Does St Petes Need a Skyscraper?

Results on Friday of a vote for the best design for a skyscraper in St Petersburg, Russia, won't solve the problem that many locals are angry about.

Russian energy company Gazprom is due to announce on Friday the results of a design contest for their new headquarters buildling in St Petersburg. Sounds lovely, but when you hear that the building will be a skyscraper tall enough to dwarf all of St Petersburg's elegant churches and other historic sites, you might not be so happy.

The proposed site for the headquarters is next to the Neva River, opposite the blue and white Smolny Cathedral. The proposed heights will make the building three or four times higher than the main attractions nearby. Somehow, a St Petersburg building regulation stating that buildings can only reach a maximum height of 48m is easily being bypassed by the project.

For Russian-speaking readers, you can learn more about the design contest at the official Gazprom site; even if your Russian's not quite up to scratch, you can surf around and see some of the designs. None are intrinsically bad designs, but I certainly feel like they're heading for the wrong place.