Russia’s oil riches fuel building frenzy

W e are, essentially, in the process of constructing a new city," said Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, as the first stone was laid in Norman Foster's Russia Tower last week.

The building, which is due for completion in 2012, will be the tallest in Europe at 612 metres, and forms part of Moskva-City, a new Docklands-style area meant as a future business hub.

Foster's tower will go up alongside the 500m Federation Tower, to be completed next year and already visible from many parts of Moscow.

This month plans are being finalised for an even more outlandish project - a 60-floor skyscraper designed by Italian-Israeli architect David Fisher. Each floor will independently rotate around a central axis. "The same building never looks the same twice," said the Florence-based architect, in

Rotating skyscrapers and an artificial island are about to change the landscape, writes shaun walker

Moscow to finalise plans. If you own a whole floor, you can control the movement yourself. "It's voice controlled," said Fisher. "You just say, 'Right' or 'Left'; 'Speed 1' or 'Speed 2'." Motion sickness shouldn't be a problem – even at top speed, one full rotation takes an hour.

Whether these new buildings can fit in with an already surreal mix of styles - from Imperial grandeur to Stalinist neoclassicism and Brezhnev-era conformity – only time will tell.

There will be no such problems with oil-rich Russia's other building extravaganza – an artificial island to be built in the Black Sea, close to the city of Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics. The $6bn island will be made in the shape of Russia itself. The Rotterdam-based architect Erick van Egeraat has won the commission, which will include marinas, parkland, artificial rivers and housing for 25,000.