For REQ

Norman Foster’s work is a major visual component of the new face of Astana in Kazakhstan, commissioned by the country’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

1 of 4

Norman Foster is known for his love of early Russian hyperboloid structures — his most recent words about architecture in the country were in an open letter to help save the Shukhov Tower, the broadcasting tower in southern Moscow, from a fate of rust and decay. But while admiration for constructivism may have helped Britain’s most famous modern architect develop his style and inspired some of his most celebrated designs, it seems not to have helped him establish an architectural foothold in Russia.

In fact, although numerous column inches in the local press are dedicated to his plans for Moscow and St. Petersburg, Foster and his firm have yet to get a new design off paper. Foster and Partners’ web site on Russia presents an array of projects — Crystal Island in Moscow, Khanty Mansiisk Tower in Siberia, St. Petersburg’s New Holland Island and JFC complex, and the Russia Tower in Moskva-City. But not a single one has been completed.

“Most of Foster’s projects were planned before the crisis, so I suppose that explains something as to his lack of success in making a stamp on Russia so far,” said Marina Khrustalyova, representative of architecture movement Arkhnadzor. “Foster is a creator of high-tech and intensely functional buildings and his work can raise a lot of questions,” she explained.

Foster’s designs have been variously described as abstract form-making buildings and as being reliant on the tectonics of architecture. While he is a major proponent of steel and glass, he has also been famously called “the Mozart of Modernism” for pulling off feats such as combining huge new office space with low-rise art deco structures in Manhattan.

Beyond Russia, Foster’s participation in reshaping the post-communist world has brought various tangible results. His firm is responsible for designing The Triangle, or Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, in the newly built Kazakh capital, Astana. Foster also has two more projects under construction in Kazakhstan and is responsible for the Metropolitan, erected in central Warsaw in the late 1990s — ironically near where a large Russian Orthodox church had stood before being demolished by independent Poland in the 1920s.

But Foster has yet to place his signature on the Russian cityscape, despite gleaning so much from Russia, such as the ideas of Alexei Shchusev, the designer of the Lenin Mausoleum. Although a characteristically public figure, Foster and his colleagues have recently been very quiet about their activity in Russian construction. Katy Harris, a partner at Foster and Partners and head of communications at the firm, said in April that the company could not answer questions about Russia.

Foster’s firm’s ongoing Pushkin Museum extension could arguably constitute a noteworthy entry into Russia. But, aside from its personal guarantee of success in the form of Dmitry Medvedev’s patronage, it is adding to a famous palace of art already in existence. “The reconstruction of the Pushkin Museum is a hugely important project for the city, yet Foster has created a radical, unharmonious design,” explained Khrustalyova. What is more, the additions to the museum do not constitute an independent, freestanding structure for the skyline — unlike the five other works he advertises, or a further two projects that he has been linked to in Russia. The Apelsin by the Moscow River near Leninsky Prospekt and the Zaryadye development on the site of the now demolished Hotel Rossiya were paraded in the press as future Fosterisms, but they have reportedly been spiked too.

The economic crisis that hit Russia in 2008 and the accompanying collapse of the country’s real estate boom has affected planned construction throughout the market. Beyond lack of funding for Foster’s designs, however, it seems that there is another factor behind the failed materialization of his renders — the choice of local partner. Shalva Chigirinsky, a man who has vanished completely from the public eye, was the client for five of these major commissions, paying millions of dollars for the work from Foster’s bureau.

Only two years ago, in an interview with Archi.ru, Foster described his client experience in Russia very positively. “I have excellent relationships there. There is a tremendous energy and a very healthy impatience to build a new and exciting world.” Yet by the end of 2008 construction halted on his most talked-about design for Chigirinksy, the Russia Tower, which had been set to be Europe’s tallest building. Now, it seems, Oleg Deripaska may turn the area into a parking lot. The Russia Tower sky-scraper plan came despite Foster’s own protestation against the height of the 400-meter Okhta Tower planned for St. Petersburg — he quit the panel of architect judges before the contract was eventually awarded in 2006 to rival British firm RMJM.

Backing the wrong horse

Chigirinsky’s liquidity unwound quickly at the beginning of 2009, as trading was frozen on shares in Sibir Energy, in which he had a stake that he had been accused of using as collateral for loans in the development sector. Following this, Chigirinsky was summoned for questioning over tax evasion in Russia by a firm which he had been president of until May 2009. Then, in August, VTB bank won a ruling in London against Chigirinsky for 3.24 billion rubles ($101 million). Recently, his company, ST Development, lost a suit against the Moscow government for compensation on the former Hotel Rossiya site.

Meanwhile, Foster’s difficulties grew, as an article appeared in Tvoi Den newspaper in late July 2009, showing millions of dollars being transferred by Chigirinsky to Foster’s personal bank account, including to a Swiss account in 2006. The article reported that Russian and British authorities were investigating the transfers as part of a potential money-laundering scam. City of London Police was unable to provide any information on the matter and no further public reports have emerged.

More bad press came in an August 2009 edition of The Times of London. Foster — reportedly a Swiss tax resident and owner of an eighteenth-century chateau in the Vaud canton but also an advocate of globalization and modern materials — received a £500,000 ($770,000) pay increase from his firm as the company underwent major headcount reductions, it was revealed.

Foster’s tax status aside, he has done well from the British state and was made a peer for his contributions to British architecture, having designed many public buildings. Indeed, the state could have been the answer for his entry into Russia. But even in this regard he has been unblessed here: Foster lost a tender to design the new British Embassy to rivals, ABK. “All British architects feel a Foster effect, a sort of knock-on effect of his work abroad,” said Matt Bargery, at ABK in London. “Foster and Partners is a strong office, more driven by large object building than good citizen building. I can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t succeed in Russia,” he said.