Architectural tour of the futuristic city – Astana, Kazakhstan

The Kazakh capital Astana is a planned city built 20 years ago. Astana has probably been the weirdest capital city I’ve every visited (I had never been to any other of these planned cities before, such as Canberra and Ankara or Brasilia). It is sometimes not so understandable how they moved the capital from the green, historic and lively Almaty to the inhospitable Central Asian steppe, the world’s largest expanse of steppe. If you look at the map, Astana is basically located in the middle of nothing.

Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa made the master plan of Astana with his utopic and futuristic vision. Now follow me to a architectural tour in Astana.

_{In front of Astana EXPO 2017 center.}

_{Inside the EXPO center.}

_{Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center, the world biggest tent.}

_{The door shaped architecture behind is the headquarters of KazMunayGas, the state-owned oil and gas company.}

_{Headquarters of the Nur Otan Party, ever since 2007 it is headed by the President, Nursultan Nazarbayev.}

_{Independence Square and monument “The Kazakh Eli”.}

_{Pano view of Palace of Peace and Accord, Highville complex, Nur-Astana Mosque, Shabyt (aka the Dog Bowl) that includes a school of fine arts, lecture, exhibition halls, performance spaces, …}

_{Aqorda Presidential Palace.}