View from Imperia Tower Moscow 04-2014 img12

Mercury City Tower ( rus, Меркурий Сити Тауэр, r=Merkuriy Siti Tauer) is a supertall

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

located on plot 14 in the Moscow International Business Center (MIBC), in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, Russia. Occupying a total area of , the

mixed-use Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to some ...

building houses offices, apartments, a

fitness center A health club (also known as a fitness club, fitness center, health spa, and commonly referred to as a gym) is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. In recent years, the number of fitness and health se ...

, and retail stores. Rising tall, the Mercury City Tower was formerly the tallest building of Russia and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, having surpassed the Moscow Tower of the neighboring

City of Capitals The City of Capitals ( rus, Город Столиц, r=Gorod Stolits) is a mixed-use complex composed of two skyscrapers and an office building located on plot 9 in the Moscow International Business Center in Moscow, Russia with a total area of ...

complex (also in the MIBC) as the tallest of Russia and

The Shard The Shard, also referred to as the Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge, and formerly London Bridge Tower, is a 72-storey skyscraper, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, in Southwark, London, that forms part of The Shard Quarter dev ...

in London as Europe's tallest building.Ilya Khrennikov
'Moscow Mercury City Tops Shard as Europe’s Tallest Tower'
Bloomberg, 1 November 2012. The Mercury City Tower kept this record from late 2012 to the summer of 2014, in which it was surpassed by the South Tower of the neighboring

OKO OKO ( rus, ОКО, r=, literally means eye, also an abbreviation for Ob'yedinonnyye Kristallom Osnovaniya ( rus, Oбъединённые Кристаллом Oснования, r=, literally means Foundations Bound by a Crystal)) is a complex o ...

complex (also on the MIBC) as the tallest building in Russia and Europe. Currently, it is the fifth-tallest building in Europe and it is also the tallest copper-clad building in the world.

History

Mercury City Tower was jointly developed by the American architect Frank Williams and the Russian engineering team Mosproject-2 under the leadership of architect Mikhail Posokhin. After the death of Williams in 2010, the Russians were able to convince Dutch architect

Erick van Egeraat Erick van Egeraat (; born 1956) is a Dutch architect and author. He heads the architectural practice based in Rotterdam with offices in Moscow, Budapest and Prague. He is best known for his projects of ING Group Headquarters in Budapest, Drents Mu ...

to succeed him and thus finish Williams' work. Construction of Mercury City Tower began in 2006. The project was estimated to be completed by 2009, but developers Mercury Development and Liedel Investments Limited preferred to slow down the project in order to not bring the building to the housing market during the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

. By 21 April 2009, Mercury City Tower had just finished

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

work: finishing

earthworks Earthworks may refer to: Construction *Earthworks (archaeology), human-made constructions that modify the land contour * Earthworks (engineering), civil engineering works created by moving or processing quantities of soil *Earthworks (military), m ...

and five underground floors, and was ready for construction over ground. The estimated completion date was then pushed to 2010. On 1 November 2012, the Mercury City Tower

topped out In building construction, topping out (sometimes referred to as topping off) is a builders' rite traditionally held when the last beam (or its equivalent) is placed atop a structure during its construction. Nowadays, the ceremony is often parlaye ...

at , overtaking the Moscow Tower of the neighboring

complex as the tallest building of Russia and

in London as tallest building of Europe. It also became the world's tallest building built of

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete (RC), also called reinforced cement concrete (RCC) and ferroconcrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having hig ...

. Construction was finished in 2013. On the summer of 2014, the South Tower of the neighboring OKO complex surpassed the Mercury City Tower as the tallest building in Russia and Europe as well as the tallest building built of reinforced concrete. Construction was conducted with the help of a

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

300 million loan from

Sberbank PJSC Sberbank (russian: Сбербанк, initially a contraction of russian: сберегательный банк, translit=sberegatelnyy bank, lit=savings bank, link=no) is a Russian majority state-owned banking and financial services compan ...

