EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Kazakhstan: New Architecture Reflects Rising Prosperity

EURASIA INSIGHT

KAZAKHSTAN: NEW ARCHITECTURE REFLECTS RISING PROSPERITY
Alec Appelbaum 7/20/07

As its energy-driven economy matures, Kazakhstan is paying increasing attention to aesthetic appeal. Elite Western architects are now busy giving Kazakhstan a make-over, both in the public and private sectors.

Some of the world’s most prolific and celebrated architects are involved in a wide variety of projects in Kazakhstan. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, one of the largest and most regimented practices in the world, is one of the busiest in Kazakhstan. The firm completed a park and 500,000-square-foot tower in Almaty in 2006. The project, Esentai Park, drops a hotel and office space, with "luxury apartments," in an L-shape into the city center. Its heavy façade seems coherent with Soviet architecture, but its surrounding green space and shimmering tops convey a new exuberance.

Like much architecture in Kazakhstan, the Esentai project presents opulence without bombast. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is designing projects around the country. It’s also consulting with Kazakhstan’s government on ways to update the national building code to help ensure that Almaty’s breakneck construction pace does not result in structurally unsound buildings. The construction boom, and the need for codes to keep the new edifices safe, says SOM spokesperson Elizabeth Kubany, comprise "an amazing technical story."

The architectural transformation is most noticeable in the Astana, which just marked its 10th anniversary as the nation’s capital. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. There, Lord Norman Foster, who designed iconic and ecologically friendly towers in London and Manhattan, has submitted a "Palace of Peace" for the national government. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The site, which opened in 2005, combines a concrete base and steel skeleton to reach a stained-glass peak. As befits a boomtown, Foster’s firm and engineers Buro Happold produced the building in 21 months. Mike Cook, a Buro Happold partner, described it as "a construction program that worked around the harsh climate while meeting a particularly tough deadline."

Architects in Almaty, meanwhile, are drawing commissions at a rate that suggests the boom times have no end in sight. Robert A.M. Stern, an American classicist who designed traditional buildings with nouveau flourishes for a Disney-created town and many New York developers, is working up a hotel and apartment tower called Tulebava Park in the heart of city’s shopping district. Stern’s design arranges four mid-rise apartment towers around three garages along the leafy avenue, suggesting a promenade for showy cars and a hideout for reclusive tenants. The project’s civic notes, though, keep it from seeming like a vulgar expression of wealth.

Another New York architect, Audrey Matlock, is working on a private house with glass walls and a stretched lawn. This project’s perch and paneled walls suggest a Colorado ski chalet, while its strong axes point to the domineering landscape. The Matlock project echoes other western-led designs with a surprising balance. Kazakhstan may or may not suffer from the resource curse, but its public realm has grown richer with oil wealth.

Editor's Note: Alec Appelbaum is a freelance journalist based in New York.

The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website, meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and controversial issues.

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