30 St Mary Axe to flight paths for both London City and London Heathrow airports; the revised plan for a lower tower was accepted. The tower's topmost panoramic dome, known as the "lens", recalls the iconic glass dome that covered part of the ground floor of the Baltic Exchange and much of which is now displayed at the National Maritime Museum. "The Gherkin" nickname was applied to the current building at least as long ago as 1999, referring to that plan's highly unorthodox layout and appearance. On 23 August 2000, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott granted planning permission to construct a building much larger
30 St Mary Axe glass panels on the building. The cost of repair was covered by main contractor Skanska and curtain-wall supplier Schmidlin (now called Schmidlin-TSK AG). Since its completion, the building has won a number of awards for architecture. In October 2004, the architect was awarded the 2004 RIBA Stirling Prize. For the first time in the prize's history, the judges were unanimous. In December 2005, a survey of the world's largest firms of architects published in "2006 BD World Architecture 200" voted the tower as the most admired new building in the world. However, Ken Shuttleworth, who worked for Foster and Partners