Description Architects: • Norman Foster • Brian Clarke • Tabanlioglu Architecture and Consulting
Construction: Sembol Construction of Turkey.
Base 62m x 62m
Built on top of an artifical hill.
started: March 2005
finished: June 2006.
Structural engineers: Buro Happold of London & Arce of Istanbul.
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It will be one of the modern wonders of the world. A great pyramid, set in a brand-new capital city on the central Asian steppes, to be a global centre for religious understanding and ethnic reconciliation, a symbol of world peace.
It has more space inside than London's St. Paul's Cathedral, or Istanbul's Hagia Sophia. Opera house with 1500 seats. The Pyramid is on an artificial Hill 96m x 96m x 62m high. Diamond-pattern latticework of tubular steel clad in pale silver-grey stone.
The pyramid - and the rendering of Foster's cross-section -deliberately echoes some of the grand Utopian projects of 18th century French architects Etienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicholas Ledoux shortly before the French Revolution. Boullée's pyramidal cenotaphs are the clear inspiration here. Some of these were square, several were cones, with circular plans. Foster's, with its square plan and circular internal elements, thus combines two of Boullée's geometric preocupations.
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