Khan Shatyr (Astana)
A giant transparent tent designed by Norman Foster, housing a shopping and entertainment centre with an indoor beach.
About
Khan Shatyr is a vast, tent-shaped building about 150 metres tall, held up by a central mast and steel cables and covered with a transparent membrane. It looks like a great peaked tent pitched at the edge of the city.
Inside, the climate is kept mild all year, with shops, restaurants, a cinema, a boating canal and a sand beach with warm water. It is a good place to warm up in winter, when the temperature outside can drop below minus 30.
History
The building was designed by the British architect Norman Foster and his firm Foster and Partners and opened in 2010. Its name means the tent of the khan, and its shape was inspired by the nomadic yurt and tent dwellings of the Kazakh steppe, reimagined in modern materials. The covering is made of ETFE, a lightweight transparent plastic that lets in daylight and traps heat from the sun, which helps keep the interior comfortable even when it is far below freezing outside. The structure covers a huge area and is regarded as one of the largest tent-like buildings in the world. Foster designed several landmark projects in Astana, including the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation. Khan Shatyr was intended to give the capital a place for public life in harsh winters, and it quickly became both a shopping centre and a symbol of the new city.