Mercury City Tower

Mercury City Tower is a supertall skyscraper in the Moscow International Business Center, in Moscow, Russia. It is 338.8 metres (1,112 feet) tall, was finished in 2013, and has a copper-gold glass skin that shines in the sun. It stands on plot 14.

It houses offices, apartments, a fitness centre and shops. When it topped out in November 2012 it became the tallest building in Russia and in Europe, passing The Shard in London, and it kept those titles until the summer of 2014, when a tower in the neighbouring OKO complex went higher. Today it is the fifth-tallest building in Europe.

Who designed it

American architect Frank Williams and the Russian engineering team Mosproject-2, led by Mikhail Posokhin, developed the design together. After Williams died in 2010, Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat took over and finished the work. Building began in 2006, but the developers slowed the project during the Great Recession so that they would not release the flats at a bad time.

Records

Besides being Europe's tallest building for a while, Mercury City Tower is the tallest building in the world built of reinforced concrete. The tower covers a total area of about 174,000 square metres. It stands on plot 14 of the business district, among other very tall towers. It held the title of Europe's tallest building for about a year and a half, from late 2012 to the summer of 2014, before the OKO South Tower next door overtook it as the tallest building in Russia and Europe.

On the globe

The model shows the long, pointed-end tower in copper-gold glass whose mass steps down in sloping cuts.