Seven Hills of Moscow

Seven installations for Moscow Fireworks Festival and a multistory raft in the city of Vyksa – these and other projects were realized by the team of interns of the 4th internship of Wowhaus.

Written by:
Alla Pavlikova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

07 December 2017

Overview

The Wowhaus internship is an educational project that helps young architects to immerse themselves into the profession, not in the routine, but in a creative way – honing, and sometimes implementing their ideas in collaboration with practicing architects of the firm, including its leaders Oleg Shapiro and Dmitry Likin. According to the Wowhaus architects, the fourth internship proved to be the most fruitful one. Over a short period of time, a team of seven young lady architects who came from all over the country was able to design and build the project of a raft for Vyksa’s Art-Ovrag (“Art-Ravine”) Festival, and take part in many large-scale projects of the firm.

The interns recall that they got down to their first task in less than an hour after their initial interview. A schedule just as tight was applied to the whole studying course: workshops, lectures, brainstorming sessions, sleepless nights, participation in construction work and author supervision.

Marina Pakhomova
Intern of the fourth internship;
currently a junior architect of Wowhaus:

“Figuratively speaking, I was lucky to catch the last train on that project, submitting my portfolio an hour before the deadline. After I got back to Moscow from Germany, where I finished graduate school, I dreamed of finding a job that I could really enjoy. Wowhaus seemed to me the most interesting option. But when I was submitting my application I did not expect the competition to be so tough – seven applicants per place. I was lucky enough to become a part of a large team with its own philosophy and its own attitude towards the profession. I was also lucky with the team of interns – we were all thinking in the same lines, and we were able to find common ground very quickly, and do interesting projects together”.

Maybe, due to the fact that the team was a very close-knit one, the Wowhaus leaders made a decision to invite all the interns to work for the firm in the capacity of junior architects. Below, we are covering a few projects that were done with the input from Wowhaus interns 2017.

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The “Paradox” raft in Vyksa

zooming — Oleg Shapiro and the interns at the Art-Ovrag Festival in Vyksa. Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko

Rotating one element consisting of two flights of stairs helped the architects to create a tight spatial knot on a small floating island, mastering the whole of it. Although the raft was on the rocky side, and the guests had to duck now and then, it could still take aboard a record number of people and sail them around. After the festival, all the rafts, including “Paradox”, were transferred into the city ownership, and are now used as pleasure boats on a local creek.

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Hills for the Fireworks Festival

The International Fireworks Festival took place in Moscow in mid-August. Before the festival, the interns, who by that time already had the status of the architects of the firm, developed, under the guidance of Anastasia Izmakova, concepts for seven art objects that were meant to symbolize the seven hills of the nation’s capital – Borovitsky, Tagansky, Strastnoy, Sretensky, Invanovskaya and Pskovskaya mounts, and the Vorobyevy (“Sparrow”) Hills. Every intern was commissioned with one location. The work of the project began with profound historical studies – a two-hour lecture delivered by the Moscow history expert Philipp Smirnov, which allowed the interns to get a maximum of information not only about the hills but about Moscow in general.

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The Borovitsky Hill
Sophia Zhukova

This installation was presented as a symbolic city square circled by a red wooden fence, in the center of which stands a swing 12 meters tall. Painted red, just as the fence, this swing looked more like a tower. As for the square, in spite of the fact that its coverage was grass, it still put the visitors in the mind of the Red Square with its Kremlin walls, while the material that the author of the project chose for the fence – pieces of timber of different sizes – served as a reminder of a pine-tree forest that used to be here centuries ago. Hence, the name of Borovitsky (which can be loosely translated as “Forest” – translator’s note) Hill.

“The Red Square is a steady association, from which we wanted to break away as much as possible – explains the author of the project Sophia Zhukova – The only thing that literally refers to it is the color. Historically, the Red Square has always been the place of people’s gatherings, and this is pretty much why I chose the idea of the people’s unity to base my project upon. Hence, the image of a swing as a universal uniting element that is loved by children and adults alike”.

During the whole festival, the swing, in which, in accordance with the old Russian tradition, one could only swing in an upright standing position, did enjoy great popularity. The interns are recalling that even the construction workers who assembled the swing in the park could not resist the temptation to take a swing after their work was done.

