Palm Tree for Evolution
At the end of 2016 was held awards ceremony of the world’s most renowned architecture prize for skyscrapers, the Emporis Skyscraper Award established in the year 2000. Once again the Shanghai Tower, which this year already rated by CTBUH as the Best Tall Building Worldwide, gained the lead in a race. The winners were chosen by an international panel of experts from over 300 skyscrapers of at least 100 meters height and which were completed in 2015. The 632-meter tall Shanghai Tower was chosen as the winner for several reasons, including it’s elegant spiraling cylindrical shape which was designed by Gensler Architects.
The second place in the voting went to the Evolution Tower in Moscow. It was recognized by the award jury for its expressive design. Its extravagant appearance resembled the jury members worldwide famous St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow and Tatlin’s Tower. The project of the tower of a unique spiral-shaped design, erected in the MIBC Moscow-City, near by the pedestrian Bagration Bridge on Presnenskaya Moscow River Embankment. The peculiar concept of the tower facade received a high expert appreciation. The building combines state-of-the-art engineering technologies and features of Russian architectural style. Each of the 54 floors is constantly twisted by 3° whilst being arranged around the central core of the building lets the skyscraper experience an elegant rotation in a clockwise direction from the base to the top by 156°. The 82 000 sqm office tower with 52 levels twisting 156 degrees overall features the best riverside panoramas from its open roof observation deck. The world’s largest innovative cold-bent façade (approximately 14° from verticality) provides an amazing optical illusion, reflecting the surrounding panorama of Moscow upside down at an angle of 90° to the horizon, i.e. rotating the panoramas vertically, which is also unprecedented for the world of architecture. General designer of the Evolution Tower was GORPROJECT, Russian leading company in the field of general planning and design of high-rise residential and public buildings.
The third-placed building is Il Dritto (The Straight One) in Milan. It is a result of collaboration between Japanese architect Arata Isozaki and Italian architect Andrea Maffei. The 210-meter tall tower is also known as Allianz Tower: the german financial services giant Allianz is the owner. The design of the facade is inspired by Constantin Brâncuși´s sculpture “Endless Column”. Besides it`s shape the expert jury praises the facade which is slightly curved to outside.
Emporis