A Gasprom tower for St. Petersburg

Eduard Steiner and Wojciech Czaja rail against a 300-odd meter tower which is to be erected in St. Petersburg, Russia - an emblem of the new Gasprom City on the right bank of the Newa River. "The east reaches for the west. In Bucharest, Sofia, Warsaw, Kiev and most of all Moscow development projects are springing up like mushrooms. Swanky architecture has become the latest poster-child for the former communist countries. There's no point talking ethics and good taste. Megalomania is what counts." In Petersburg, the British firm RMJM won the competition with its high-rise design. "With its 77 stories, the tower on the Newa will reach into the clouds. The architects proclaim that the pentagonal floor plan and elegant torsion are derived from the changing character of the water, from the play of light, refractions and reflections...'Of course there are debates and a lot of resistance,' say the architects, but - comparing themselves right away with Monsieur Gustave Eiffel - 'just think of Paris! The Eiffel Tower, 324 meters high, made wonderful Paris even more wonderful.' The boundaries between culture and turbo-capitalism appear to be blurred."

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