Italian architects are to build a new futuristic metropolis the size of Manhattan in the Volga region of Russia.
Milan-based firm Dante O. Benini won a tender earlier this month to build the urban complex across the river from Russia's third largest city, Nizhni Novgorod.
The firm pulled out all the stops to meet the deadline for the design of the 100-billion-euro city.
''It took us just two months to come up with the master plan with a team of 50 people working round the clock,'' said Luca Gonzo, Benini's senior partner.
Globe Town will replace the small, run-down town of Bor and will feature skyscrapers in glass, aluminium and steel arranged in ascending and descending order of height to create an undulating skyline.
The city gets its name from what will be its signature building - a huge transparent, illuminated globe 120 metres in diameter that will house a theatre, museums, a cinema and shopping centres.
Globe Town will also have a public park four times bigger than New York's Central Park as well as stadiums, hotels, sports centres and a large river port on the banks of the Volga.
The regional government of Nizhni Novgorod hopes the new complex, which will provide housing for 500,000 people, will act as a spillover for the crowded industrial city.
Streets as wide as motorways will allow 250,000 cars to circulate in the city, which will be connected to Nizhni Novgorod by four bridges and an underground tunnel.
Snow covers the area where the city will be built for half of the year, and the site is also vulnerable to being swamped by the Volga river.
''To overcome the problem of flooding the water will be channelled into canals, while four million square metres of land where we're going to put the buildings will be raised eight metres above ground level,'' Gonzo explained.
An underground system will pump hot water to heat the houses in winter and will store cold water and ice to cool the city in summer.
To make the city eco-friendly, the architects will use 'smog eating' material - photocatalytic asphalt and cement that gobbles up pollution from the air - and will also build a gasifier to convert household rubbish into fuel.
Green spaces will cover around 15 million square metres, or around half of the city's total surface area.
Nizhni Novgorod's regional government has already stumped up 20 billion euros, which will include the creation of an underground train system that will cross the Volga river through a tunnel.
The remaining 80 billion euros will come from private investment.
Work on the city is set to begin in 2010, with completion slated for 2020.
Benini, 61, studied in Venice, London and Sao Paulo in Brazil, where he was taught by the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.
He has designed industrial buildings, pharmaceutical laboratory complexes, family homes, showrooms and shops in Italy and abroad, including projects in New York, Japan, Hong Kong and Turkey.
Globe Town is his most ambitious project so far.