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Shvivaya Mount. The Tagansky Hill

Ekaterina Kovbashina

The Shvivaya Mount was the place where crafts were developed. For centuries, this part of the city hosted weavers’ workshops, so, creating her installation, Ekaterina Kovbashina proceeded from the image of a weaving loom. The weaving loom, which, according to the author’s idea, was to be used to its direct purpose during the festival, occupied the central position in the installation. What grew up around it looked something like a tower assembled from its individual elements and parts. The visitors could step inside the tower and even try to weave a strip of canvas.

“I originally planned that the construction of the tower would be metallic but it was ultimately made of wood – Ekaterina Kovbashina says – another thing that I wasn’t able to do was have the threads backlit and include the interactive part. But generally, all the elements of the project are there: the object was a big hit with children, while adults would examine it from different angles and play the game of associations – someone compared it with a butterfly’s cocoon, someone – with a penguin. This is my first project implemented on such a grand scale”.

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Sparrow Hills
Kristina Rykova

Designing her project, Kristina Rykova drew inspiration from the high-rise building of the Moscow State University – she took the star that crowns the high-rises’s spear as the starting point. Its real size is quite impressive – a whopping 8 meters in diameter. One cannot conceive that fact, however, because we all are used to seeing this star from a distance. What Kristina proposed to do was get this star down from heaven to earth, and she came up with a wooden structure whose plan repeats the contour of the star on a real-size scale. The opening that the structure has in its roof is of the same shape only it is smaller. It was also planned that stars would be used for decorating the walls as well. The idea was that, coming inside, the visitor would see the stars above, below, and even all around him.

“The project underwent significant changes in the course of the construction – Kristina Rykova explains – Initially, I planned to build my project from wood but this idea turned out to be prohibitively expensive. The wooden parts were ultimately replaced with red ribbons”. Nevertheless, the image of the star is easily readable in the altered project as well.

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Ivanovskaya Mount
Alina Malysheva

The Ivanovskaya Mount is connected with the image of the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral. However, Alina Malysheva decided to base her project not on the image of the cathedral itself, but on the organ whose sound filled its walls since 1837. The installation explores the bright artistic image of the organ that consists of numerous pipes. In this particular instance, however, the pipes, wrapped in white semitransparent perforated film, are placed in a rather chaotic fashion and have a huge scale – from giant ones, inside of which you can step like you would into a room to tiny decorative ones. In the windy weather, with the air blowing through the pipes of different diameter, the entire installation will be livened up by musical accompaniment.

In addition to the fact that the installation is essentially a musical instrument, Alina proposed to place musical instruments of her original design inside of each of the larger pipes – for example, a makeshift xylophone, a church bell, or a communication tube. She was not able to realize this idea, though, and, instead, came up with a new one: an interactive installation that would allow the visitors to add effects to the sound of their voices. “This playful aspect of the installation was something that our visitors liked very much – Alina Malysheva recalls – People would hit the keys, run from one pipe to another like they would in a labyrinth, they would shout and stomp, creating a constant echo”.

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The Sretensky Hill
Alina Rakhmatullina

The Lubyanka Square once had on it a large water-supplying fountain: people would come here with barrels and buckets to get water from the Mytishchi aqueduct. It was this specific image that constituted the basis for the art object designed by Alina Rakhmatullina. The young architect proposed to make a fountain from numerous intertwining water pipes painted different bright colors. The water flows through the pipes in a cyclic fashion, filling a reservoir at the base of the structure. In order to make the water fill the reservoir, one has to push the button. What makes the whole process more fun is the fact that after one pushes the button the water can issue from any of the pipes, and you never know which pipe it will be next.

During the festival, the fountain occupied its due place in the food court zone, and got yet another functional purpose: Alina Rakhmatullina recalls that people would use it to wash their hands before meals. As for the little guests of the festival, they most of all enjoyed the button pushing game.

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The Strastnoy Hill
Nina Stepina

The Strastnoy Hill and the Tverskaya Street situated on it are all about locomotion. This street has always been the city’s main artery: this road was ridden upon by the first horse-drawn streetcar, diligences, and the first tramway. However, the most interesting thing that ever happened to this place was the widening of this street in the 1930’s. This was the time when whole buildings came in motion – they were moved over to the new red line on rails.

