Khan Shatyr Entertainment Center
Khan Shatyr ("Royal Marquee") is a giant transparent tent in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan. The architectural project was unveiled by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev on December 9, 2006. The 150m-high (500 ft) tent has a 200m elliptical base covering 140,000 square metres (14 ha; 35 acres).[1] Underneath the tent, an area larger than 10 football stadiums, is an urban-scale internal park, shopping and entertainment venue with squares and cobbled streets, a boating river, shopping centre, minigolf and indoor beach resort. The roof is constructed from ETFE-cushions provided by Vector Foiltec suspended on a network of cables strung from a central spire. The transparent material allows sunlight through which, in conjunction with air heating and cooling systems, is designed to maintain an internal temperature between 15–30 °C (59–86 °F) in the main space and 19–24 °C (66–75 °F) in the retail units, while outside the temperature varies between -35 and 35 °C (-31 and 95 °F) across the year.