Meganom • Architectural Practice

Special Camp

Memory Park on the site of the former Dneprovsky mine, since 2021
— objects

On June 2, 2023, the Perm Museum of Contemporary Art (PERMM) will open a traveling exhibition, Special Camp, focusing on the museumification of the former Dneprovsky mine in Magadan Region.

Auditoria, Memory Fund, GULAG History Museum, and Meganom have been working on the 400 hectares Memory Park project since 2021. The initiative group has been on exhibitions to the site, establishing the condition of the historic buildings and landscape, looking for ways to preserve the architecture, studying archives and chronicles, creating excursion routes and thinking of ways in which visitors can be accommodated in the taiga.

David

— books

In the book «David», the life story of David Sarkisyan is told by his family, friends and colleagues: scientists, architects, curators, directors, artists, journalists, art historians and museum staff. The authors of the monograph have collected detailed information on David Sarkisyan’s scientific works and his projects at the Museum of Architecture. This book has been created over the course of several years and, in the end, perhaps all of David’s friends will have contributed to the process.

The book «David» was presented 13 November 2019 at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art. The authors of the book, Yury Grigoryan, Alexander Brodsky, Natalia Dushkina, and Maria Tsantsanogly, shared stories from the life of David Sarkisyan and told how they worked on his biography.

The Moscow River Age

Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival | MAR 1–SEPT 1, 2019,
— objects

[III prize - Wax Bee Award by Bona Calvi]

Exhibition for the XXII Triennale di Milano, The Moscow River Age explores the human-river relationship and presents a timeline of stories between 1919 and 2119. The narrative is polyphonic. Many voices come together to reveal how the river and the people who live near it influence each other in multiple ways, and how deeply their lives are intertwined.

Kaplya

2018
— books

"Kaplya" — Alexandra Pavlova monograph. Alexandra Pavlova was one of the founders of the Meganom office for architecture. The word "Kaplya" is Alexandra’s "nom de guerre" and a title of her monograph. Kaplya’s best architectural and artistic projects, from conceptual installations to implemented buildings, are published in this book.

The book is available at bookshops and online.

Dvorulitsa: thawing of Moscow

The Dvorulitsa project [*Yardstreet] has been recently featured in a new urban research session at CNU.25 Seattle.

Dvorulitsa is a new type of urban public space, inspired by Moscow. It is a pedestrian street with a complex spatial organization and a variety of social functions, that appears within the boundaries of scratched hyperblocks. Dvorulitsa is both transit and place; architecture and landscape; a yard and a street.

262 Fifth Avenue

The first Meganom project in the United States: a 1001-foot-tall residential tower on Fifth Avenue. The innovative separation of systems allows every apartment column-free panoramic views, and the roof is crowned with a observatory for all residents to share.

The Pushkin Cistern

The composition around the main building of the museum is in a sense an astronomical system, where the main building is the “sun”, and others – “planets”. All of them connects by Rhizosphere on the ground and by cisterns underground.

Scale models – forms – eidoi

‘Thngs’, platform for the preservation and structuring of data about physical things, captured Meganom's archive of scale models built over 18 years of work and now release the 'show' with essay by Sergei Sitar.

Pushkin open storage cornerstone laid

— architecture

The cornerstone for the new storage vaults of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts was laid on September 9. The project – Rhizosphere – unifies and protects the museum grounds while opening their perimeter. Eventually over 700,000 objects will move into the new open storage, where many of them will be visible to visitors.

Meganom studio graduates see an Open City

meganom students,
— education

For their final projects at the Moscow Architectural Institute, our studio students proposed research strategies aimed at creating a new and open Moscow.

Their conceptual tools included preservation, shrinkage, and temporary building, multiplicities of use, to planned ruins and the reanimation of public space. This variety was aligned to the need for new visions of the city and an open relationship with its citizens.

ZIL: construction begins

The recovery has begun. Soon enough, 50,000 new residents will animate the former ZIL industrial site, a uniquely sited opportunity for a project in Moscow to give priority to public interests and set a new standard for urban development. Networked public spaces, parks, and infrastructure for new creative endeavours will restore the peninsula to a site of energetic production. Phase 1 is now under construction.

The parliament has removed its stones to reveal a building that is transparent, green, and welcoming. An agora is exposed with a park at its heart. This is an image of possibility; of diversity within unity, openness and cooperation under a shared roof that is the symbol of a shared home and of a common cause. Participation in this competition is Meganom’s contribution to the historical iconography of Russian parliamentarianism.

Transparency, an image of the Russian parliament

competition,

The parliament has removed its stones to reveal a building that is transparent, green, and welcoming. An agora is exposed with a park at its heart. This is an image of possibility; of diversity within unity, openness and cooperation under a shared roof that is the symbol of a shared home and of a common cause.

Participation in this competition is Meganom’s contribution to the historical iconography of Russian parliamentarianism.

Artem Staborovsky named partner

Yury Grigoryan, Iliya Kuleshov and Elena Uglovskaya welome Artem Staborovsky as partner. Since 2010, Staborovsky has led projects including the competition for the Parliament Centre in 2015, the “Sugar blocks” residences in 2014, and the Kursovoy Pereulok apartments in 2013. Currently he leads the masterplan for Gorky Park, and he also teaches at Moscow Architectural Institute since 2014

Stage design for “Black & Simpson”

— objects

The design for Praktika theatre’s premiere of “Black & Simpson” conceives the set as a third actor: a tool for dialogue that the actors cannot possibly ignore.

