New Moscow 4

An exhibition project by Centre of Contemporary Architecture (Russia) and Accademia Archittetura in Mendrisio (Switzerland)

7 December 2006 – 7 February 2007

Galleria dell'accademia, Palazzo Canavee, 6850 Mendrisio, Switzerland

curator Irina Korobina

consultants Alexander Kuzmin, Oleg Bayevsky, Vyacheslav Glazychev, Ilya Lezhava, Alexander Kudryavtzev, Alexander Frolov

exposition Olga Alexakova, Andreas Huhn

design Yevgeny Korneev

supported by Ford Foundation

Moscow today is a huge megalopolis which ranks one of the first in the world in terms of pace of urbanization. The city is, you might say, making up for what it missed out under Soviet rule, when it was severely ruined in by socialist economics and urban-planning concepts that, enshrined in law, dictated which form it should take. Today, by contrast, everything – or almost everything – is determined by market forces. Moscow has become a gigantic building site; vacant land is subject to intensive development; industrial zones and the first generation of Soviet standard-type housing are being radically reconstructed; and work is going ahead on «grand projects» intended to mark the birth of a new capitalist capital city. Moscow is reaching upwards. A «ring of skyscrapers», named by journalists «the 200 Seven Sisters», is already on architects’ drawing boards, and Norman Foster’s Russia Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, is currently awaiting planning permission. The intensive urbanization of Moscow Suburb leads to actual sprawl of the city environment behind the administrative board of Moscow Ring Road. A fifth ring road is now in planning. This will link Moscow’s satellite towns – a hint on how the Russian capital will expand in the future.