OFFICE 162

Facing a vast former airfield northwest of Moscow and surrounded by shopping malls and football stadiums, the New National Centre for Contemporary Art asserts its presence via a 165m x 93m LED display supported by an open steelwork structure. This false facade partly conceals an array of individual volumes connected by elevators, escalators and stairs organised along the wall. The four volumes are envisaged as independent building types: an office tower with a double core and glass facade, an open-plan warehouse for workshops and archives, a ‘palace’ divided by a grid of exhibition rooms of varying sizes over different floors, and a circular ‘silo’ with large halls and an open parking spiral at mid-height. A detached fifth volume accommodates artists’ residences and ateliers. A large gateway penetrates the LED display, cutting through to the public entrance behind it and further confusing the notion of the front and rear facade.