MArchI, 4 year 2011
The decisive moment in choosing a theme for a museum project was a mistake found at YandexMaps while searching a free area in the center of Moscow. This phantom building on the Hitrovskaya square has dissappeared in the plan, but in the street view it can still be seen. Museum in a meaning of a monument for a place. A monument for another lost building in our city which can also work as a storage for information about all ruined historic houses. Main collection could consist of information gathered by ArchNadzor, MoskvaKotoroiNet, MAPS (and other organizations that save our historical buildings and collect data about the lost ones). A timeless place, that can regenerate the surroundings and become a new city landmark. An activity point and a collection of memories about the city that does not exist anymore.
Collective memory is an image of the city. Now City is rejecting the Citizens and Citizens reject the City. The town is hidden under layers of symbolic people activity (ex. street chaotic advertisement). Pedestrians don’t feel the space. They try not to raise their sight up from the road they’re walking. They are lost on faceless streets, and anyway pedestrians find themselves in the center. City does not offer you any rhytm, it only have pulsar activity flowing in the center. And the City itself - sensitive, interactive , alive - remains only in memory. Instead of the feeling of the City people get only sight on the cars and advertisement rubbish. Nowadays museum is a very strong formation. It can regenerate culturally extinguished parts of the city, divide pedestrian flows (rhizomatic scheme instead of overcrowded center). Museums can create activity points that become meeting places. We can hardly resist demolition of historic buildings and the best thing we can do - create an organized curtural center that will store the information and show exhibitions about history of the city architecture and remind us past of the place.
Library/Lecture Hall Dominant (tower of memory) This part of the building is seen from every side-street. Tower as a monument of a Place. It sustains the scale of a previous building, creates a pedestrian landmark. At the top of the tower there is a viewpoint terrace.
The bulk crossing the building has a pass-through planning with big windows at both sides, allowing pedestrians from Hitrovka and Petropavlovskaya street look inside and get interested to walk in.
View from the Podkolokol’nyi side-street (from center)
View from the Hitrovskiy side-street
View from the Petropavlovskiy side-street View from the Pevchenskiy side-street
Through the columns supporting the library one could see the onner courtyard View from the Podkolokol’nyi street