What is a tower, a skyscraper from the point of view of associative perception? What is the first image that comes to mind when we’re looking at the next multi-story hulk?

Of course, this is a column – an eternal archetype, a form that is both architectural and mythological. Here, it is impossible not to quote the connoisseur of antiquity Mikhail Gasparov: “It was believed that [the Temple of Apollo at Delphi] was the very first Greek temple – the first house to be built for the god who descended from heaven to the people. Apollo’s sacred bees brought a wax model of a colonnaded edifice from nowhere; they used it to build a wooden temple, then a copper one in its place, then a stone one in its place. All other Greek temples were copies of this one”.

A skyscraper is a column propping up the sky, or an obelisk – a kind of antenna, catching signals from beyond. One of the first to trace and mark this figurative connection was the prominent Austrian architect Adolf Loos, who designed the Chicago Tribune skyscraper in the form of a giant Doric column hoisted on a pedestal. He undoubtedly understood the sacred nature of the vertical.

Thus, with certain reservations, of course, any cluster of skyscrapers can be likened to a temple – not so much a pagan temple or a Christian temple, as a temple of high technology, a monument to humanity’s own exceptional status.

Ostozhenka in its project of the multifunctional high-rise complex INDY Towers interpreted the theme of “hyper-colonnade” in a slightly playful way, in the spirit of Italian Gothic: the towers standing on Kuusinen Street, which have varying height, are sometimes elongated, sometimes squat, or slightly broken, seem to resemble the fanciful twin columns that decorate the upper gallery of the southern facade of Ferrara Cathedral – twisted, zigzagging, and covered with reliefs. INDY Towers is a riot of colors and a triumph of diversity; an architectural quintet (there are five towers) in which everything is different, yet everything is harmonious.

Maria Dekhtyar, Ostozhenka

The first versions of façade solutions were rather restrained and rational. Then it became obvious to us that such architecture would not be able to “hold” the space around it. And the client had initially expressed the wish that we should come up with something eccentric. This is how we came up with the image of a golden-colored crenellated tower, partly inspired by Constantin Brâncuşi’s sculpture “The Infinite Column”. The other towers, each with its own unique character, were already conceived with an eye on the central dominant. There are several themes involved in the project, so everyone can have their own associations. The peculiarity of the project lies in this multi-thematic nature. The story is intrinsically eclectic.