Location: Moscow, Russia
Client: City Palace LLC
Contract Value: £135m
Size: 85,000 m²
Year: 2005-09
City Palace Tower Moscow : Release from RMJM Architects January 2008:
Russian Kiss – Designing Moscow’s City Palace Tower
On 21 January, Tony Kettle, Group Design Director of leading international
architects RMJM and artist Karen Forbes are celebrating the launch of
a unique design project - Moscow’s City Palace Tower. The inspiration
for this dramatic, twisting 46 storey building was Rodin’s ‘The
Kiss’, and is possibly the first ever building to be co-designed
by an architect and artist from conception.
At the event, to be held at The Lighthouse Scotland’s national Architecture
and Design Centre, the designers will also launch a limited edition book
called ‘City Palace, Moscow’. The 80-page publication charts
the evolution of the design concept, from early ideas through to detailed
development, providing superb drawings, digital images and statements
that tell the remarkable story of the building and the groundbreaking
collaboration between the architect and artist behind it. The launch event
will also include a conversation between Tony Kettle, Karen Forbes and
Lighthouse director, Nick Barley - one of a series of keynote architecture
and design events being hosted by the centre.
RMJM’s design team delivering City Palace Tower is headed up by Group
Design Director, Tony Kettle. A much respected architect, Tony is well
known for other notable structures such as the Okhta Tower in St Petersburg,
and the Falkirk Wheel in Scotland - the world’s first and only rotating
boat lift. Tony is also a former alumnus of the Edinburgh College of Art,
where Karen Forbes is head of the School of Drawing and Painting. Tony
approached Karen in 2003 and together they created the RMJM Award for
Art and Architecture at the College. The success of the working relationships
established between students of art and architecture and the outcome of
their collaborations contributed to Tony inviting Karen to take part in
this unusual design partnership.
The City Palace will make history in Moscow. Apart from being a completely
unique feature on the city skyline, it will incorporate the most luxurious
civil venue in which ordinary Moscovites can marry – the Wedding
Palace. This will overturn years of austere civil marriage ceremonies
and could attract international visitors to share the same experience.
At the City Palace launch, previously unseen images of the Wedding Palace’s
proposed interiors will be revealed. There are two wedding halls where
couples can exchange their vows. Wedding parties of up to 200 guests will
be able to proceed to the top-floor ballroom and enjoy breathtaking views
of Red Square.
Tony and Karen focused particular attention on the context of this building
within Russian culture, while addressing the many different requirements
of the clients. It is part of continued development of ‘Moscow-City’,
a major initiative by the Russian capital to create a central business
district on a former industrial zone, three miles from the Kremlin. Therefore,
to optimise City Palace’s uses, apart from the Wedding Palace, the
building will also function as prime office, retail and civic space, and
house a museum.
Tony Kettle comments: “Our proposal for this building is deeply rooted
in its place and is both a contextual response to the City of Moscow and
an emotional response to the brief which included some unusual but important
public functions.”
Karen Forbes said: “RMJM made a bold decision in designing a building
of this significance, through a true collaboration of artist and architect.
Together, we were able to unlock the real potential of the idea and create
something extraordinary for Moscow.”
The ‘City Palace Moscow’ publication is being distributed exclusively
through the RIBA, priced at £15.99.
The City Palace development is due for completion in summer 2011.
City Palace Tower Moscow : text & image from RMJM Architects 240108:
City Palace
Tower Moscow architects : RMJM
initial proposal for 118 storeys – Europe’s tallest tower
Located close to Foster's 'tallest tower in Europe'
Russia Tower
Foster + Partners’ super-high tower in Moscow
image credit: Foster + Partners
Moscow Skyscraper
Russia tower
architect : Norman Foster
City Palace Tower Moscow : Release from RMJM Architects Oct 2007:
The Mayor of Moscow, Mr Yuri Luzhkov, has recently given his seal of approval
to a sensual 46-storey tower, designed by RMJM.
The development is the latest addition to ‘Moscow-City’, a major
initiative by the Russian capital to create a central business district
on a former industrial zone, three miles from the Kremlin. The ‘sexy’,
organic form of the building, which was designed by RMJM in collaboration
with Scottish artist Karen Forbes, mixes passion and drama with a conventional
square footprint ideal for offices and other commercial uses. For client
City Palace LLC, a subsidiary company of CSC INTECO and S&T Equity
(Overseas) Ltd, it is the perfect mix of form and function.
Dubbed the ‘City Palace’ tower, the twisting building will provide
approximately 85,000m2 of retail and leisure facilities and 85,000m2 of
offices and public functions including a registry office. It is this civic
use for weddings which inspired the architect-artist team for the conceptual
form of the building.
The building sits on a simple carved plinth containing a large retail
mall and leisure facilities for the tower. The landscaped plinth will
form the gateway to the City Palace Tower as well as the Moscow City Convention
Centre and the Mayor’s Tower and will be broken into three distinct
areas with varying levels to create a dramatic sense of arrival for each
building.
Ostankino Television Tower, Moscow: Tallest free-standing structure in
Europe
RMJM Hillier
Architects
Russian Skyscraper
: Okhta Tower
Russian Tower :
Crystal Island, also by Foster + Partners
World Architecture : e-architect
- a guide to key buildings across the globe
Comments for the City Palace Tower page welcome: info@e-architect.co.uk
City Palace Tower Russia
: page - adrian welch / isabelle lomholt