The Nina Stepina installation also has rails in it, upon which trolleys run. A peculiar 25-meter railway is decorated by a lightweight structure of numerous rectangular arches. Viewed in perspective, they resemble a portal which looks particularly mind-blowing at night thanks to its backlights. The portal ends in a large screen which plays nonstop historical movies about Moscow and the Tverskaya Street.

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Pskovskaya Mount
Ekaterina Sporykhina

The Pskovskaya Mount used to be situated in the east part of the Zaryadye area, and today there is little left of it – a memory in the park buildings and a high position of the Saint George Church. Rich history of this district of Moscow yielded a lot of images for the creation of an installation: at different times, this place was a commercial and a residential area, a Jewish ghetto, and an English estate. Then all of the buildings were taken down to make room for the construction of the eighth Stalin high-rise, and this was the time when the mount disappeared – the terrain was leveled out.

Ekaterina Sporykhina, an architect of Wowhaus, who had to replace one of her interns on this project, decided to recreate in her installation the “Rossiya” hotel on a 1:10 scale in order to remind about this undisputed milestone in the development not only of the Pskovskaya Mount but of the whole city as well. The light wooden installation of thin planks accurately repeats the dimensions and the structure of the torn-down hotel with a large inner yard and a tower in the middle. The author even kept up the hotel function of the project, organizing inside something in the way of hotel rooms with hammocks and soft poufs.

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Wowhaus takes in new interns several times a year, make sure to follow the updates and announcements.

07 December 2017

Headlines now

Object

A Small Country

Mezonproekt is developing a long-term master plan for the MEPhI campus in Obninsk. Over the next ten years, an enclave territory of about 100 hectares, located in a forest on the northern edge of the city, is set to transform into a modern center for the development of the nuclear energy sector. The plan envisions attracting international students and specialists, as well as comprehensive territorial development: both through the contemporary realization of “frozen” plans from the 1980s and through the introduction of new trends – public spaces, an aquapark, a food court, a school, and even a nuclear medicine center. Public and sports facilities are intended to be accessible to city residents as well, and the campus is to be physically and functionally connected to Obninsk.

Object

Pearl Divers

GAFA has designed an apartment complex for Derbent intended to switch people from a work mode to a resort mindset – and to give the surrounding area a much-needed jolt. The building offers two distinct faces: restrained and laconic on the city side, and a lushly ornate façade facing the sea. At the heart of the complex, a hidden pearl lies – an open-air pool with an arch, offering views of a starry sky, and providing direct access to the beach.

Object

A Satellite Island

The Genplan Institute of Moscow has prepared a master plan for the development of the Sarpinsky and Golodny island system, located within the administrative boundaries of Volgograd and considered among the largest river islands in Russia. By 2045, the plan envisions the implementation of 15 large-scale investment projects, including sports and educational clusters, a congress center with a “Volgonarium”, a film production cluster, and twenty-one theme parks. We explain which engineering, environmental, and transportation challenges must be addressed to turn this vision into reality. The master plan solutions have already been approved and incorporated into the city’s general development plan.

Object

The Amber Gate

The Amber City residential complex is one of the redevelopment projects in the former industrial area located beyond Moscow’s Third Ring Road near Begovaya metro station. Alexey Ilyin’s studio proposed an original master plan that transformed two clusters of towers into ceremonial propylaea, gave the complex a recognizable silhouette, and established visual connections with new high-rise developments on both right and left – thus integrating it into the scale of the growing metropolis. It is also marked by its own futuristic stylistic language, based on a reinterpreted streamline aesthetic.

Object

A Theater Triangle

The architectural company “Chetvertoe Izmerenie” (“Fourth Dimension”) has developed the design for a new stage of the Magnitogorsk Musical Theater, rethinking not only theater architecture but also the role of the theater in the contemporary city.

