Palace of Peace and Reconciliation
— — a pyramid built to hold a conversation.
Not only on a wall.
“A 62-metre glass pyramid on the steppe, set down where the Ishim bends through Kazakhstan's capital. Norman Foster drew it; the city raised it in under two years. Inside, an opera hall sits beneath an apex of stained-glass doves. The building was made to hold a triennial gathering of the world's religious leaders, and most days it simply waits for them.
Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation stands on the left bank of the Ishim River in Astana, Kazakhstan's capital since 1997. Designed by Foster + Partners and completed in 2006, the pyramid measures 62 metres on each side and 62 metres tall, matching the base to the height. It anchors the Left Bank ensemble of new ministerial buildings laid along the Nurzhol axis, a short walk from the Bayterek tower and the Ak Orda presidential residence.
The apex is a stained-glass lantern of 130 panels designed by the British artist Brian Clarke, populated by white doves circling a sun. Daylight passes through it onto the opera hall five storeys below, where 1,300 seats face a stage hung from cables. In Astana's long winters the steppe sky stays pale until mid-afternoon, and the lantern reads as a cool blue. In summer the doves catch a yellower light that holds late into the evening.
The Palace was built to house the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, convened in Astana every three years since 2003. Between congresses it operates as a cultural venue: the opera hall, a 1,500-seat ground-level theatre, an atrium with hanging gardens, and a small museum of Kazakh national history. Guided tours run daily from the Bayterek-side entrance, and an outdoor plaza connects the pyramid to the Hazret Sultan Mosque across the avenue.