Buildings
RMJM Designing Sculptural Skyscraper in Moscow
(archrecord.construction.com - 06/09/2006)
By Paul
Abelsky
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| Image courtesy RMJM |
The procession of planned high-rises
for Moscow’s nascent financial district continued in
May with the announcement by British architects RMJM that
they received Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s approval for a 46-story
“City Palace” tower. Drafted in collaboration with
Scottish artist Karen Forbes, the project is locally assisted
by a division of design firm Mosproekt-2. The building’s
spiraling form is arguably the most sculpturally exuberant
proposal yet presented in Moscow.
Described by its creators as “sensuous”
and “organic, the tower’s structure, composed of
two twisting bands whose entwined coils evoke the joining
of male and female halves, is intended as a metaphorical extension
of the wedding motif. The rotating form plays off the more
traditional massing that dominates the surrounding cluster
of buildings. Stylistically it also responds to the sinuous
structure of the retail and entertainment center at the central
core of the district, designed by the Canadian firm Brisbin
Brook Beynon. The tower's two ribbons are locked in a gesture
of tense but fluid ascent. A glazed screen draped between
them follows the structure, coalescing into a lobby and an
entrance canopy at the base, while enveloping a ballroom space
atop the building.
The tower will serve as a prominent
entryway into the Moscow-City district occupying its southeastern
plot , which connects to a completed pedestrian bridge. City
Palace will contain about 1.8 million square feet of space,
divided evenly between retail, administrative, and office
functions, with a parking lot planned on three underground
levels.
In addition to a shopping mall and entertainment
amenities, the plinth at the base of the building will include
a 2,000-square-meter registry office used for wedding ceremonies.
A panoramic elevator will deliver newlyweds to a special hall
with the top-floor ballroom.
Commissioned by City Palace LLC, a subsidiary
of S&T Equity (Overseas) Ltd., an offshore company owned
by Alexander Chigirinsky, the brother of one of Moscow’s
most prominent developers, and CSC INTECO, operated by the
wife of Moscow’s mayor, the building is anticipated to
cost over $1.5 billion. It is expected to be complete by 2009.
Like most high-rise projects in the
capital, the lead role was assigned to an experienced Western
firm that has already established a foothold in Russia. Earlier
in April, RMJM won the tender to design a $500 million technopark
in Novosibirsk, a major city in western Siberia, where it
is already overseeing the construction of a business center.
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