Norman Foster a Astana
Kazakhstan’s modern wonder ASTANA. July 6. KAZINFORM – It aspires to be one of the modern wonders of the world: a great pyramid, set in a new capital city on the Central Asian steppe. It is intended to be a global centre for religious understanding, a symbol of world peace. Nelson’s Column could fit inside it. The building’s designer is famous Britain’s Norman Foster.
Lord Foster, 69, is the author of such buildings as Swiss Re tower in London which has been opened last year and City Hall which has housed the capital’s mayor since 2002.
At present the biggest construction site is Beijing’s new airport.
But nothing compares to his latest commission.
With Foster’s building N. Nazarbayev (President of Kazakhstan) hopes to trumpet religious and ethnic reconciliation. He also wants an opera house to rival Covent Garden, a national museum of culture, a new “university of civilization” and a centre of Kazakhstan’s ethnic and geographical groups.
The pyramid will house all of them. It is 203ft high and a square base 203ft wide, sitting on a 59ft high artificial mound.
This is not just a talking shop for clerics. Although, with a population split 50:50 between Russian Orthodox and Muslim and with extremism on the rise, it is not surprising that religion is on the President’s mind. He held his first congress of religious leaders in September 2003 and wants to make it a triennial event.
The pyramid, made of a diamond-pattern lattice of steel clad in pale silver-grey stone, will be topped by a coloured apex of abstract modern stained glass to be designed by the British artist Brian Clarke – a long-time friend and collaborator with Foster.
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