PEACE AND RECONCILIATION PALACE

A little long and a little pompous, this name is rarely used and Kazakhs prefer to speak of the "Pyramid". Opposite the "White House", this is one of Astana's most visible and remarkable architectural structures. Designed by British architect Norman Foster and erected between 2004 and 2006, its four 62-metre-long faces face the four cardinal points, each symbolizing a facet of ideal humanity: friendship, solidarity, peace and tolerance. The primary function of the pyramid, which culminates at a height of 77 metres, is to host international congresses, but it also houses an exhibition center and an acoustically sophisticated opera and ballet hall with a capacity of 1,500 spectators. When it was inaugurated in 2006, the singer Montserrat Caballé (1933-2018) came to give a recital! The construction of the pyramid is a real feat in itself: the materials used are highly sensitive to Astana's extreme temperature variations (from -40°C in winter to +45°C in summer), and the entire building expands by almost 30 cm as a result of thermal expansion and contraction. The interior is divided into five levels, and the largest hall, covering 2,000^m2, houses the permanent Astana 2030 exhibition, which provides an overview of all past, present and future development projects for the steppe capital.