The Opening of the new Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow

Published by ARTAND, 2015

When the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art first opened in Moscow in 2008, it transformed the abandoned Bakhmetevsky bus garage into a home for large-scale international exhibitions. Following this tradition of transformation, the museum’s recently-unveiled dynamic new structure has breathed new life into the site of the once-famous, abandoned Vremena Goda restaurant.

Planned since 2012, the structure was designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus (with his firm OMA). Built on the ruins of the restaurant space – which since being abandoned for over twenty years had become a derelict and graffitied vision of decay – Koolhaus has preserved and integrated its battered pillars, broken mosaics and exposed bricks as features of the new museum. Shiny blue and brown tiled walls make for a stark contrast to the white cube standards that many international institutions abide by. That said, however, Koolhaus’design also features extendable white walls that can be maneuvered down from the ceiling to create a monochromatic area if required.

Whilst it is smaller than the previous site in north Moscow, the new building is home to five galleries, a medaitheque, an auditorium, a bookshop and a café. The Garage Resource Room also includes information about the 1960s – when the original restaurant was built – regarding local Soviet art forms and artifacts from the period. In contrast to its previous semi-industrial location, the new museum in Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure is surrounded by recreational attractions including amusement rides, manicured gardens and fountains.

The museum’s inaugural exhibitions included Katharina Grosse: Yes No Why Later; The Sixties: Points of Intersection; and Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Theory.

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Garage Museum of Contemporary Art
Krymsky Val, 9, стр.32, Moscow, Russia, 119049