Vanishing Skyscraper or 50 Shades of White
The Moscow-City business quarter has already become a symbol of modern Moscow, but construction in this area is still under way. And a new skyscraper over 400 m high will be impressive epilogue of this story. The project of the super-high building was developed in the bureau of famous Russian architect Sergey Skuratov under his direct supervision. This is not the first project of a skyscraper designed by the maestro, but certainly one of the most significant in his professional career. It will also become a landmark in Moscow as it will imply a final stage of the city’s image formation as its dominant and compositionally unifying element. The unique feature of the new skyscraper is that in its lower part it will be dazzling white, standing out against the background of its surroundings and contrasting with the gold Mercury Tower located nearby. Along the height of the building the color will fade until the skyscraper becomes transparent at the top and disappears in the sky. Sergey Skuratov has shared a story how this image was born in an interview to the correspondent of the Tall Buildings magazine.
A closed competition for the design of a mixed-use complex in the Moscow City on Site No. 1 was held a year ago. Sergey Choban’s and Sergey Skuratov’s architectural bureaus, as well as the American company SOM (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) were invited to participate in it. The project developed by Sergey Skuratov was recognized as the contest winner. The Capital Group development company which had already built two projects in the Moscow City, namely City of Capitals and OKO, participated in the tender for construction held by the JSC “Mosinzhproekt” city customer with this project. Currently the project has passed the expert review with a positive conclusion, and construction is to begin in 2019. So far, the approved building height is 404 m.
BACKGROUND
An idea of creating a skyscraper business quarter on the site of the former rock quarry on the Presnenskaya embankment in Moscow was discussed in 1991, and the idea belonged to Boris Tkhor, the Soviet and Russian architect. He conceived this quarter as an integral architectural ensemble, but the time certainly made alterations to those plans. From the very beginning, it caused ambiguous assessments. It was often said that the Moscow City is perceived as an architectural cacophony, a pile of high-rise buildings without a single compositional solution. Nevertheless, this is one of the most impressive and large-scale city planning projects in Moscow that has radically changed the idea of the city. Its implementation is still under way and today there is an opportunity to improve the situation by laying new emphasis.
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Text by ELENA GOLUBEVA
Materials provided by SERGEY SKURATOV ARCHITECTS