Central pavilion of the Astana Expo.
Standing on a glass footbridge at the summit of the tallest spherical building in the world- nicknamed the Death Star- with glass bubble elevators zooming up a central neon-lit atrium behind, and a precipitous void plunging beneath feet. All that was missing was Luke Skywalker.
Expo sites are always surreal affairs, but the most surreal on show here wasn’t the Expo. The chief novelty was the city of Astana itself.
At one end of a monumental axis stands the biggest tent in the world, the Khan Shatyr shopping mall designed by British architect Norman Foster in the form of an inflated plastic yurt that glows pink and green by night.
Housing dodgems, a rollercoaster and an artificial beach (with sand imported from the Maldives), it is a tacky pleasure dome that Kublai Khan could only dream of.
At the other end of the boulevard rises an enigmatic silver pyramid, also by Foster, the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, conceived as a meeting place for world religions, crowned with a stained-glass lantern of doves. It stands on a grassy mound like a venerable tomb, on axis with a lake in the shape of a bird in flight.
Between these totems of the sacred and profane is the presidential palace, modelled on the White House, but eight times larger and topped with a big blue dome; a gateway of conical gold mirror-glass towers for the state bank and insurance fund; a polished grey egg for the national archives. At the centre of it all rises an observation tower, a golden orb at the top of a splayed white steel tree, like a Ferrero Rocher chocolate nestling in an upturned shuttlecock.
This architectural fantasy is the singular vision of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan. Each mirror-glass facade is drenched with a more explicit desire to hark back to an imagined past, searching for legitimacy in the forms of ancient civilizations and Kazakh folk motifs.
“No other modern-day leader has used the myth-making power of architecture to construct a sense of national identity like Nazarbayev,” says Frank Albo, author of a new book on the Kazakh capital, Astana: Architecture, Myth and Destiny. “What you see here is a blend of postmodernism, Central Asian art, Islamic decor, Russian baroque, neoclassicism, orientalism.”
Men with vast power tend to have big things which is reflection of their will. And that is good opportunity for architects.
Japan’s proudest export, Kisho Kurokawa, was the first to be employed, conjuring a cosmic masterplan for the city that has mostly been ignored. Italian architect Manfredi Nicoletti designed the city’s concert hall, the company run by Santiago Calatrava’s son Micael, is in discussions with the president about building an elaborate canopy the full length of the main boulevard.
The competition for the Expo site was won by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill – authors of Dubai’s tallest tower – while runners-up included Zaha Hadid, Moshe Safdie, UN Studio, Snøhetta, Mecanoo and others.
Nazarbayev decided to move the capital in the early 1990s, soon after taking office. Some say it was to shift the centre of gravity away from the border with China, while others argue that it was to cement Kazakh presence in an area that was predominantly ethnically Russian.
Adil Nurmakov, a political scientist and co-founder of Urban Forum Almaty, who recently relocated to Astana for his wife’s work, with their young child, is still reeling from the move. “I am honestly so embarrassed by our capital,” he says. “I don’t understand how it is possible to build a city from scratch and make it so unfriendly to people. It is too monumental and car-centric and has no sensitivity to the harsh climate. The buildings are so far apart that there can be no life on the streets. In winter, it’s just about getting from one underground car park to the next, while in summer there’s no shade in these barren open spaces.”
Source: 'Norman said the president wants a pyramid': how starchitects built Astana -
Standing on a glass footbridge at the summit of the tallest spherical building in the world- nicknamed the Death Star- with glass bubble elevators zooming up a central neon-lit atrium behind, and a precipitous void plunging beneath feet. All that was missing was Luke Skywalker.
 |
| Out to the horizon andassorted collection of pyramids, golden cones and mirrored towers, lined up like a row of awards in a particularly gaudy trophy cabinet, stopping abruptly to give way to the rolling grasslands of the Eurasian steppe. |
Expo sites are always surreal affairs, but the most surreal on show here wasn’t the Expo. The chief novelty was the city of Astana itself.
At one end of a monumental axis stands the biggest tent in the world, the Khan Shatyr shopping mall designed by British architect Norman Foster in the form of an inflated plastic yurt that glows pink and green by night.
Housing dodgems, a rollercoaster and an artificial beach (with sand imported from the Maldives), it is a tacky pleasure dome that Kublai Khan could only dream of.
At the other end of the boulevard rises an enigmatic silver pyramid, also by Foster, the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, conceived as a meeting place for world religions, crowned with a stained-glass lantern of doves. It stands on a grassy mound like a venerable tomb, on axis with a lake in the shape of a bird in flight.
 |
| Foster’s Palace of Peace and Reconciliation pyramid, with the city of Astana behind. |
Between these totems of the sacred and profane is the presidential palace, modelled on the White House, but eight times larger and topped with a big blue dome; a gateway of conical gold mirror-glass towers for the state bank and insurance fund; a polished grey egg for the national archives. At the centre of it all rises an observation tower, a golden orb at the top of a splayed white steel tree, like a Ferrero Rocher chocolate nestling in an upturned shuttlecock.
This architectural fantasy is the singular vision of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan. Each mirror-glass facade is drenched with a more explicit desire to hark back to an imagined past, searching for legitimacy in the forms of ancient civilizations and Kazakh folk motifs.
“No other modern-day leader has used the myth-making power of architecture to construct a sense of national identity like Nazarbayev,” says Frank Albo, author of a new book on the Kazakh capital, Astana: Architecture, Myth and Destiny. “What you see here is a blend of postmodernism, Central Asian art, Islamic decor, Russian baroque, neoclassicism, orientalism.”
Men with vast power tend to have big things which is reflection of their will. And that is good opportunity for architects.
Japan’s proudest export, Kisho Kurokawa, was the first to be employed, conjuring a cosmic masterplan for the city that has mostly been ignored. Italian architect Manfredi Nicoletti designed the city’s concert hall, the company run by Santiago Calatrava’s son Micael, is in discussions with the president about building an elaborate canopy the full length of the main boulevard.
The competition for the Expo site was won by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill – authors of Dubai’s tallest tower – while runners-up included Zaha Hadid, Moshe Safdie, UN Studio, Snøhetta, Mecanoo and others.
 |
| Astana by night, with Foster’s Khan Shatyr – the biggest tent in the world – lit up on the left |
Nazarbayev decided to move the capital in the early 1990s, soon after taking office. Some say it was to shift the centre of gravity away from the border with China, while others argue that it was to cement Kazakh presence in an area that was predominantly ethnically Russian.
Adil Nurmakov, a political scientist and co-founder of Urban Forum Almaty, who recently relocated to Astana for his wife’s work, with their young child, is still reeling from the move. “I am honestly so embarrassed by our capital,” he says. “I don’t understand how it is possible to build a city from scratch and make it so unfriendly to people. It is too monumental and car-centric and has no sensitivity to the harsh climate. The buildings are so far apart that there can be no life on the streets. In winter, it’s just about getting from one underground car park to the next, while in summer there’s no shade in these barren open spaces.”
Source: 'Norman said the president wants a pyramid': how starchitects built Astana -
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