Interview

Aleksei Ilyin: “I approach every task with genuine interest”

Aleksei Ilyin has been working on major urban projects for more than 30 years. He has all the necessary skills for high-rise construction in Moscow – yet he believes it’s essential to maintain variety in the typologies and scales represented in his portfolio. He is passionate about drawing – but only from life, and also in the process of working on a project. We talk about the structure and optimal size of an office, about his past and current projects, large and small tasks, and about creative priorities.

Interview

Sergey Tchoban: “My ideal model for shaping a museum space is the Uffizi Gallery. In the...

Yesterday, the ZILART Museum opened on the ZILART grounds with three exhibitions curated by well-known curators. We speak with Sergey Tchoban about the concept and its realization.

Object

A Golden Sunbeam

A compact brick-and-metal building in the growing Shukhov Park in Vyksa seems to absorb sunlight, transform it into yellow accents inside, and in the evening “give it back” as a warm golden glow streaming from its windows. It is, frankly, a very attractive building: both material and lightweight at the same time, with lightness inside and materiality outside. Its form is shaped by function – laconic, yet far from simple. Let’s take a closer look.

Architecton Awards

In 2025, the jury of the Architecton festival reviewed the finalist projects through live, open presentations held right in the exhibition hall – a rather engaging performance, and something rarely seen among Russian awards. It would be great if “Zodchestvo” adopted this format. Below, we present all the winning projects, including four special nominations.

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Garden of Knowledge

UNK architects and UNK design created the interiors of the Letovo Junior campus, working together with NF Studio, which was responsible for developing the educational technology that takes into account the needs and perception of younger and middle school children.

The Silver Skates

The STONE Kaluzhskaya office quarter is accompanied by two residential towers, making the complex – for it is indeed a single ensemble – well balanced in functional terms. The architects at Kleinewelt gave the residential buildings a silvery finish to match the office blocks. How they are similar, how they differ, and what “Silver Skates” has to do with it – we explore in this article.

Overview

On the Dynastic Trail

The houses and townhouses of the “Tsarskaya Tropа” (“Czar’s Trail”) complex are being built in the village of Gaspra in Crimea – to the west and east of the palaces of the former grand-ducal residence “Ai-Todor”. One of the main challenges for the architects at KPLN, who developed the project, was to respond appropriately to this significant neighboring heritage. How this influenced the massing, the façades, and the way the authors work with the terrain is explored in our article.

Object

A New Path

The main feature of the Yar Park project, designed by Sergey Skuratov for Kazan, is that it is organized along the “spine” of a multifunctional mall with an impressive multi-height atrium space in its middle. The entire site, both on the city side and the Kazanka River embankment, is open to the public. The complex is intended not to become “yet another fenced enclave” but, as urban planners say, a “polycenter” – a new point of attraction for the whole of Kazan, especially its northern part, made up of residential districts that until now have lacked such a vibrant public space. It represents a new urban planning approach to a high-density mixed-use development situated in the city center – in a sense, an “anti-quarter”. Even Moscow, one might say, doesn’t yet have anything quite like it. Well, lucky Kazan!

Object

Beneath the Azure Sky

A depository designed by Studio 44 will soon be built in Kenozersky National Park to preserve and display the so-called “heavens” – ceiling structures characteristic of wooden churches in the Russian North, painted with biblical scenes. For each of these “heavens”, the architects created a volume corresponding in scale and dimensions to the original church interior. The result is a honeycomb-like composition, with modules derived directly from the historic monuments themselves, allowing visitors to view the icons from the historically accurate angle – from below, looking upward. How exactly this works is the subject of our story.

Object

The Power of Lines

The building at the very beginning of New Arbat is the result of long deliberations over how to replace the former House of Communication. Contemporary, dynamic, and even somewhat zoomorphic in character, it is structured around a large diagonal grid. The building has become a striking accent both in the perspective of the former Kalinin Avenue and in the panorama of Arbat Square. Yet, unfortunately, the original concept was not fully realized. In 2020, the Moscow ArchCouncil approved a design featuring an exoskeleton – an external load-bearing structure, which eventually turned into a purely decorative element. Still, the power of the supergraphic “holds” the building, giving it the qualities of a new urban landmark with iconic potential. How this concept took shape, what unexpected associations might underlie the grid’s form, and why the exoskeleton was never built – all this is explored in our article.

