Mercury City Tower

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 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. By 21 April 2009, Mercury City Tower had just finished foundation work: finishing earthworks 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 at , overtaking the Moscow Tower of the neighboring City of Capitals complex as the tallest building of Russia and The Shard in London as tallest building of Europe. It also became the world's tallest building built of reinforced concrete. In May 2021 this building, alongside the Chinese and Russian diplomatic facilities in Australia, were the targets of a bomb threat posted on Dutch 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-colored cladding 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 silver glass in order to mirror the buildings surrounding it, but this eventually was replaced by an equally reflective bronze-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 was installed on the exterior of the 67th and 68th floors of the building, the tallest media facade in Europe. 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 mixed-use building, featuring offices, apartments, retail, restaurants, a fitness center, conference rooms, and parking spaces. 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 Skyscraper Award Year 2013. ==References==