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HISTORY OF BIG SUR COAST

  A new dawn:              Locals had long called for a road along the coast to aid shipwreck victims and improve access to isolated communities.  Construction started in 1919, and 18 years, 32 tonnes of dynamite and 33 bridges later, the Big Sur stretch of California Highway One was complete.               The implausible route, with its myriad twists and turns and dramatic drop-offs, became an instant classic.  The author and painter Henry Miller fled to Big Sur in 1944 and stayed for nearly two decades.  Photographer Edward Weston and Beat Generation bard Jack Kerouac fell under its spell.  By the late 1960’s San Francisco’s counterculture revolution had swept down to Big Sur, and the likes of Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell performed on the cliff tops.              ...
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ASTANA

 The Bayterek Tower:

Astana


                    President Nazarbayev himself made the first sketches for Astana’s most famous monument: the Bayterek Tower.  The name means ‘tall poplar’ and the design embodies a popular legend.  The golden ball that tops the tower represents the egg of the samruk (or Simurgh), the mythical bird of happiness which, according to folklore, lays its magic egg each year in a poplar tree.  The observation deck provides views of the entire city.  Like all of Astana’s Key monuments, the tower is spectacularly illuminated at night.

                    The President’s workplace is the handsome palace known as Ak Orda ( white Horde), overlooking the broad Ishim River.  This relatively conservative building finished in White Italian marble was loosely modelled on the White House in Washington, but extended upwards, as if pulled skywards by its neat blue dome and golden spire. Close by, Kazakhstan Central Concert Hall provides a striking contrast. 
Designed by the Italian architect Manfredi Nicoletti, the dramatic, leaning exterior curls around three concert halls like shavings of steel.  Inaugurated in 2009, the hall contains one of the world’s largest classical-music venues, with 3,500 seats.

Astana


                      President Nazarbayev brought in British architect Norman Foster to build the extraordinary Palace of Peace and Reconciliation.  This 62m (203ft) high granite and glass pyramid contains a museum, library and opera house, as well as a congress hall with a huge circular conference table, designed for the delegates of the triennial Congress of World and Traditional religions.

                      At the other end of the city’s main east-west avenue is the Khan Shatyr (Royal Marquee), an entertainment centre resembling a massive leaning tent – another brainchild of President Nazarbayev realised by Norman Foster.  With a polymer roof suspended from cables rising t 150m (490ft), this is the world’s highest tensile structure.  Opened in 2010, it contains shops, theme-park rides and even a beach.  At night it glows with changing colours from inside.
Location: Nur-Sultan 020000, Kazakhstan

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