Moscow’s city government announced on Monday that a scroll-shaped skyscraper has won an online vote to replace one of the capital’s landmark book-shaped buildings on Novy Arbat, which was declared unsafe last year.
In February, media reported that the Mayor’s Office had tapped commercial developer Kievskaya Ploshchad, founded by Russian-Azerbaijani billionaires God Nisanov and Zarakh Iliev, to invest in the project.
Authorities launched the online vote on Aug. 15, offering residents three high-rise designs to replace the Soviet-era Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) building. The 26-story structure, long known for its book-like silhouette, was deemed structurally unsound in October.
By the end of the poll, 46% voted for a design that preserves the existing tower while adding a new skyscraper shaped like a scroll and twice as tall.
“Considering the condition of the structure, specialists will carry out the necessary reconstruction work,” the mayor’s office said in a statement. It described the scroll tower as a “metaphor for upward movement, aspiration toward the future and openness to fresh ideas, innovation and creativity.”
The city did not provide a timeline for construction.
Kievskaya Ploshchad has said the redevelopment will create a 600,000-square-meter “social and cultural cluster,” with 450,000 square meters for cultural, leisure and business space and 150,000 for housing and technical facilities.
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