MOSKVA: urban space
Collateral event of the 14th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia
June 7–November 23, 2014
Opening: June 6
Press preview, 10am
Conference “Between Architecture: Public Space and the Urban Commons,” 11am
Opening reception, 1pm
Santa Maria della Pietà
Sestiere Castello 3701
30122 Venice
Italy
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm
www.moskvaproject.com
Curator: Sergey Kuznetsov
Commissioner: Dmitry Aksenov
Organised by MCA – Moscow Committee of Architecture and Urban Development
Concept and design advisor: Kristin Feireiss
Exhibitor: Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Transsolar Klimaengineering and Rieder Group
Exhibition & design production: TRIAD Berlin
Moscow is one of the most relevant settings for discussion of urban development today. Recent changes in the city’s infrastructure as well as new attitudes towards the planning of public spaces have made Moscow an intriguing destination for leading architects and urban designers worldwide. Today’s conditions in the city create the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past one hundred years of progress in relation to urban environmental policy and the vision of future development. Following the 14th International Architecture Exhibition’s theme Fundamentals, the exhibition MOSKVA: urban space highlights elementary shifts in architecture throughout Moscow’s past, revealing new urban possibilities on the basis of the winning project for the creation of Zaryadye Park by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.
The exhibition in Venice was organized by an international team, comprised of the city’s chief architect, Sergey Kuznetsov, architectural expert, writer and curator Kristin Feireiss, and RDI founder and philanthropist Dmitry Aksenov. In creating the retrospective, the team has explored how, while the face of a twentieth century city is largely determined by its architecture, today’s urban singularity is more so based on the ‘connective tissue’ that is the public spaces, and the ways in which these spaces have become equally important markers of contemporary metropolis’ identities.
MOSKVA: urban space will take place in the exhibition spaces as well as the inner courtyards of Santa Maria della Pietá. In keeping with the dissimilarity of the spaces, the segment of the exhibition which highlights the city’s past unfolds with inverted prisms hanging from the ceiling, and 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.’ Staging Moscow’s present architectural conditions, the exhibition focuses on public space, exemplified by the ambitious project of Zaryadye Park. A recreated fragment of the proposed park leads onto Moscow’s future central park of the 21st century, illustrating its current debate on paradigms and re-appropriations of public spaces.
On the occasion of the opening of MOSKVA: urban space on June 6, the conference “Between Architecture. Public Space and the Urban Commons” will debate how society and governance renegotiate the demands and expectations concerning the role of urban public space in modern societies. While in the past Moscow, like most of the metropolises worldwide, was largely determined by the architecture of its buildings, representing political and economic developments, at the end of the 1990s an intense discussion came up which was focused on the disappearance of public space, criticizing the commercialization of the social sphere. Especially the repercussions of the financial crisis of 2008 on the international real estate market have led to an “explosion of attention” for the social aspects of the appropriation of public spaces by civil society. Today’s urban singularity is more and more based on the “connective fabric” of its public spaces, which contributes significantly to improving the quality of urban live for its citizens. Taking the Zaryadye Park project as a raw model for these developments, the discussion will focus on current international strategies and processes of designing public space to be considered within an international politico-societal context.
Panelists: Dimitry Aksenov, RDI, Moscow; Elizabeth Diller, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York; Helle Juul, Juul Frost Architects, Copenhagen; Sergey Kuznetsov, Chief Architect of Moscow; Richard Sennett, Professor of Sociology, New York University / LSE. Moderation: Melinda Crane, Berlin. The conference is part of the “polis 21. urban interventions” project, a network engagement platform, founded by RDI Moscow and Triad Berlin.
Requests for interviews and further information should be directed to:
International Press Office: BUREAU N, Julia Albani
T +49 176 241 481 31 / moskva [at] bureau-n.de
National Press Office: Christina Vorobyova
T +7 915 148 58 53 / press [at] moskvaproject.com
