Garage Centre pavilion designed by Shigeru Ban in Gorky Park, Moscow

Exterior of circular building with pillars — Shigeru Ban's pavilion will be a temporary home for the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture until its permanent new space by OMA is completed next summer

(Image credit: TBC)

Ever since our Russian adventure, we have been eagerly anticipating the opening of the new temporary pavilion for the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, in Moscow's Gorky Park.

The structure will be the temporary home of the well known cultural organisation - the brainchild of gallerist Dasha Zhukova and her charity, the Iris Foundation - for the next few months, holding the fort till next summer when works at the centre's more permanent home by Rem Koolhaas' architecture practice OMA will be completed.

Shigeru Ban has once again used his customary medium of locally sourced paper, tubes of which form the pavilion's curved exterior walls. Located near Gorky Park's Pionersky Pond, the structure spans a total area of 2,400 sq m, which includes an 800 sq m exhibition space, a bookshop and café. The pavilion will play temporary host to the centre's exhibitions and educational activities.

The inaugural exhibition 'Temporary Structures in Gorky Park: From Melnikov to Ban', focuses on the pavilion's typology and its impermanent nature. Touching upon realized and unrealized work, the exhibition will also show rare archival drawings and information on the numerous short-term structures installed in the park over the years, through conventional as well as multi-media and interactive elements.

The projects on display range from works by Konstantin Melnikov, Alexey Shchusev and Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky to Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Vera Mukhina.

Close up of exterior details — Ban has once again used his customary medium of locally sourced paper, tubes of which form the pavilion's curved exterior walls

Wooden paneled reception area — The reception desk echoes the facade

Lit up display structure — The inaugural exhibition 'Temporary Structures in Gorky Park: From Melnikov to Ban', focuses on the pavilion's typology and its impermanent nature, as well as looking at other short-term structures installed in the park over the years

Display boards in large room — The projects on display range from works by Konstantin Melnikov, Alexey Shchusev and Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky to Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin and Vera Mukhina

Information displays — The exhibition runs until 9 December

Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).