Soviet modernist: Rem Koolhaas-designed Garage Museum of Contemporary Art opens in Moscow
Architecture studio OMA has resurrected a 1960s Soviet Modernist ruin as a contemporary art museum in Moscow's Gorky Park, restoring original features and wrapping the two-storey space in a gleaming polycarbonate façade.
The 5,400 sq m building is a new permanent home for the Garage art centre founded in 2008 by art collector and philanthropist Dasha Zhukova and named after the centre's first location, the Konstantin Melnikov-designed Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage. More recently, a nearby pavilion designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban has provided a temporary home.
The new structure looks nothing like its Brezhnev-era predecessor, the 1,200-seat Vremena Goda restaurant that OMA founder Rem Koolhaas first saw when he visited Moscow in his twenties.
'What we tried to do was to preserve some of the history of its decay. For me, the great fallacy of the whole preservation movement is that it can only preserve great monuments,' says Koolhaas.
New architectural interventions include a double-height lobby that accommodates large-scale commissioned projects such as the debut Come to Garage! painting by Russian artist Eric Bulatov.
The double layered translucent polycarbonate façade also acts as a space in which to hide the building's electrical services while two 11-metre wide panels on either side of the building slide upwards revealing views in- and outwards. Garage curator Kate Fowle says this creates a unique 'visual interface' with the park that has also received something of a facelift with manicured lawns and an artificial beach where young Moscovites suntan on sculptural recliners.
According to Koolhaas, the generous dimensions of 1960s Soviet architecture offered a unique chance to experiment with the act of preservation in a 'radical' way adding galleries, education facilities, an auditorium, and a rather utilitarian-looking cafe.
Inside, original brickwork has been left exposed while 'found' features like a crumbling mosaic artwork and moss-green ceramic tiles - once ubiquitous in Soviet interiors - are coupled with contemporary concrete and birchwood floors.
OMA's innovative design stands in contrast to Moscow's relatively conservative art scene where political works are especially still perceived as highly controversial. The inaugural programme avoided any such issues with the likes of Yayoi Kusama's playful works that included several of the park's trees sheathed in the artist's trademark polkadot pattern, Rirkrit Tiravanija's Ping-Pong Club Moscow, and a small concrete space that will eventually contain a work made from nuclear waste. It is 'scheduled' to arrive post-treatment in 3015.
ADDRESS
9/45 Krymsky Val Street
119049, Moscow, Russia
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Catherine Shaw is a writer, editor and consultant specialising in architecture and design. She has written and contributed to over ten books, including award-winning monographs on art collector and designer Alan Chan, and on architect William Lim's Asian design philosophy. She has also authored books on architect André Fu, on Turkish interior designer Zeynep Fadıllıoğlu, and on Beijing-based OPEN Architecture's most significant cultural projects across China.
-
Maude’s Brâncuși-inspired sex toys go on display in a new Paris exhibition
Maude’s design-led vibrators are now on display at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, as part of ‘Private Lives: From the Bedroom to Social Media’. Brand founder Éva Goicochea talks to Wallpaper* about partnering with the museum and opening up cultural conversations around sex
By India Birgitta Jarvis Published
-
‘I was captivated by the idea of merging two iconic brands’: Nigo on his collaboration with Moncler and Mercedes-Benz, which features a 1990s-inspired riff on the G-Wagon
Unveiled at Moncler’s ‘The City of Genius’ event in Shanghai this past weekend, Japanese fashion designer Nigo unpacks his three-way collaboration with Moncler and Mercedes-Benz, which includes a play on the G-Class alongside a fashion collection in his eclectic style
By Jack Moss Published
-
Cathay Pacific’s new business class Aria Suites take flight
Cathay Pacific raises the bar for business-class travel with the launch of the much-anticipated Aria Suites
By Lauren Ho Published
-
First look: step inside 144 Vanderbilt, Tankhouse and SO-IL’s new Brooklyn project
The first finished duplex inside Tankhouse and SO-IL’s 144 Vanderbilt in Fort Greene is a hyper-local design gallery curated by Brooklyn studio General Assembly
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
Tour Ray's Seagram Building HQ, an ode to art and modernism in New York City
Real estate venture Ray’s Seagram Building HQ in New York is a homage to corporate modernism
By Diana Budds Published
-
Populus by Studio Gang, the ‘first carbon positive hotel in the US’ takes root in Denver
Populus by Studio Gang opens in Denver, offering a hotel with a distinctive, organic façade and strong sustainability credentials
By Siska Lyssens Published
-
This Californian home offers the unexpected through ‘deconstructed’ desert living
Gardens & Villas, a home in La Quinta, California, brings contemporary luxury to its desert setting through a collaboration between architects Andrew McClure and Christopher McLean
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
First look inside 62 Reade Street, a clock factory turned family home
62 Reade Street, a boutique New York residential project by architects ODA, unveils its first apartment interior, styled courtesy of Hovey Design
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Paul Rudolph at The Met: ‘from Christmas lights to megastructures’
‘Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph’ opens at the Met in New York, exploring the modernist master's work through a feast of an exhibition
By Stephanie Murg Published
-
Jewel Box is a Californian project of small scale and big impact
Jewel Box by Red Dot Studio is the reimagining of a Californian 20th-century gem through a creative addition
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Germane Barnes exhibition explores notions of classical architecture and identity
Germane Barnes exhibition 'Columnar Disorder' opens at the Art Institute of Chicago
By Ellie Stathaki Published