Palace of Peace and Reconciliation
Foster + Partners / Norman Foster · Astana, Kazakhstan · 2006
The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation is a monumental glass-and-stone pyramid built to host the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. Foster + Partners organized assembly, exhibition and performance spaces within a pure geometric volume whose apex contains stained glass by Brian Clarke. Internal ramps and lifts move visitors upward toward the brightly lit summit, contrasting with the more enclosed lower levels. Opened in 2006, the building is one of the clearest architectural statements of Astana’s early twenty-first-century transformation and of the capital’s reliance on singular symbolic landmarks.