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From Venice to Moscow

24 November 2014

The MOSKVA: Urban Spaсe exhibition, Moscow’s debut at the 14th International Architecture exhibition in Venice, closes this weekend with a celebration of a successful and unique platform of cultural exchange and experience of how new urban politics are helping reinvent the Russian capital city.

  • MOSKVA: Urban Space unveiled a Russian vision of a modern metropolitan city for more than 45,000 visitors.
  • The exposition is leaving Venice to repeat its success in Moscow, where MOSKVA: Urban Space will open for public viewing in early 2015.
  • The project team, consisting of the Committee for Architecture and Urban Development of Moscow and RDI Group, will work on a joint publishing project on the development of public spaces.

This weekend, Venice celebrates the finissage of one of the most relevant and highly anticipated Biennale editions in the history of the International Architecture Exhibition organized by La Biennale di Venezia. Titled Fundamentals, and directed by Rem Koolhaas, the show took a radical departure from the usual survey of the current architectural scene, focusing instead on the historical approach, reimagining the 14th Architecture Biennale as a vehicle for research. Fundamentals focused on the history and the inevitable elements of all architecture, and on the evolution of national architectures in the last 100 years, representing the reference points for the discipline: not just for architects but also for its dialogue with clients and society.

As a remarkable collateral event, the city of Moscow celebrated its debut at this year’s Biennale, where it unveiled the “MOSKVA: Urban Space” exhibition in the historic and astonishing surroundings – exhibition space and courtyard – of the Santa Maria della Pietá church located near the Biennale’s main hub, the Arsenale. Addressing Fundamentals by zooming in on the Russian capital, the exhibition focused on  the shift in urban politics over the past 100 years and illustrated the current tactics for facing contemporary demands, urgencies and potentials.

With the ambition to enter the global conversation on how we shape the urban spaces we live in, the show showcased ways in which Moscow has been radically altering its approach to urban design throughout the past few years.  The driving force behind these developments is the collaboration between the Mayor and Government of Moscow together with the Chief Architect of Moscow, Sergey Kuznetsov, and Dmitry Aksenov, founder and chairman of RDI Group, philanthropist and art collector. “The success of  MOSKVA: Urban Space project proves the effectiveness of a public-private partnership, when business and authorities are on the same wavelength. Without a doubt, MOSKVA: Urban Space has reached its goal of positioning Moscow as a modern and rapidly developing city that is open to a cultural dialog”, - says Dmitry Aksenov. 

Sergey Kuznetzov, curator of the exhibition, commented at the opening of the Biennale on the transformation that the Russian capital is going through, “The face of Moscow had been determined by the architecture of its buildings over the past century, but that is changing. Today’s urban singularity is based on the connective fabric of its public spaces that have become equally important identity-makers and contribute significantly to improving the quality of urban living for its citizens”.

Projects that have initiated this new direction include new pedestrian zones, the development of a design code for streets and squares, and the construction of new-generation social housing. An especially effective tool in the assignment of these important architectural commissions that have ushered in a qualitative change in the urban environment, are international architectural competitions, which in great numbers have made Moscow one of the most intriguing destinations for leading architects and urban designers from around the world.

The exhibition - a vehicle to produce experience

Showcasing an impressive journey through the past 100 years of the capital’s architecture through inverted prisms hanging from the ceiling with photographs of iconic buildings, like the experimental housing complexes of the Avant Garde era, colossal Empire-style palace of haute Stalinism and Modernism’s ‘standardized construction units. The exhibition offered a unique experience of a future Moscow and its current debate on paradigms and re-appropriations of public spaces, exemplified by a recreated life size fragment of the ambitious project of Zaryadye Park, Moscow’s future central park of the 21st  century by the winning architects firm Diller Scofidio
+ Renfro with Hargreaves Associates and Citymakers LLC (USA, USA, RUS). The Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin announced the park will open to the public in 2017.

Within the context of the opening of the Venice exhibition, the conference “Between  Architecture. Public Space and the Urban Commons“ engaged international experts such as Richard Sennett and Helle Juul in the debate on how society and governance renegotiate the demands and expectations concerning the role of urban public space in modern societies. A documentation of the conference and interviews with the curators, commissioners and Diller Scofidio
+ Renfro is available online on www.moskvaproject.com 

From Venice to Moscow

The exhibition „Moskva: Urban Space“, after being displayed and seen by over 45.000 visitors in Venice, will travel to Moscow and be presented in Spring 2015 as an initiative of the project’s commissioner, Dmitry Aksenov of RDI. The future venue will foster the continuation of the debate launched in Venice, on who and what makes today’s city, looking out to the greater development of Moscow’s future city planning. Within this continuous approach and debate around humanising architecture with a trans-disciplinary approach involving all protagonists from arts, culture, science, RDI is looking at a publication project in collaboration with universities and institutions, as a research tool dedicated to urban space.

INFORMATION ON CURATOR, COMMISSIONER AND PROJECT TEAM

Curator
Sergey Kuznetsov, Chief Architect of Moscow.  In 2010 and 2012 Sergey was the co-curator of Russian pavilion at the Architectural Biennale in Venice, which for the first time was awarded with the Special Mention prize by the jury in 2012.

Commissioner
Dmitry Aksenov, founder and chairman of the RDI Group, art patron with philanthropic interests, who supports cultural institutions in Russia. Dmitry is Chairman of the Advisory Board of VIENNAFAIR – the New Contemporary. 

Concept and Design Advisor
Kristin Feireiss is well known as an architecture curator, writer, and editor. In 1980, she cofounded the independent forum for architecture Aedes in Berlin.

Exhibitor
Diller Scofidio + Renfro is an interdisciplinary design studio that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts, based in New York City. The studio was founded by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio in 1979; Charles Renfro joined in 1997 and became partner in 2004. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s international body of work includes the recent redesign of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York and the High Line, an urban park situated on an obsolete elevated railway in New York. In 2013, they won the international competition for the Zaradye Park project in Moscow.

MCA - Committee for Architecture and Urban Development of the Moscow is a non-profit state organization that develops the city government policy in the sphere of urban development, architecture and architectural and artistic image of Moscow.

Project partner
RDI is a group of companies operating in advanced segments of economy. A portfolio of unique assets enables it to perform complex development of large territories. The major direction of the Group’s activity is construction of multi-purpose residential projects surrounded by well-thought-out infrastructure. Innovative urban principles applied in its projects result in creation of a fully fledged LIVING SPACE. Which is why RDI not only builds real estate objects, but also gives much attention to creation of high living standards in and around them. 

Exhibition and design production
TRIAD Berlin Stands for Communication in Spaces is an internationally renowned communications agency for communicating experiences and themes with a particular focus on technology, culture, and sustainability. www.triad.de

Press Contacts
International Press Office:
BUREAU N, Julia Albani
T +49 176 241 48131
moskva@bureau-n.de

National Press Office:
Fleishman Hillard Vanguard
Elena Tairova
T +7 495 937 3131
tairova@fhv.ru

To download high-resolution press images and press kit, please visit the press area at: www.moskvaproject.com


Images: moskvaproject.com


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