52 countries to present designs of EXPO-2017 exhibition center

52 countries will present the draft designs of the exhibition center for EXPO-2017, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the official website of Astana administration. “75 participants from 52 countries will present their best drafts of the EXPO exhibition center in Astana: Germany, Italy, Austria, Kazakhstan, the U.S., Norway, Russia, Portugal and Korea. And this, of course, is not the full list of participants of the international architectural contest,” the message says. “I think we will suggest unique solutions to the issues related to rational use of resources to keep our land and region from depletion. This will be the basic idea,” the website sites president of Kazakhstan City Planners Union Lyubov Nyssanbayeva as saying. Representative of Italian company Lucca Francesco Nicoletti has been taking part in development of projects for Astana for the past 10 years. His company designed and built Kazakhstan Central Concert Hall in Astana. “The most important is that the project fits into the city’s architecture and has a projection into the future. I think that it will be something important and colossal. This will become another brand of Astana. EXPO topic is very important and interesting, it unites everything: the national specifics and the green economy. It is very important to make a connection between the national identity and the future,” the Italian architect said. 75 participants have already been registered for the contest. They include 51 foreign and 22 Kazakhstan companies, as well as 2 joint ventures. The companies that had successfully designed EXPO exhibition facilities before have also been invited to take part in the contest. The jury will be made of Kazakhstan President’s architectural council. The submission started on February 18 and will last until July 18. The jury will organize an exhibition of the designs for Astana citizens on August 12-19. The results will be summed up before September 1, 2013.