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8 Projects that Exemplify Moscow's Urban Movement

• Written by Marie Chatel
• Published on July 27, 2016

When it comes to urbanism these days, people’s attention is increasingly turning to Moscow . The city clearly intends to become one of the world’s leading megacities in the near future and is employing all necessary means to achieve its goal, with the city government showing itself to be very willing to invest in important urban developments (though not without some criticism ).

A key player in this plan has been the Moscow Urban Forum . Although the forum’s stated goal is to find adequate designs for future megacities, a major positive side-effect is that it enables the city to organize the best competitions, select the best designers, and build the best urban spaces to promote the city of Moscow. The Forum also publishes research and academic documents to inform Moscow’s future endeavors; for example, Archaeology of the Periphery , a publication inspired by the 2013 forum and released in 2014, notably influenced the urban development on the outskirts of Moscow, but also highlighted the importance of combining urban development with the existing landscape.

Concluding earlier this month, the 2016 edition of the Moscow Urban Forum focused on smart cities and the impact of technology on the ways we interact with people and use public infrastructure and civic spaces. The 2016 Forum invited city officials, urbanists, and architectural practitioners – including Yuri Grigoryan from Project MEGANOM ; Pei Zhu from Studio Pei Zhu ; Hani Rashid from Asymptote ; Reinier de Graaf from OMA ; Yosuke Hayano from MAD Architects ; and Kengo Kuma from Kengo Kuma Architects – to share about their knowledge and experiences in urban design. With the city looking forward to the built results of the latest Forum, we take a look back at some of the major developments in Moscow that have emerged in the past five years.

1) Gorky Park and Garage Museum

In 2010 the city government decided to improve Muscovites’ urban environment and create public spaces, and Gorky Park was the first project of note. The Russian equivalent of Central Park, it used to attract masses of tourists to its amusement park, but no residents would spend time there. Its reconstruction began in 2011 and featured infrastructure for strolling, sport, work, culture and leisure.

Inside the park lies the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art , a landmark building from the Brezhnev communist era which was renovated and transformed by OMA in 2015. The Dutch firm kept the original structure “as found,” only repairing elements from its prefabricated concrete walls – often clad with brick and decorative green tiles. Instead, the redesign focused on a double-skin facade of polycarbonate plastic that enclosed the original structure and preserved it from decay.

2) Zaryadye Park, Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Due to open in 2018, Zaryadye Park designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro is probably one of Moscow ’s most cutting-edge projects. Located next to the Kremlin, the Red Square, and St Basil’s Cathedral, the project embodies what the architects calls “Wild Urbanism.” The project notably includes four artificial microclimates that mimic Russian landscape typologies: the steppe, the forest, the wetland and tundra. “It is a park for Russia made from Russia,” as Charles Renfro explains , in that “it samples the natures of Russia and merges them with the city, to become a design that could only happen here. It embodies a wild urbanism, a place where architecture and landscape are one.”

3) Moscow Riverfront, Project Meganom

Russian firm Project Meganom has also designed an ambitious project for Moscow ’s riverfront. Their masterplan also aims for a dialogue between the built and natural environment. A series of linear green spaces follow the river, and lines for pedestrians, cyclists, cars, and public transport are clearly delineated, improving the use of the public squares. River embankments are also transformed to function as areas for activities, communication, education and creativity nodes for public gathering.

4) Krymskaya Embankment, Wowhaus Architecture Bureau

Wowhaus Architecture Bureau recently transformed the 4-lane road at Krymskaya Embankment into a landscape park that connects Gorky Park with Krymsky bridge. The area used to be deserted, but is now reactivated with distinct transit and sport zones, as well as pavilions for artists’ exhibitions. Wave-shaped bicycle ramps, paths, and benches feature on the artificial landscape, which is also used for sledding, skiing, and skating in the winter.

5) Hermitage Museum and ZiL Tower in Moscow, Asymptote Architecture

New York architectural firm Asymptote Architecture are currently building two projects, a 150-meter residential tower and a satellite facility for St Petersburg’s well-known Hermitage Museum , where modern and contemporary art collections will be displayed. Situated in one of Moscow ’s oldest industrial areas, Asymptote’s buildings will lie in place of a Constructivist factory – which explains why the museum was reportedly inspired by El Lissitzky's "Proun" painting, as the terrace interior clearly shows.

