When in our reviews we dwelt on architectural and stylistic features of skyscrapers that were built in different parts of the world, we tried to emphasize certain distinctive features and specifics of tall buildings and their distinguishing guises, inherent to selected countries. Describing the stylistic diversity of modern buildings and their designs, we focused on the general methods of this or that trend.
The new stage of high-rise construction development in homeland architecture started from the capital. Even back in the 1990s the projects of stand-alone towers and high-risers of the Moscow City encouraged Russian architects and their foreign colleagues to test the new trend in our reality. Later on the regions also actively joined the national high-rise race.
In continuation of our overview of Moscow new high-risers, we should note that the city has not fully defined its attitude to high-rise construction principles for the recent 20 years. During these years the government tried several approaches to localize them but it has not found the best solution. The concepts of a separate cluster similar to La Defense were considered, and then reflected in the construction of the City to a certain degree.
For several centuries Moscow skyline silhouette was formed by numerous churches and bell towers emphases dominated by the Kremlin ensemble and various monastic complexes above them. The city was constantly growing and absorbing a greater number of former selfsupporting settlements, which had their own major high-rise landmarks.
High-rise construction has been an integral part of global architecture for two centuries in a row. Today it is hardly possible to imagine skyscrapers without spectacular covered areas that fill their internal space with light and air. The variety and beauty of atria are dazzling.
The reflection and reproduction of natural forms in architecture have become one of the priority goals for architects of all times. The artistic re-interpretation of natural matrix or certain fragments of the environment has served a never-fading source of inspiration for architects for millennia. For instance, the structural hierarchies of a column of the ancient Greek order or the acanthus outlines as a prototype of the Corinthian capital still continue to work within the given aesthetic canons.
The inhabited mountain is surely the hoariest metaphor for the skyscraper. From Gaudi to Taut to the great Deco towers of predepression New York to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, there has, for a multitude, been an irresistible impulse to model towers on mountains and mesas. I’ve long shared this jones and it has been driven to obsession by visits to Cappadocia, to the American West and perhaps most strongly, to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, where the concatenation of objects and their doubling in reflection simply blew me away.
The ultra-rapid urban development of both traditional and modern Chinese cities has stimulated new iconic objects such as stadiums, museums, theaters to appear. However, to create expressive residential domestic architecture that is equally cost-effective and artistically innovative is still a rare thing within Chinese real life.
In the 21st century most buildings that are created within the traditions of the rational approach to design on the one hand and the laconic geometric pattern on the other hand are usually referred to as the new wave of Modernism, or Neomodernism. This inevitably causes some confusion over the terms since Neomodernism can have various meanings. First of all, it is an architectural trend of the 80s of the twentieth century that once again made the general provisions and principles of the traditional Modernism and Functionalism of the first half of the 20th century. In the 1970s they were moved to the background of the world architecture by Postmodernism and High-Tech.
The various aspects of the global crisis have recently forced developers to decline bright and ambitious projects. In this respect the new skyscraper at the edge of Central Park which is nearly a sacred place for all New Yorkers and a meeting point of urban legends and mysteries as well as a natural setting for a quarter of Hollywood movies looks extremely attractive. The new skyscraper was created by Pritzker Prize-winning French architect Christian de Portzamparc.
