A city of towers

The flagship of any country is its capital, which is why Moscow now aims to be a city of skyscrapers, and the ‘New Ring of Moscow’ is the bold scheme to achieve this Emil Górecki Moscow is Russia’s largest and most populous city, covering an area of more than1,000 sq km. Despite having a network of wide roads, one of the greatest problems it faces is the continual traffic congestion; therefore, the city authorities are hoping to develop local centres further away from Red Square. One such concept is the ‘New Ring of Moscow’ (Novoe kolco Moskvy), a truly bold and gigantic project, even by Moscow standards: to build as many as 200 tower buildings by 2015.A new old planThe ‘New Ring’ investment scheme was approved by the city council in February 1999, and drawn up by the Scientific Research and Design Institute, which has been entrusted with preparing a general plan for Moscow. As many as 200 tower buildings of over 30-storeys and with a variet