Russia Tower, designed by Lord Norman Foster, has been put on hold. Images from RussianLand.

The construction of Europe’s tallest building, Russia Tower, has been put on hold by its developers as a result of the global financial crisis.

The 600-metre high, 118-floor tower in Moscow was designed by British architect Lord Norman Foster, and was to be Russia’s answer to Canary Wharf in London or La Defense in Paris.

It was planned to be the centrepiece of Moskva City – a skyscraper development that would rise from an old industrial site surrounded by a highway, a railway, and the Moscow River, surrounded by cargo yards and Soviet-era apartment blocks.

According to Reuters, Shalva Chigirinsky, the property developer behind the tower, blamed US mismanagement of the global economy for the tower’s failure, “Say thanks to [former US federal reserve chairman] Alan Greenspan and George Bush.”

He told Russian news agency Interfax that Russian Land projects had “suffered” from being directed at the “super-luxury” segment of the market.

“Our problem is that we cannot carry out these projects in the current economic situation and given the current state of financial institutions in the country and abroad. The interest rate is high and there are no credit resources,” he said.

Work on the tower began in September 2007 and it was due to be completed in 2012. Foster + Partners’ website states: “Located in Moscow City, 5.5km from Red Square, Russia Tower will be a mixed-use, super-dense vertical city for 25,000 people, with offices, a hotel, shopping and apartments with private gardens…it will be the tallest naturally ventilated tower in the world and one of the greenest new buildings in Europe.”

The Russia Tower is the second Foster skyscraper to have fallen victim to the financial crisis, after the U2 Tower in Dublin was mothballed in October 2008.

Foster has designed two more Chigirinsky projects: the Zaryadye cultural, residential and business centre to replace the Hotel Rossiya and New Holland Island, a stadium complex on an artificial island in St. Petersburg’s Neva River delta.