6) “My Street”

“My Street” is the largest-scale program led by Moscow ’s government. The project aims to create about 50 kilometers of new pedestrian zones within the city center and periphery. The extensive program aims to solve parking issues, renovate street facades, and repair sidewalks and walkways with delimited areas for public transports, cars, cyclists, and pedestrians. “My Street” also requires a strong governance strategy and coordination; led by the Strelka Institute’s consultation arm KB Strelka , the project also involves 17 Russian and foreign architecture practices that were all individually in charge of one street, square or group of streets. Notable architects include the German firm Topotek 1 , the Dutch group West 8 , and the Russian firm Tsimailo , Lyashenko and Partners.

7) Moscow Metro

Moscow Metro is an architectural masterpiece that has been elaborated on since the 1920s. Its stations from the Stalin era are known for their unique designs with high ceilings, elaborate chandeliers and fine granite and marble cladding. To ensure that Moscow Metro remains an emblem of the city’s urban culture and powerful transportation system, the city’s government organized various competitions for the renovation of some Metro stations. Russian-based practice Nefa Architects was chosen to redesign Moscow’s Solntsevo Metro Station, while Latvian firm U-R-A will transform Novoperedelkino Subway Station . New stations are also being built, including two stations by Russian firms Timur Bashkayev Architectural Bureau and Buromoscow which should be completed by the end of 2018.

8) Luzhniki Stadium

Luzhniki Stadium is Moscow ’s main venue for sporting and cultural events. With Russia hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup , the stadium should reflect Moscow’s intent to become a leading megacity, which is why $540 million has been spent on construction works. Its renovation mainly focuses on the roof and seating areas, and the capacity is planned to increase up to 81,000 seats. Works will be completed by 2017.

Find out more information and talks on Moscow’s urban development and the future of megacities on Moscow Urban Forum’s YouTube channel .

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• Rebuilding of Moscow

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Subject essay: Lewis Siegelbaum

The capital city of both the RSFSR and the USSR, Moscow also served under Stalin as a beacon for world socialism. But Moscow was a nearly 800-year old city, with dozens of churches and residential structures dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many narrow twisting lanes, and in a preponderance of wooden, brick, and stone buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The “Master Plan for the Reconstruction of the City of Moscow,” devised by a commission under Lazar Kaganovich and co-signed by Stalin and Viacheslav Molotov on July 10, 1935, was intended as an “offensive against the old Moscow” that would utterly transform the city. Four years in the making, the plan called for the expansion of the city’s area from 285 to 600 square kilometers that would take in mostly farmland to the south and west beyond the Lenin (a.k.a. Sparrow) Hills. It involved sixteen major highway projects, the construction of “several monumental buildings of state-wide significance,” and fifteen million square meters of new housing to accommodate a total population of approximately five million. Surrounding the city would be a green belt up to a width of ten kilometers.

Even while the master plan was being drawn up, old Moscow was giving way to the new. One of the showpieces of the new Moscow was to be the Moscow Metro[politen] which broke ground in March 1932 and went into service on May 14, 1935. A second project begun in the early 1930s was the Moscow-Volga Canal, built by an army of prison laborers numbering 200,000 and opened in July 1937. Yet another project, for a monumental Palace of Soviets capable of hosting meetings of up to 15,000 people, was the subject of an architectural competition held in 1931. Entries were received from 160 Soviet and foreign architects including Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier. In June 1933, the jury headed by Molotov awarded the project to the Soviet architect, Boris Iofan. His terraced, colonnaded palace was to be the tallest building in the world, soaring eight meters above the recently completed Empire State Building. It was to be crowned with a massive, 90-meter-tall statue of Lenin.

The site selected for the colossus was, symbolically enough, the ground on which the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer had stood before its demolition in 1931. This was one of many churches and religious abbeys destroyed in the frenzy to make over the capital. Work on the Palace of Soviets commenced in 1935 and continued until the Nazi invasion. In 1960 a giant outdoor heated swimming pool, the biggest in the Soviet Union (and reputedly, the world), opened on the site. It, in turn, gave way in the 1990s to a replica of the cathedral which was constructed under the auspices of Moscow’s flamboyant mayor, Iurii Luzhkov.

