A grand model of the Soviet-era Ostankino TV and radio tower in Moscow, rendered in aluminum and mounted on a block of slate. It stands 54 cm tall (21.25"). The Ostankino Tower (Останкинская телебашня, Ostankinskaya telebashnya) was designed by Nikolai Nikitin and is currently the tallest free-standing structure in Europe and the 11th tallest in the world at a height of 540.1 m (1,772 ft). It was built to mark the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution and is named after the district of Moscow it occupies. Its construction began in 1963 and was completed in 1967, at which point the Ostankino surpassed the Empire State Building to become the tallest free-standing structure in the world. It held on to the record until 1975 when it was overtaken by Toronto's CN Tower (553.3 m). It would remain second-tallest for another 32 years until the Burj Khalifa (829.8 m) in Dubai dwarfed both it and the CN Tower in 2007. A 1994 plan to increase the tower's height by adding an antenna was never implemented.