How Russia Built the Billion Dollar Glass Spear That Changed Saint Petersburg Forever

How Russia Built the Billion-Dollar Glass Spear That Changed Saint Petersburg Forever

Rising above the shores of the Gulf of Finland, Lakhta Center has become the tallest building in Europe and the new symbol of Saint Petersburg. Standing four hundred and sixty-two meters tall, the twisting glass tower transformed a quiet coastal district into one of Russia’s most ambitious urban developments.

Building the project required engineers to construct a massive foundation supported by two hundred and sixty-four deep piles, overcome harsh Baltic winds and freezing winters, assemble a complex twisting structure that rotates nearly ninety degrees from base to summit, and install the world's largest cold-bent glass façade system ever used on a skyscraper.

Join Mandarin Tech as we explore how Russia built this billion-dollar engineering marvel — from unstable coastal ground and record-breaking concrete pours to the soaring glass spire that forever changed the skyline of Saint Petersburg.


Video Chapters:
00:00 Intro
01:01 Overview
02:15 Foundation
04:25 Construction of the Central Core
06:05 Construction of the Twisting Tower Structure
07:29 Constructing the Spire
08:54 Installing the Glass Façade
10:47 Finishing and Commissioning
12:18 Significance
13:47 Outro

Audio tracks for some languages were automatically generated.