Posted Nov 5, 2012, 9:39 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesi...ower-the-shard
Russia's Mercury City tower cuts the Shard down to size
The tapering mountain of pink-hued trapezoidal blocks, one of a cluster of competing structures in Moscow, takes the title of Europe's tallest building from its London rival
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Posted by Oliver Wainwright
Monday 5 November
Quote:
A towering beacon of pink mirrored glass has overtaken the Shard to become the tallest building in Europe. Moscow's Mercury City tower, which topped out on Thursday, now rises to 339m, making it 29m taller than London's own crystalline pyramid.
The building joins a motley cluster in the emerging Moscow International Business Centre, a $12bn complex initiated by former mayor Yuri Luzhkov as a playground for rival oligarchs to demonstrate their penile might.
This latest pink totem is the brainchild of retail billionaire Igor Kesaev, who said it "demonstrates that all of Russia is on a level with countries of the eurozone, continuing its planned development and moving forward".
Designed by the late American architect Frank Williams, working with Moscow's Mikhail Posokhin, the $1bn tower stands as a tapering mountain of trapezoidal blocks. If you screw your eyes up, its faceted steps recall early expressionist architecture and the crystalline forms of Hugh Ferris's New York setback diagrams – only here interpreted with a clumsy commercial bulk.
The building was originally to be clad in a shimmering sheath of silver glass, to act as a mirrored backdrop to the reddish Moscow City Hall. Since that scheme was axed, Mercury City has taken on a bronzed hue, a kind of architectural perma-tan, as if forever bathed in a sunset glow.
The architect says the project "has a strong reference to Russian constructivism, [which] gives the tower a strong vertical thrust similar to the one found in New York's Chrysler building".
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