, which created the ground for speculation about the possible transition of the building into ownership of the bank in 2015–2016. The loan was restructured in 2016. The whole cost of the project was estimated by business publications to range between US$650 million and US$1 billion. In May 2021 this building, alongside the Chinese and Russian diplomatic facilities in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, were the targets of a

bomb threat A bomb threat or bomb scare is a threat, usually verbal or written, to detonate an explosive or incendiary device to cause property damage, death, injuries, and/or incite fear, whether or not such a device actually exists. History Bomb threat ...

posted on

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

sports site Sportnieuws.nl that was hacked by persons calling themselves 'Encore Ong' and ‘Zehang T’.

Design

Overview

The Mercury City Tower's distinctive

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

-colored

cladding Cladding is an outer layer of material covering another. It may refer to the following: *Cladding (boiler), the layer of insulation and outer wrapping around a boiler shell *Cladding (construction), materials applied to the exterior of buildings ...

makes the building stand out among its neighboring skyscrapers in the MIBC as well as the entirety of Moscow. The building was originally designed to be surfaced in

reflective Reflection is the change in direction of a wavefront at an interface between two different media so that the wavefront returns into the medium from which it originated. Common examples include the reflection of light, sound and water waves. The ' ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

glass in order to mirror the buildings surrounding it, but this eventually was replaced by an equally reflective

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

-tinted glass. This gives the building a constant orange glow that makes it appear as it is embracing itself with the sunlight on the horizon. This was according to Egeraat in an interview with Arch.ru introduced by Egeraat's Russian colleagues. A media facade of two million

LEDs A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor device that emits light when current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy in the form of photons. The color of the light (cor ...

was installed on the exterior of the 67th and 68th floors of the building, the tallest media facade in Europe. The Mercury City Tower also has a unique setback shape, in which the building steps back twice along its northwestern facade, creating a tapering effect that extends the building's height in conjunction with the vertical skeletal striping that show its corners. Each setback has a slanted roof that supports the illusion of added height. For greater reliability, two independent reinforced concrete skeletons were provided to make the Mercury City Tower resistant against a 6.0

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

earthquake. This as a result gives the building a futuristic and high-tech look, fitting it in the Structural Expressionist architectural style. After Williams' death on 25 February 2010, his successor Egeraat stated it would be improper to make significant changes to the tower and focused on improving the upper levels of the building, elaborating a functional solution for the skyscraper, and developing interiors of public spaces.

Environmental

The building is claimed by architect Frank Williams as the first environmentally friendly building in Russia, since it was designed to collect melting snow water, as well as provide 70% of the workplaces with access to daylight. The building also features a smart “energy cycle” system that regulates energy usage, ambient temperatures, and hot water distribution throughout the development.

Features

Mercury City Tower is a

building, featuring offices, apartments, retail, restaurants, a

conference rooms A conference hall, conference room, or meeting room is a room provided for singular events such as business conferences and meetings. Room It is commonly found at large hotels and convention centers though many other establishments, including even ...

, and

parking space A parking space, parking place or parking spot is a location that is designated for parking, either paved or unpaved. It can be in a parking garage, in a parking lot or on a city street. The space may be delineated by road surface markings. ...

s. The apartments are located on the topmost floors of the building, and was designed to merge units, adding to the tower's overall space efficiency. The building has a total of 29 elevators, in which two of them are high-speed elevators travelling at a maximum speed of 7 m/s. Out of the 29 elevators, 20 are passenger elevators and 9 are service elevators. 10 of the passenger elevators operate with the TWIN system.

Construction gallery

File:Mercury Tower in Moscow-City 28-03-2010.jpg, March 2010 File:Меркурий сити тауэр на фоне остального Москва-сити.jpg, August 2010 File:10-11-2010 Mercury city tower.JPG, November 2010 File:Mercury City Tower 1st August 2011.jpg, August 2011 File:Mercury City Tower 20th October 2012.JPG, October 2012

Awards

* Mercury City Tower earned 7th place of the

Emporis Emporis GmbH was a real estate data mining company that was headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. The company collected data and photographs of buildings worldwide, which were published in an online database from 2000 to September 2022. On 12 Sept ...

Skyscraper Award Year 2013.

References

External links

*
M.M. Posokhin, russian architect website

Mosproject-2, russian architect agency's website

Mosproject-2, the project on the russian architect agency's website

The project on Frank Williams & Partners Architects LLP's website
{{Moscow-City Moscow International Business Center Buildings and structures completed in 2013 High-tech architecture Skyscraper office buildings in Moscow Residential skyscrapers in Moscow