Tsvetnoy Central Market

By Francesco Pagliari - 16 June 2014

Muscovite architecture practice Project Meganom was founded in 1999 by architects Yuri Grigoryan, Alexandra Pavlova, Ilya Kuleshov and Pavel Ivanchikov. (The name recalls a rocky promontory in the Crimean peninsula that reaches out into the Black Sea.) As the firm grew so did its scope of briefs that now range from urban residences and dachas (the traditional Russian holiday home deep in the countryside) to district re-development master plans. All Meganom projects are conceived as complex systems made up of architectures and their (urban or rural) landscape. Form and materials are the means by which aesthetic and functional elements are welded together. For artistic considerations are key to Meganom projects, as important as providing physical comfort. Innovation sits alongside continuity, new requirements are accommodated in conventional forms, and constructivist features combine with modern Russian architecture. Juxtaposing and blending materials are hallmark features of their constructions.
The architects vary their approach to the requirements of the brief. Their country residences set in woodland (Villa Roza, Sosny village and the six X-Park houses) are designed to blend closely with the natural setting and be glimpsed through the vegetation. Articulated forms and volumes are realised in a variety of materials: timber, glazing and concrete. Each project is an architectural statement, the volumes strikingly sculptural. Similarly, district-scale projects proceed by accumulation and opposition. The resultant sculptural elements become the unifying features of the complex. The AMO ZIL District (Moscow, 2012) is a series of large intersecting contrasting volumes. The Skolkovo Innovation Centre (designed with Stefano Boeri Associati, 2011 - 2012) is a series of separate volumes scattered over the designated area. The same theme of juxtaposition and contrast is also visible in Meganom’s Luxury Village outside Moscow. This retail centre comprises a main...