Five New Architectural Projects Set to Transform Moscow

Moscow is undergoing a major architectural transformation with five new projects by international firms. Renzo Piano Building Workshop is converting the GES 2 power plant into a cultural center for V-A-C Foundation, featuring 20,000 sqm of spaces for contemporary and performative art, a restaurant, library, auditorium, bookshop, outdoor amphitheater, and educational hub. MVRDV won a competition in January 2018 for Silhouette, a 52,000 sqm mixed-use complex with over 28,000 sqm of residences, a sports center, commercial spaces, and underground parking, distinguished by red ceramic facades. OMA is renovating the New Tretyakov Gallery, a 61,000 sqm building from the 1980s, improving spatial infrastructure and organizing it into four sectors: Art Storage, Education Center, The Collection, and Festival Hall. Herzog & de Meuron is redeveloping the Badaevskiy Brewery, a 6-hectare industrial site founded in 1875, into a public space with two residential blocks raised 35 meters above ground, called "horizontal skyscrapers" with glass facades. Diller Scofidio + Renfro with Hargreaves Associates and Citymakers created Zaryadye Park, a 14-hectare park near St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin, opened in 2017, featuring four Russian landscapes (tundra, steppe, forest, wetlands) and a cantilevered walkway over the Moskva River.