning guidance requires that new buildings do not obstruct or detract from the view of St Paul's dome when viewed from a number of locations around London), and it had housed the Baltic Exchange. The plan for the site was to reconstruct the Baltic Exchange. GMW Architects proposed a new rectangular building surrounding a restored exchange: it would have the type of large floor plan that banks liked. Eventually, the planners realised that the exchange was