French artists design Tower for St. Pete birthday

A Peace Tower will be unveiled in Sennaya Square during next year's galas to mark the foundation tricentenary of St. Petersburg.

Designed by French architect Jean-Michel Vilmotte, the Peace Tower, 18 metres high, will be a vertical metal frame with a hemisphere of durable glass to each side, the word PEACE engraved on it in all languages of the world, says Clara Halter, prominent French artist and author of the tower concept. She also designed the lettering for the inscriptions.

Lit from the inside, the tower will be topped by two vertical laser rays to make it optically even higher. They will be seen from every point in the city.

The granite pedestal will have enough room to bear a great many copper plates with the signatures of all heads of state and prime ministers who will visit St. Petersburg for its tricentennial and later on. "That will be a way to declare their dedication to the peace cause. The custom will give the Peace Tower not only a political content but an up-to-date air of an open and democratic work of art," Mme Halter said to RIA Novosti.