Museums: Exhibition “We’ve created a capital from Moscow” kicks off in Moscow

On December 28 2010 the A.V. Shchusev State Museum of Architecture launched a jubilee exhibition called “We’ve created a capital from Moscow”.

The exhibition showcases masterpieces of the 1930s Soviet architecture. It was at that time that the image of Moscow changed dramatically. Many architects concentrated their efforts to turn Moscow from Russia’s ordinary provincial town into a modern capital city of the strong young industrial power. In those days appeared new broad avenues, large squares, granite embankments, metros and beautiful houses.

The key idea of the exhibition is to show the origins of the modern Moscow architecture, and also the continuity of modern architects, creators of the capital city’s image, with their great predecessors.

In the exhibition space authors tried to revive an impression of public viewing of architectural projects, which was popular in the 1930s. Panoramic views and other drafts of buildings or streets used to be exhibited in the windows of the first floors in Tverskaya street for the public to make their judgment and come up with their ideas and remarks. It gave an impression that the architecture for people was created by people themselves. On the other hand, residents of the capital had an opportunity to get acquainted with the upcoming changes and new buildings under design.

The jubilee exhibition “We’ve created a capital from Moscow” continues in a chronological way the series of exhibitions on the Soviet architecture history, which was started by demonstration of creative searches of architects in the 1920s at the “Vkhutemas. Thought is material” exhibition, which is based on a rich collection of architectural graphic works of the A.V. Shchusev State Museum of Architecture.

The exhibition has been organized by the A.V. Shchusev State Museum of Architecture and “Mosproject-1.