Asymptote Architecture’s has designed the new ZIL Gateway Tower in Moscow, Russia, which broke ground September 9, 2016. The new 150-meter high tower is part of the larger initiative ZILART, a new 1.5 million-square-meter urban redevelop- ment project under way on the former site of the ZIL automotive factory in central Moscow. The site and the project are being developed by the most prominent real estate developers in Russia: LSR Group. The new ZIL Gate- way Tower is a 40-story, 47,000 square-meter building that accommodates 373 residential units in an iconic tower atop a podium that includes retail uses, art galleries and LSR’s head offices.

The building’s architectural strength stems from the careful juxtaposition of three distinctive components actualizing a contemporary composition, reminiscent of the great constructivist work of the late 1920s. The balance of the podium, the tower, and a striking suspended cube shape the ZIL Tower’s distinctive silhouette that stands out against Moscow’s skyline.

Coupled with this formal strategy is an architectural aspect to the building’s fenestration and surface modulation creating a contextual reference to the illustrious and powerful history of the ZIL district, an area that – since the

dawn of Moscow’s industrial age – has housed generations of automotive and machine factories. The ZIL Gateway Tower as envisioned by Asymp- tote pays homage to this extraordinary site, its memory, and its ongoing life as part of Moscow’s architectural and urbanistic tradition.

At the street level the building’s podium forms a pass-through, a mews connecting the ZIL Boulevard to the ZILART Park. Flanked by art galleries and outdoor exhibits, this contemporary arcade brings into the heart of the residential complex the fundamentals of ZIL’s cultural ambitions.

The architecture of the ZIL Gateway Tower celebrates the historic site and its importance as a former industrial district. By offering unparalleled archi- tecture it will act as a significant urban marker of the ZILART initiative by having recourse to a new approach to contemporary lifestyle that merges art, culture, architecture and sense of place.