Moscow, Russia

The New Building of the Tretyakov State Gallery designed by SPEECH Architectural Office marks the institution’s evolution into a contemporary cultural space and combines modern architectural design with functionality, making it an important addition to Moscow’s cultural landscape.

This expansion and restoration project has been awarded a 2024 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

The main façade of the building, facing the Kadashevskaya embankment, has been opened to the city as much as possible.

In fact, this façade is interpreted as a materialized metaphor of the museum collection and recreates the trellis hanging of the famous collection of paintings by Pavel Tretyakov, the founder of the gallery.

All public areas of the museum (foyers, cafes, restaurants, shops, etc.) are located along this façade, so the architects were able to create on its surface a large number of windows-“paintings” framed by wide frames.

The façade itself is laid out of textured red brick, and the window frames are made of white stone (marbled limestone).

This combination of brick and light stone is very traditional for the historical center of Moscow and for the buildings of the Tretyakov Gallery, in particular.

However, the idea of windows as the paintings is ensured not only by “frames,” but also by their content: fragments of famous paintings are applied to the outer layer of glazing.

They are made translucent: on the one hand, they will allow you to recall the main pearls from the Tretyakov Gallery collection, and on the other hand, they will not obscure the view of the Kremlin from the windows of cafes and restaurants and will actually allow visitors to feel themselves inside the famous paintings and take selfies with their heroes.

Project: New Building of Tretyakov State Gallery
Architects: SPEECH Architectural Office
Lead Architects: Sergei Tchoban and Igor Chlenov
Project Architect: Marina Digileva
General Contractor: Metropolis LLC.
Client: Tretyakov State Gallery
Photographers: Dmitry Chebanenko and Ilya Ivanov