Moscow, Russia’s capital and most populous city, having had a tumultuous history since the dissolution of the USSR , did not have the resources to prioritize the design of public space in the last twenty five years. Only a handful of urban spaces were constructed, with most of the effort directed at maximizing commercial space in formerly vast, carless plazas. Soviet monuments were, for the most part, dismantled and moved to a “monument graveyard” on the edge of Moscow’s central “Gorky Park,” located along the banks of the Moscow River two kilometers upstream from the Kremlin.
In the ’90s, Gorky Park, as with any typical late Soviet public space, saw its trash urns, granite statues, outdoor orchestra shells, sparse public restrooms, and identical state-owned ice cream, drink, and tobacco kiosks give way to a flood of haphazardly parked cars and multifunctional kiosks owned by individual proprietors that each blasted its own competing soundtrack and odor. At the turn of the century, expensive and sub-par public port-a-potties betrayed a lack of planning by the city while pet bears on chains, boa constrictors, newly drafted men bathing in public fountains, unregulated roller coasters and amusement park rides crammed tightly together throughout the park territory showcased the wild freedoms of the new order. To top it off, the formerly open public space became a restricted-access amusement park.
What’s surprising is that hidden underneath layers of this Coney Island-like unregulated activity, there were remnants of a Constructivist fairground of 1925 and 1927 which had seen the appearance of pavilions designed by prominent architects such as Konstantin Melnikov. An automobile pavilion, restaurants, follies and public restrooms had been scattered through the site and forgotten. There were also remnants of landscape features from several imperial riverside estates that were merged to form the park after the 1917 revolution.
Gorky Park continued to be overgrown well into the 21st century, until 2010, when a newly elected mayor brought with him a fresh attitude toward the care of public space.
In 2011, the cultural and material buildup of decades of public use of Gorky Park after 1935 was stripped away, dismantled, and destroyed over the course of a single spring, transforming Gorky Park into an free, green public space open to all. At first, the general public’s reaction was mixed. Many were shocked by the minimalism. What layer of history is the most worthy of preserving? Where would tourists now go for their fill of “Russian kitsch”? Slowly, though, the space became reprogrammed with lighter, less technology–heavy activities. It attracted young designers and architecture firms to design unintrusive pavilions. It even asked LDA to do a master plan. So how did this transformation take place?
Mayor Sobyanin appointed Sergey Kapkov, a forward-looking planner, as the director of Gorky Park in 2010. Kapkov’s approach to the transformation was such a success that after its makeover in the summer of 2010, he was made head of the Department of Culture of Moscow and began a project prioritizing the transformation of parks and public space for the public benefit throughout Moscow. More than 20 parks have received a facelift since then, greatly contributing to the mayor’s ratings.
Today Gorky Park hosts even more visitors per year than it did at the height of its rollercoaster era and includes an art museum designed by Rem Koolhaas and a pavilion designed by Shigeru Ban, features the largest outdoor ice-skating rink in Europe during the winter months, and is popular with locals and tourists alike.
Pavilion image courtesy of tsimailo lyashenko & partners architectural bureau.
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