Moscow: The Latest Architecture and News

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SVESMI, an unassuming studio based in central Rotterdam, is at the center of a dauntingly complex project that may eventually see the renovation of 448 dilapidated and disused branch libraries in Moscow. Architects Anastassia Smirnova and Alexander Sverdlov balance their time between Rotterdam, which acts as their design studio, and Moscow from which, alongside architects Maria Kataryan and Pavel Rueda, they oversee the project at large. Faced by the potential challenge of reimagining over 450 public 'living rooms' spread across the Russian capital and demanding unusually high levels of spatial articulation and social understanding, the Open Library project is also unwinding the hidden narrative of Moscow’s local libraries.

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Groundlab, WOWHAUS and Urbanica have been announced as winners of an international competition to redesign Sokolniki Park, Moscow’s largest park. Over the next 15 years, their 515 hectare masterplan, "Sokolniki. Nature's embassy in Moscow," will focus on preserving the 19th century park’s unique natural landscape as an extension of the Losiny Ostrov nature park by dividing it into three zones: Forest, Forest Park and Regular Park.

Images of the winning design, after the break.

Videos

ASTOC and HPP have been announced as winners of a two-stage competition to masterplan “New Moscow’s” International Financial Center (IFC) in Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye. The phased, 460 hectare development will capitalize on the Moscow River’s greenbelt by extending the river landscape throughout the IFC to achieve a balance between nature and city.

More information, images and a video about the winning proposal, after the break…

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Competitions results for the first stage of the Moscow Metro Station for Solntsevo and Novoperedelkino have been announced. Aiming to revive the tradition of unique designs for Moscow metro stations since the 1930s-50s, this is the first time in the recent expansion of Moscow's Metro system that a competition has been used to find an architect.

The jury at the Committee for Architecture and Urban Planning of Moscow has chosen 10 finalists out of approximately 100 entries who will continue to work on the architectural design concepts of the stations until November. See images of all ten proposals after the break.

Moscow's Cultural Heritage Department has stepped in to save Vladimir Shukhov's historic 1922 Shabolovka Radio Tower, with a conservation order protecting its materials, architectural composition, structural elements and location. The news will be a relief to the many architects - including Tadao Ando, Elizabeth Diller, Rem Koolhaas and Thom Mayne - who agreed with Norman Foster that the tower is "a structure of dazzling brilliance and great historical importance", and signed a petition urging for the structure to be saved.

Thanks to the conservation order, the neglected building will have to be repaired, and Moscow City Hall now hopes to collaborate with Russia's national government to organize an open international competition the restoration and re-purposing of the 160m tower.

Read on after the break for more on the Shukhov Tower's proposed future

Have you ever wondered what a thought might look like traveling through your brain? In a recent installation in Moscow's Nikola-Lenivets park, media design firm Radugadesign animated the inner workings of the human brain with an innovative video projection. Universal Mind, a sculptural installation by artist Nikolay Polissky, serves as the immobile backdrop for the elaborate video mapping project. Over the course of nearly eight minutes, Polissky's brain-like sculpture explodes into a maelstrom of light and sound, with carefully curated streams of energetic colour interspersed with dark scenes of manufactured glimmering starlight.

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Videos

In their collateral event for the debut of the Moscow pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the exhibition "Moskva: urban space" explores the historic development of public spaces and examines the city’s progress in the context of Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s winning proposal for Zaryadye Park. Curated by Sergey Kuznetsov, Chief Architect of Moscow together with Kristin Kristin Feireiss from AEDES, and organized by MCA - Moscow Committee of Architecture and Urban Development, the exhibition comes at a pivotal moment in determining the future of urban development in Moscow. As Kuznetsov states, "While the face of Moscow in the past 100 years was largely determined by the architecture of its buildings, representing political and economic developments, today’s urban singularity is based on the “connective fabric” of its public spaces that have become equally important identity-makers and contributes significantly to improving the quality of urban life for its citizens." To see photos of the exhibition by Patricia Parinejad and learn more about the story behind it, continue reading after the break.

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Dutch architect Winy Maas has been selected as the curator for the Strelka Institute’s 2014-2015 academic year. One of the co-founders of Rotterdam-based firm MVRDV, Maas also lectures and teaches all over the world, most recently serving as a visiting professor of architectural design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as a professor of architecture and urban design at Delft University of Technology.

With applications closing on the 26th of July, those wishing to apply to the prestigious Strelka Institute in Moscow need to act fast. The Strelka Institute is a non-governmental research institute with a particular focus on the City, using multidisciplinary techniques from fields as varied as sociology, economics, architecture, political and cultural studies. Since 2012, Strelka has been among DOMUS Magazine's top 100 European Schools of Design and Architecture.

Successful applicants will study at the Strelka institute for free, with each student receiving a monthly scholarship to focus on their studies.

More after the break

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Competition organizers Archpolis have announced an international shortlist of ten practices that will go on to compete for the chance to redesign Moscow's Sokolniki Park. The park, which at 515 Hectares is the largest park in Moscow, is an important part of Moscow's Heritage, having first been used for recreation as a site for falcon hunting in the 15th century.

During the 19th century, the park was officially established, and bestowed with a distinctive radial design.The winner of the competition will be expected to work within this framework, as in 1979 the park became a protected monument of garden-park design from the 17th through 19th centuries.

Read on after the break for the shortlist

Russian practice Meganom has won a competition to redesign the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. Their winning entry seeks to transform the museum complex into a hive of cultural activity, preserving the institution's world-class art collection whilst "actively engaging with the surrounding territory as a potential space for exhibition, dialogue, and communication." The project focuses less on the provision of new areas but rather provides a single unified platform for a series of discordant parts, tying together all the elements of the environment into one cohesive design - "from buildings and monuments to benches and navigation."

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