The St. Petersburg Times

A 300-meter-tall twisting glass tower dubbed "the corn on the cob" beat out five international rivals to win the contentious competition to build a new Gazprom headquarters in St. Petersburg. The decision infuriated critics, and a group of St. Petersburg's cultural luminaries, including Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky, filmmaker Alexander Sokurov, rock musician Yury Shevchuk and writer Daniil Granin threw their weight behind what threatens to become a city-wide campaign against the construction. Yury Sdobnov, vice-president of the Russian Union of Architects has already branded the winning design "blasphemous." The British design has also been dubbed the "Tower of Babylon" by its critics. The head of the Hermitage Museum said the building will blight the city's landscape. "It is a new economic symbol for St. Petersburg," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told reporters at a ceremony at the company's current St. Petersburg offices, where he and Governor Valentina Matviyenko announced the winning design by British architect RMJM.