The CEO Magazine Australia — November 2017

94 | theceomagazine.com

ARCHITECTURE

ON OVERDRIVE

The post-Soviet style of the new

city centre is a wild mix of cutting-

edge modernism, postmodernism

and Very Large Shiny Things,

some of it designed by big-name

architectural practices. Vast, neat

plazas are swept each winter by far

sub-zero winds. The new city’s

main organising concept is the

dome shape that appears on

buildings such as the palace,

parliament and airport, echoing the

domes of traditional Kazakh

mosques. Various modernist

shapes have nicknames such as the

‘Dogbowl’, the ‘Beer Cans’ and the

‘Cigarette Lighter’ (whose top once

spectacularly caught fire).

CITY OF
YOUTH

Migration has slashed the
average age of Astana’s
residents to the low 30s; an
entire generation of young
public servants has moved
to the city in the past 15 years
and started having children.