Moscow River Future Ports

competition,
— urbanism

Meganom’s project for a network of “ports” to green and integrate the center of Moscow with the periphery has been selected as the winner of the international competition to redevelop the Moscow riverbanks. The proposal was developed with Gillespies, Strategy Partners Group, John Thomson and Partners, Systematica, and Cushman and Wakefield.

Elena Uglovskaya named partner

Yuriy Grigoryan and Iliya Kuleshov welcome Elena Uglovskaya as a partner. Uglovskaya joined Meganom immediately after graduation from MARCHI in 2008. She has led many successful competitions including the Pushkin Museum extension in 2014, and redevelopment of ZIL in 2014. She also contributed to exhibitions such as “Archaeology of Periphery” for the Moscow Urban Forum in 2013.

Rubber

residential houses, 2008-2014

A residential complex on the site of a former rubber factory in Khamovniki’s Garden Quarter set among objects by Sergei Skuratov and "Art-Blya," the towers’ plasticity and restrained aesthetics extend the tradition of expressive industrial building.

Moscow Urban forum is an annual international conference on urbanism, architecture, economics and strategic planning, organized by the government of Moscow since 2011. In collaboration with Strelka Institute, Meganom curated a pilot research project on the theme of the periphery. It was prepared with a large multidisciplinary team using the SPACE(D) methodology and lead by: Society (Alexey Levinson/ Levada Center), Politics (Alexei Muratov/Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning at the National Research University), Architecture (Yury Grigoryan), Culture (Grigory Revzin), Economics (Aleksey Novikov/ Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning at the National Research University), and Data (Aleksey Novikov/Thomson Reuters, OJSC “MegaFon” and Mathrioshka).

Archaeology of the periphery

5 december 2013
— research

Moscow Urban forum is an annual international conference on urbanism, architecture, economics and strategic planning, organized by the government of Moscow since 2011.

In collaboration with Strelka Institute, Meganom curated a pilot research project on the theme of the periphery. It was prepared with a large multidisciplinary team using the SPACE(D) methodology and lead by: Society (Alexey Levinson/ Levada Center), Politics (Alexei Muratov/Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning at the National Research University), Architecture (Yury Grigoryan), Culture (Grigory Revzin), Economics (Aleksey Novikov/ Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning at the National Research University), and Data (Aleksey Novikov/Thomson Reuters, OJSC “MegaFon” and Mathrioshka).

Moving day

august 2013

Meganom offices have moved from the Museum of Architecture to the former Red October factory. The first office was found by chance and its spaces fostered an atmosphere of openness and conviviality. Now the neighbours are leading contemporaries like Strelka Institute, Digital October, and Snob Media.

Yury Palmin documented the change in his project "Two spaces.”

A centre for the Polytechnic Museum and Moscow State University introduces a new kind of public space into the city. Like a living room of research, the Museum and Education Centre wraps around a square, stopping on different “knowledge platforms” that can support more specialized functions, or simply focused presentations of investigations from around the world. At the end is an overlook; a panorama of the university and the city.

Public science

competition, february 2013

A centre for the Polytechnic Museum and Moscow State University introduces a new kind of public space into the city. Like a living room of research, the Museum and Education Centre wraps around a square, stopping on different “knowledge platforms” that can support more specialized functions, or simply focused presentations of investigations from around the world. At the end is an overlook; a panorama of the university and the city.

David's room

installation,
— objects

While David Sarkisian was director of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture from 2000-2009, he filled his office with an incredible collection of objects. After he passed away, this self-portrait remained as evidence of an extraordinarily creative person and the collection was transferred to the Museum for permanent display. Meganom helped.

ZIL peninsula

competition, 1st prize, 2012

The project for the ZIL factory site in Moscow inserts the complex into three new ecosystems: a peninsula at the intersection of two rivers, a diverse habitat for developers at different scales, and new frameworks for green transportation and public space. The former industrial area becomes more appropriate for daily life, and acts as an incubator for new ecosystems for the city.

Meganom’s students at MARCHI have dedicated their final projects to an analysis of Moscow inside the first ring road, the defence ring of the former Soviet capital. Ninety percent of this city was built in the last fifty years, and this monument to socialist city planning has a centripetal structure that seems hopelessly obsolete today. The study contains seven chapters that focus on buildings, blocks, roads, artefacts, landscapes, magnets, and outskirts.

An inventory of Old Moscow

research, 2012

Meganom’s students at MARCHI have dedicated their final projects to an analysis of Moscow inside the first ring road, the defence ring of the former Soviet capital. Ninety percent of this city was built in the last fifty years, and this monument to socialist city planning has a centripetal structure that seems hopelessly obsolete today.

The study contains seven chapters that focus on buildings, blocks, roads, artefacts, landscapes, magnets, and outskirts.

Alexandra Pavlova, architect of an imaginary future

The film “Target” premiered at the 33rd Moscow International Film Festival, directed by Alexander Zeldovich with a script in collaboration with Vladimir Sorokin, and architectural designs by Alexandra Pavlova.

Leonid Pavlov centenary

An exhibition celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of renowned Soviet architect Leonid Pavlov, curated by Anna Borovitskaya, has opened at the Shchusev Museum of Architecture.

Barn

pavilion, 2006

— objects

Tsvetnoy