felipe escudero's crystal city rises like a glacier in the metaverse

Crystal City, the newest destination in the metaverse, is now open to the public. Its central crystalline tower, at 548 feet, is the tallest multi-use building in Decentraland, a leading metaverse platform to buy and sell digital assets. Designed by Estudio Felipe Escudero for metaverse developer LEDY and Decent Amusements, the manager of the district, Crystal City breaks through the limitations of the contemporary physical world. By defying gravity and material properties, it offers a transcendent, immersive experience that can only exist in the digital world.

The 16-acre project will host offices, shops, galleries, events, and the highest observation deck in Decentraland, giving businesses, retailers, and creators the opportunity to lease spaces in the towers, marketplace, and event area. Brands may also lease open parcels to develop their unique HQ structures.

images courtesy of Estudio Felipe Escudero and LEDY

Crystal City's soaring, metallic, crystal-shaped tower springs up and outward like a glacier rising from its iceberg bed, with the observation deck encircling one of the tower's branches on the 16th floor. A large, public event space the size of two football fields makes up the base, its series of cutouts recalling the crevasses found in glaciers. Furthermore, in the middle of the event space is GEM, a two-story tall, organic-shaped sculpture by Escudero (see more here) that can serve as a communal gallery space.

rising like a glacier from its iceberg bed

Within the public-event area sits a marketplace, the floor of which gives the illusion of a thin layer of shimmering water. Above it hangs a gravity-defying ceiling of wafer-thin ice hovering like a spacecraft. As the open market gets built out and rises upward with new space for retailers and other tenants, the ceiling ice will melt away to accommodate the growth, a nod to what is happening in our physical world, where glaciers melt in the face of climate change, but without consequence to the earth and its inhabitants.

organic shapes take over the design

While parcels in Decentraland, one of the largest and most well-known metaverses, must normally be purchased for thousands of dollars, Crystal City will allow artists, creators, and businesses to lease space at affordable rates. Developers and tenants can then use their imaginations to create their own fantastical hubs.

Having become enamored with Crystal City while designing it for LEDY, Felipe Escudero will house a studio and gallery in a structure of his own design, resembling an enormous, floating glacier near the towers. Gallery OBIO will showcase Escudero's recently launched OBIO projects that mix music and videos with fashion and object, and will be accessible via teleportation.

a large and public event space makes up the base of Crystal City

‘Crystal City's design is meant to inspire wonder and spark creativity. It will be a major new landmark in the metaverse, and with constant new experiences and events will become a destination for social interaction, discovery, and exploration,’ comments LEDY co-founder Mark D’Andrea.

The unveiling of the project took place on October 10th, 2022. In addition to Gallery OBIO, the opening featured Diverge, the next-gen Metaverse fashion brand building high-end wearables and experiences. In November, Crystal City will also host a metaverse incarnation of the Sunset Strip, including designs inspired by the world-famous Whiskey-a-Go-Go and Rainbow Bar & Grill. You can enter and discover Crystal City HERE.