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UNBELIEVABLE Soviet-era plans to rebuild the Red Square (PHOTOS)

Russia’s best-known square had many chances of developing a - sometimes radically - new look. It is now clear that it was only an accidental combination of circumstances that prevented the Red Square from turning into a giant necropolis in the middle of a field or the grounds of a huge memorial.

Ministry of Ministries

The first plan for the reconstruction of Moscow, including the Red Square, was proposed by the Bolsheviks immediately after the Soviet government moved there from Petrograd (present-day St. Petersburg) in 1918. They even started reconstructing some old buildings and building some new ones, but the work started for real only in the 1930s, with the adoption of the General Plan of Moscow.

Narkomtiazhprom contest entry by Ivan Fomin Date 1934

Prominent architects put forward their proposals for what Moscow as the capital of “victorious socialism” should look like. The most radical of them went as far as practically envisaging the creation of a completely new city on the site of the old one. In the end, a more moderate, but still quite large-scale, project was selected and, in 1935, the plan was adopted.

Moscow was to have more avenues than Paris, London or Berlin; a bigger administrative center than Washington DC; and the tallest skyscraper in the world. Under that plan, the historical center was to be demolished to free space for monumental buildings of national importance and the Red Square was to be expanded to double its present size.

GUM department store

A note to the General Plan read: “Moscow does not need the GUM department store. The Red Square, on which Lenin’s Mausoleum stands, is too cramped. It should be expanded at the expense of GUM.”

The list of casualties of that project would have included not only the famous GUM store, which had been standing in its spot since the 19th century, but also all the nearby buildings, including the Resurrection Gate. The square was to be renamed into ‘Mausoleum Avenue’ and consist of an empty space dominated by the House of Narkomtyazhprom, the building housing the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. Under Stalin, it was one of the most influential departments, so the future project was dubbed “the Ministry of Ministries”. And its size should have left no-one in any doubt of its significance.

Another variant of House of Narkomtyazhprom

However, in the end, the gigantic skyscraper remained only on paper. Its implementation was prevented by the death in 1937 of the head of the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry, a close ally of Stalin, Sergo Ordzhonikidze. According to the official theory, he died of a heart attack, while his wife and some contemporaries believed that he actually committed suicide.

One way or another, after Ordzhonikidze's death, the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry began to lose its influence and was later broken into several independent ministries.

Main monument

The second plan for revamping the Red Square emerged ten years later, in 1947. Circumstances had changed and the Soviet government was no longer thinking of gigantic ministry buildings. The Soviet Union had defeated Nazi Germany, which changed all plans. From now on, monumental architecture was to be used to celebrate one thing, the Victory.

As the most prominent location, the Red Square once again found itself the subject of ambitious plans for change and, once again, found to be too small. This time round the plan was to demolish GUM, all nearby low-rise buildings and the Historical Museum. In their place, there was to be a Victory Monument erected in the square with stands around it and a Victory Arch built at the site of the Historical Museum.

This is how the plan described it: “In order to create a grand entrance to the Red Square along the axis of movement of the demonstration columns, our project proposes to replace the building of the Historical Museum, whose bulky shape dominates the surroundings and hinders movement, with a Triumphal Arch of Victory, under which the victors will be marching to the square on Soviet holidays.”

Historical Museum

In other words, the square was supposed to become a perfect venue for impressive parades on holidays, and nothing more.

These plans were, once again, upset by a death, this time, the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.

For seven years, the bodies of two Communist leaders - Lenin and Stalin - lay side by side in a very small mausoleum. Although, already on the next day after Stalin’s death, the party had issued a decree ordering the construction of a pantheon in Moscow.

Similar to Rome’s ‘Temple of All Gods’, the pantheon was to become a necropolis for Stalin, Lenin and all those “great people of the Soviet country” who were buried by the Kremlin wall.

Read more: How the Red Square almost became a NECROPOLIS for Soviet leaders (PICS)

To accommodate the necropolis, an area of 500,000 square meters (more than the size of the Vatican!) in the historical center was to be cleared of all buildings. The pantheon itself was supposed to stand next to the Kremlin, on the expanded Red Square, but there was one catch: the government stand on the pantheon would have been opposite from the existing mausoleum, so during parades columns of troops would have to march with their eyes to the right, which was against the established order. So, in the end, the square was left untouched.

The option of building the necropolis in another location too was abandoned. Nikita Khrushchev declared a war on Stalin’s personality cult and “architectural excesses” and put an end to this grand project.

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