architecture

The monument to Minin and Pozharsky originally stood in the central part of Red Square, opposite the entrance to the Upper Trading Rows. In the summer of 1931, it was moved towards St Basil’s Cathedral because its former position obstructed demonstrations and parades. Excavations in 2021 near the present pedestal showed that traces of old paving survived at the new site and that builders reused carved white-stone elements when constructing the fo…

Pashkov House on Vagankovsky Hill is usually associated with Vasily Bazhenov. Researchers have found no signed design or building contract from the time of its construction. A letter written by Prince Nikolai Yusupov in 1827 helps explain why Pashkov House is attributed to Bazhenov: it names the architect as the building’s creator. This supports the attribution, but the letter was written several decades after the house was built and does not reveal the source of its information. The Russian State Library there…

Alexander Garden is divided into three sections: the Upper, Middle and Lower Gardens. Their boundaries were shaped by the approaches to the Trinity and Borovitsky Gates, which crossed the strip of land along the Kremlin’s western wall. The Neglinnaya River was taken underground, but the routes of the two bridges were preserved. These boundaries therefore reflect the history of the river and the entrances to the fortress.

Novodevichy Convent has had two stone enclosure walls. Archaeologists date the first to the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, with 1598–1603 considered the most likely period of construction; the present enclosure, with its twelve towers, was built in the 1680s. Remains of the earlier wall lie within the present one. So the question of when the walls of Novodevichy Convent were built cannot be answered with the date the convent was founded: 1524.

A decision by the Moscow City Duma in 1874 explains why the Historical Museum was built on Red Square: its members offered the museum land previously purchased for their own building. The change also shaped the architectural design. The architects had to plan a large public building within sight of the Kremlin, with a façade facing the square and foundations on difficult ground near the former course of the Neglinnaya River. Museum records…

Le Corbusier conceived the Centrosoyuz Building on Myasnitskaya Street in Moscow as a large office building in which the movement of people, the design of the façade and the supply of air would work together. The boldest part of his vision — an ‘exact breathing’ system with so-called neutralising walls — was never built. The Le Corbusier Foundation attributes its omission to the Soviet client’s lack of the necessary technology; a 2022 historical a…

Alexander Vitberg’s design for the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour placed it on Vorobyovy Gory. Work had stopped by 1826, but the brief explanation that ‘unstable ground prevented construction’ conflates two different sites: the slope into which the architect set the lower church, and the level ground at the top. Engineers considered it impossible to build the enormous cathedral on the sloping riverbank; some specialists allowed for a different solution on the summit, while quali…

The blue chimneys of GES-2 on Bolotnaya Embankment no longer vent combustion gases. In normal operation, they draw in outside air from a height of approximately 70 metres, after which the air is filtered and supplied to the interior. The project engineers also note another function: partial smoke extraction when needed. These are no longer boiler chimneys: the original brick chimneys were lost during earlier alterations to the pow…

The eighth Stalinist skyscraper in Zaryadye remained unfinished: the above-ground tower seen in models never rose over Moscow. By the early 1950s, the site had been cleared, archaeological work carried out, a deep foundation pit excavated, the massive foundations for the high-rise section laid and construction begun on the stylobate with its utilities. Neither the tower nor the planned low-rise wings were completed.

The Luzhniki Grand Sports Arena retains the outer wall and colonnade of the 1956 stadium, but an entirely new arena was built within this shell between 2014 and 2017. The old stands and the spaces beneath them were dismantled, the pitch was lowered, the running track was removed, and the spectator tiers were brought closer to the turf. As a result, the familiar exterior silhouette and the modern football bowl within belong to two different eras of construction.