Moscow Youth Palace to Be Included in the Citywide Cultural Cluster

The Moscow Youth Palace Project, developed by the WALL bureau, is a good example of how to preserve the legacy of late Soviet modernism, fill the building with new meanings without losing economic and cultural profitability. According to the partner of the bureau Ruben Arakelyan, MDM has the necessary potential to become a significant cultural location.

- Tell us what the owner wanted, and what tasks came to the fore in the project?

- The main question that the customer had was: “Why doesn’t anyone come to us? Why does everyone go to Strelka, to Gorky Park, to Garage". Secondly, the reconstruction was to be economically viable, because AO MDM makes money by renting out premises, and it was not possible to terminate all contracts at once. In addition, the owner wanted to increase the amount of space, and we found an acceptable solution to how this can be done without affecting the building itself.

It was obvious that the building needed total rebranding. What is happening there now is the total absence of any ideology in terms of the life of the building, and in terms of selecting operators. The concept of "culture" includes everything that you can imagine from a strip bar to McDonald’s. Our project is building a new ideology, gradually introducing solutions that will help turn MDM into a significant cultural location.

- How do you propose acting?

- To begin with, completely “open” both the building itself and the square in front of it to the city, and for this it is necessary to remove the parking lot and rebuild the stylobate. MDM was built in Soviet times and is designed for a completely different mentality, for a different lifestyle and economy. In addition, in the 90s the building was overgrown with advertising and a fence from the side of the park. These stairs and the fence actually cut it off the street, forming a dead zone. We propose to move away from monumentality towards efficiency, and use resources of the stylobate part to the maximum, i.e. to dismantle the stairs, and  place creative workshops and restaurants, or art stores in the vacated niches. That is, we are thereby creating a new city front from Komsomolsky Prospekt at the human height level, so you do not need to go up to get any services. Only two blocks of stairs will be preserved on the main facade, and all on the northern facade, since the exit from the metro is located there.

Between MDM and the Trubetskoy estate park, a small narrow “Gallery” building will be built, where we moved some of the commercial and cultural functions, however, our main idea is to make an art street that will connect Komsomolsky Prospekt with the park. The Gallery will be located at a distance of about 12 meters from MDM, various city services will be located on the ground floors, and above are workshops and exhibition spaces, co-working areas and so on. And we called this formed street “ARTbat”.

- Is the building structure changing?

- It does not change at all. For me, it is a valuable example of modernism, and despite the fact that MDM does not have a special conservation status, I consider it right to maintain it. We are not adding anything close to the building, but we are increasing the actual area by about 10 thousand sq m due to stylobate parts and with the Gallery. In addition, we saw that there are huge resources in the roof, which we also use. So, as a matter of fact, we proposed our idea how to make advantages out of all the minuses, how to make the reconstruction not only effective, but also cost-effective for the owner. But the appearance, the construction, all this is being restored and preserved.. For example, we removed all advertisements from the building, and a beautiful mosaic in the frieze was exposed.

- How is MDM transformed from the inside?

- We optimize the internal areas, partially return the layout of the Soviet period, so that again there is a single public space. If you have been in MDM, then you know that now the whole building is divided by partitions without any structure. According to our idea, several thematic zones will appear in the interior, for example, in the lobby where the banquet hall is located, there will be a wooden agora, Italian square with amphitheater. We also want to remove the huge chandelier, which closes the light on the roof and prevents daylight from entering the lobby. One option is to place a rotating mechanism there in the form of a lens, which could make this space dark or light, depending on what is required.

At the request of the residents, we left the sports function, strengthened the cultural component, made many exhibition spaces so that anyone could enter the building without a ticket, calmly walk along it, go out on the roof to see the city, go out to the park downstairs. Now the building is closed, it works only around the perimeter, and we decided to let people in, make it transparent. In addition, it was important to include the building in a modern context, on the agenda of the cultural cluster, which starts from Zaryadye and Luzhniki.

- People mostly come to MDM to see musicals. Will the theater site change technically?

- The concert hall has its own operator, and in general it is a modern, well-equipped venue. Before us, the Dutch worked on it. They optimized the structure and technologies, so the owner does not plan to change it yet.

- When do you plan to start work?

- All works are divided into three stages. This is due to the fact that there are tenants in the building, and we cannot instantly break the contract with them. The first part includes working with the stylobate part. Implementation will begin this year already. Now they can only remove advertisements, because restoration of the facade is noisy and dirty, they will not be able to rent it out. At the second stage, the “Gallery” will appear. This will happen next year. And the third stage is work with the building itself. This will be made in two years.

Please be reminded that MDM is located at the following address: Moscow, Komsomolsky Prospect, 28. The building, built in 1982-1988 according to the project of architects Yakov Belopolsky, Maxim Belenya , Mikhail Posokhin and Vladimir Khavin, is a vivid example of late Soviet modernism. In 2018, the owner held a competition for the reconstruction of the facility, which was won by the Moscow architectural bureau WALL. After the reconstruction MDM will become part of the walking route, which begins in Gorky Park and goes through the Andreevsky Pedestrian Bridge.