30 St Mary Axe nearly oblivious to the tower's existence until directly underneath it. The building was constructed by Skanska, completed in December 2003 and opened on 28 April 2004. The primary occupant of the building is Swiss Re, a global reinsurance company, which had the building commissioned as the head office for its UK operation. The tower is thus sometimes known as the Swiss Re Building, although this name has never been official and has more recently fallen out of favour, since the company's main headquarters is in Zurich and the Gherkin name has become more popular. The building uses energy-saving methods which
30 St Mary Axe the remaining structures on the Baltic Exchange site were then carefully dismantled, and the interior of Exchange Hall and the façade were preserved, hoping for a reconstruction of the building in the future. The salvaged material was eventually sold for £800,000 and moved to Tallinn, Estonia, where it awaits reconstruction as the centrepiece of the city's commercial sector. In 1996, Trafalgar House submitted plans for the Millennium Tower, a building with more than of office space, apartments, shops, restaurants and gardens. This plan was dropped after objections that it was totally out-of-scale in the City of London, and anticipated disruption