Graham is the person who put the idea in our minds in the first place, who managed to walked around the city by himself and was trying to enlight us with the knowledge where he claimed from a guide book. While we walk into the inner court of Metropolitan Building he is explaining: “The architecht of this building is also the architecht of 'the Gherkin' in London. Norman Foster.” He also knows that we know 'the Gherkin' nicknamed building very well as we are quite familiar to London.
Before long, we are sitting on one of the benchs in the public inner court of the building. From a bird's eye, this building looks like a triangle with a perfect circle inside and we are looking at this circular inner court from inside and making comments about it. After couple words, Kasia suggests the theory: “Do you think 'the Gherkin' would fit in this court?”
This suggestion started the brain storm! The original name of 'the Gherkin' nicknamed building is 'Swiss Re HQ'. The headquarter of the famous insurance company Swiss Re. For the building's physical appearance associates with somewhat sexual objects, I'd made some certain comments about it long before we met Metropolitan Building. While we sit in the inner court of Metropolitan Building and look around, a question is starting to disturb us: “What if Metropolitan Building also has a connection to a sexual object?”
Two “world-famous” buildings. Swiss Re HQ from London and Metropolitan Building from Warsaw. The connection between them is obvious as their architecht is the same. Which sexual objects the buildings associate is also obvious for the buildings' physical appearances are highly distinctive. We are still sitting in the court discussing wheter this two buildings would “fit” each other or not, perhaps the architecht hid a secret message in the architecture of these buildings and even if he did such thing, what an excellent job he did doing this in front of entire world but not letting anyone anticipating what was actually going on. We were also documenting this via recording a video and at that moment something sitting in the middle of the inner court attracted our attention. Circular, flat, integrated to the ground and it has holes. This time it's Kasia's turn to enlight us as she is a local in Warsaw: “It's a fountain, a sprinkler.” So, we found out that the object in the middle of the court was a sprinkler which performs special shows time to time. In this case Metropolitan Building is a triangle from a bird's eye, there is a circular hole in it's centre and water gushs out from this hole! NO WAY!
In our minds everything is in the right place. Norman Foster has an obvious message to tell via these two buildings but we need proof. We need to compare the dimensions of the buildings.
Our holiday came to an end and we went back to England on November 15th. Graham did his homework and he posted this message on his facebook on November 18th:
"Graham Archbold can confirm that theoretically you could stand the Swiss Re building (Gherkin) inside Warsaw's Biurowiec Metropolitan as the base diameters are 49m and 50m respectively. However, the Gherkin is 56.5m at its widest point so you couldn't insert it in the sense proposed by our Turkish friend. Or at least it would be an un...comfortable fit. Only Norman Foster knows why."
If you would like to check the details, here they are:
The Gherkin, London: Base diameter of the building is 49.3 m but it gets 56.5 m at 17th floor where the widest point is. The building is 180 m long.
Metropolitan Building, Warsaw: The diameter of the inner court is 50 m. The building has 7 floors and it looks like a triangle from a bird's eye.
According to the evidences, it is theoretically possible to place the Gherkin in Metropolitan Building's “hole” but we wouldn't be able to get the Gherkin through Metropolitan Building. I have to say this is even better than I expected. The diameters are so close which makes me say “it would fit if you pushed a little harder.” Like Graham said: “an uncomfortable fit.” Interesting.
I would like to say, the suggestion we came up with is no more than a hypothesis. Norman Foster is a knight in United Kingdom and a respectable architecth known around the world who built many masterpieces with his innovative perspective. His company Foster and Partners won over 300 awards and accomplished countless projects. We have no intention to harm or disrespect his or their remarkable reputation. This theory only can prove that our perception goes further than what we see or what we read but nothing else.
However, the outlook of these two buildings and their harmony is undeniably suspicious and perhaps Norman Foster is the only person who knows the truth. Perhaps these buildings represents a secret message from England to Poland. Perhaps they are small pieces of a bigger picture which we are not capable of seeing.
Perhaps it's just our paranoia...
Respectfully;
Fatih Mıstaçoğlu
Special thanks:
Kasia Tomaszewska
Graham Archbold
Bibliography:
http://maps.google.com/maps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi%C5%82sudski_Square
http://www.hines.com/property/detail.aspx?id=155
http://www.fosterandpartners.com/Projects/1004/Default.aspx
http://www.fosterandpartners.com/Projects/0986/Default.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Foster_%28architect%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_St_Mary_Axe
http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=3623
http://www.metropolitan.waw.pl/en/index.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foster_%2B_Partners
www.google.com
Photographs (in order):
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/19908332.jpg
http://www.grandchauffeurs.com/gherkin.jpg
http://www.pilkington.com/resources/metropolitanoptithermsnoptilamphonsrodekbig.jpg
fab art (the last one)
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