Posted on 03/23/2006 5:34:35 AM PST by Republicanprofessor
The Moscow City Tower is due to be completed in 2010
MOSCOW’s mayor has endorsed plans to build a tower, 600 metres high, designed by the British architect Lord Foster of Thames Bank. It is expected to be the tallest in Europe when it is completed in 2010. Yuri Luzhkov, the mayor, approved the plan for the 118-storey Moscow City Tower after meeting Lord Foster in the Russian capital last week.
“He was very enthusiastic about it,” Lord Foster told The Times. “It was very well received. I think everyone wants this to happen very quickly.”
A spokesman for Moscow city hall said the city government would make its final decision after the plans were reviewed by the construction commission early next month. But Lord Foster said that he expected construction to begin within 18 months.
The tower will be part of Moscow City — a huge development on the banks of the Moscow river, three miles from the Kremlin — which the authorities hope will become the country’s main financial district.
It will be naturally ventilated and use the latest heat exchange technologies to minimise energy use. The building will also collect snow and rainwater to reduce by 30 per cent the volume of fresh water used by lavatories.
City authorities are understood to have wanted a distinctive skyscraper that could become a landmark similar to Lord Foster’s “Gherkin” — the headquarters of Swiss Re — in the City of London. The development includes the 430m high Federation Tower, due to be completed in 2008.
The Moscow City Tower plan was proposed by Shalva Chigirinsky, a Russian property tycoon who has close links to Mr Luzhkov and was ranked 59 on a Russian rich list this year.
He told a property conference in Cannes last week that it would cost $1.5 billion (£830 million) to build the tower, of which his company would provide between $150 million and $200 million. “We’re not poor people. We will invest as much as it takes,” he said.
Last month Mr Chigirinsky teamed up with Lord Foster to redevelop a 19-acre island in St Petersburg called New Holland. Created in 1719, the triangular island was Russia’s first naval port. It is now to be transformed into a $319 million cultural complex that will include a theatre, a concert hall, a museum, art galleries, hotels, shops and offices.
The Moscow City Tower will be a “mixed-use, super-dense, vertical city” capable of accommodating 25,000 people, according to Lord Foster. It will have nine underground floors of parking and shopping space, a public ice rink on the first floor, an hotel, twenty-four floors of apartments and offices and a public observation deck with cafés and bars at the top.
This is the best image I could find on line; it is a little different than the picture posted with the article.
This is Foster's Gherkin building.
I must say I like the design for the Moscow building better, and I like the energy and water efficiency planned within it.
Art ping.
Let Sam Cree, Woofie or me know if you want on or off the art ping list.
This is architecture, but still an interesting story.
Considering the number of building collapses lately in Russia, I wouldn't bet they get it up completely before it falls down. Corruption and cheap materials and poor workmanship will fail at the slightest stress.......
Gherkin Building? Looks like a giant vibrator.........juxtaposition of terms............
There was a thread about the Gherkin building some time ago. I do think the design is a bit suggestive, but apparently it is a very efficient design.
I have a colleague who tried to do some building in Russia. It was amazing how astonished the Russians were at the idea and construction of a simple single family house. They did not have concrete mixers and had to use wheelbarrows or some such gerry-rigged techniques.
He was pushed out by the Russian mafia in the 90s. I thought he'd be interested in this story as well.
You may be right about the actual completion of such a project. But I think it is interesting that they are at least planning for such a dynamic building.
I was thinking "missile nosecone" myself, but...yeah.
:-D )))
Good for them, however. A new, modern building would be a good boost for the Muscovites.
It would also be nice if there is some planning involved. I visited former east Germany and saw two cities: Dresden, which HAD some MUCH urban planning for rebuilding, and the result was fabulous, and Leipzig, which HAD done uban planning a la hodgepodge....what a mess for that once fine old city.
Possibly an impressionist rendering of the famous "Monica el Nudo" cigar??
My first thought as well.
If it were the Revlon headquarters it could be a giant lipstick tube.........
It actually appears to be a welcome break from the "totalitarian empire" that the commissars used, as well as the ostentation that the Czars used.
As to the London building, the first time I saw it I thought it was fantastically out of place. After a while though, I thought of it as being a sign that Britain had been on its way to modernization when it was designed and this was a reflection--rather a daring one--of that shift to a modern perspective.
It is hard for me to believe Putin will go along with something as threatening as this, but more power to the Moscovites.
McVeu
Russian Skyscraper. I'm not sure I'd trust that. The Russians are certainly capable of building something like that, but they have this penchant for cutting corners that would make me a little nervous way up on the 100th floor.
Russia builds new tower, chechens positioning RPGs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.