Pushkin museum

Moscow, Russia

Pushkin museum

Moscow, Russia

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The Pushkin museum, the finest museum of European art in Moscow and one of the world’s great cultural institutions, is under transformation. It encompasses the restoration of the museum itself, the acquisition of surrounding villas and the creation of new buildings to more than triple the museum’s exhibition and archive spaces.

Foster and Partners is in charge of a masterplan that aims to establish a cultural quarter focused on the renovated museum. Building on the experience of common projects such as the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts (US), West Kowloon Cultural District masterplan (China), we have proposed a landscape approach in which cultural buildings were explored as part of a wider urban coherence.

The content of the future open public spaces was found by observing the Russian landscape, especially its forests. Moscow is embedded in a region strongly characterized by its forests and woodlands. The parks of the Russian capital give testimony of the closeness of a near-natural environment to the hustle and bustle of urban reality.

Located close to urban landmarks, including the Kremlin and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the masterplan scheme celebrates connections to its wider urban context. Streets in the new quarter will be pedestrianized and its boulevards, courtyards and gardens unified with an important tree layer. This landscape is neither a combination of usual streets and squares nor a park. Through its vegetation, its topography, and the strong presence of tall trees, a kind of “urban forest” was conceived. Trees are interspersed along the vast mineral surfaces in order to provide comfort and warmth to the future cultural quarter.

data
Year:
2007
Status:
Study
Program:
Cultural
Client:

Foundation for the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts

Project Team:

MDP Michel Desvigne Paysagiste
Foster + Partners, Architects

Area:

 40 ha (98,8 acres)