A 606-ft-high chiseled obelisk designed by FXFOWLE, New York City, will delineate the eastern entrance to Istanbul when construction finishes in July 2014. Renaissance Tower, as the office building will be known, is being developed by Ankara-based Renaissance Construction Co., which plans to lease most of the 914,900-sq-ft high-rise.
Located on the Asian side of Istanbul, the 44-story tower will be a highly visible landmark in this city of roughly 12 million people. Situated in the developing commercial hub of Kozyatagi at the intersection of Istanbul’s two major motorways, the tower “feels like the gateway to the east of the city, on a piece of land that is basically a free-standing in-the-round site,” said FXFOWLE design partner Dan Kaplan.