News

Resort on the Kama River

Wowhaus has developed a project for the reconstruction of Korabelnaya Roshcha (“Mast Grove”), a wellness resort located on the banks of the Kama River.

Object

Nests in Primorye

The eco-park project “Nests”, designed by Aleksey Polishchuk and the company Power Technologies, received first prize at the Eco-Coast 2025 festival, organized by the Union of Architects of Russia. For a glamping site in Filinskaya Bay, the authors proposed bird-shaped houses, treehouses, and a nest-shaped observation platform, topping it all with an entrance pavilion executed in the shape of an owl.

Object

The Angle of String Tension

The House of Music, designed by Vladimir Plotkin and the architects of TPO Reserve, resembles a harp, and when seen from above, even a bass clef. But if only it were that simple! The architecture of the complex fuses two distinct expressive languages: the lattice-like, transparent, permeable vocabulary of “classical” modernism and the sculptural, ribbon-like volumes so beloved by today’s neo-modernism. How it all works – where the catharsis lies, which compositional axes underpin the design, where the project resembles Zaryadye Concert Hall and where it does not – read in the article below.

Object

How Historic Tobolsk Becomes a Portal to the Future

Over the past decade, the architectural company Wowhaus has developed urban strategies for several Russian cities – Vyksa, Tula, and Nizhnekamsk, to name but a few. Against this backdrop, the Tobolsk master plan stands out both for its scale – the territory under transformation covers more than 220 square kilometers – and for its complexity.

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St. Petersburg vs Rome

The center of St. Petersburg is, as we know, sacred – but few people can say with certainty where this “sacred place” actually begins and ends. It’s not about the formal boundaries, “from the Obvodny Canal to the Bolshaya Nevka”, but about the vibe that feels true to the city center. With the Nevskaya Ratusha complex – built to a design that won an international competition – Evgeny Gerasimov and Sergei Tchoban created an “image of the center” within its territory. And not so much the image of St. Petersburg itself, as that of a global metropolis. This is something new, something that hasn’t appeared in the city for a long time. In this article, we study the atmosphere, recall precedents, and even reflect on who and when first called St. Petersburg the “new Rome”. Clearly, the idea is alive for a reason.

Object

On the Wave

The project of transforming the river port and embankment in the city of Cheboksary, developed by the ATRIUM Architects, involves one of the city’s key areas. The Volga embankment is to be turned into a riverside boulevard – a multifunctional, comfortable, and expressive space for work and leisure activities. The authors propose creating a new link with the city’s main Krasnaya (“Red”) Square, as well as erecting several residential towers inspired by the shape of the traditional national women’s headdress – these towers are likely to become striking accents on the Volga panorama.

Interview

Valery Kanyashin: “We Were Given a Free Hand”

The Headliner residential complex, the main part of which was recently completed just across from Moscow City, is a kind of neighbor to the MIBC that doesn’t “play along” with it. On the contrary, the new complex is entirely built on contrast: like a city of differently scaled buildings that seems to have emerged naturally over the past 20 years – which is a hugely popular trend nowadays! And yet here – perhaps only here – such a project has been realized to its full potential. Yes, high-rises dominate, but all these slender, delicate profiles, all these exciting perspectives! And most importantly – how everything is mixed and composed together... We spoke with the project’s leader Valery Kanyashin.

Object

The Keystone

Until quite recently, premium residential and office complexes in Moscow were seen as the exclusive privilege of the city center. Today the situation is changing: high-quality architecture is moving beyond the confines of the Third Ring Road and appearing on the outskirts. The STONE Kaluzhskaya business center is one such example. Projects like this help decentralize the megalopolis, making life and work prestigious in any part of the city.

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Perpetuum Mobile

The interior of the headquarters of Natsproektstroy, created by the IND studio team, vividly and effectively reflects the client’s field of activity – it is one of Russia’s largest infrastructure companies, responsible for logistics and transport communications of every kind you can possibly think of.

Object

Water and Light

Church art is full of symbolism, and part of it is truly canonical, while another part is shaped by tradition and is perceived by some as obligatory. Because of this kind of “false conservatism”, contemporary church architecture develops slowly compared to other genres, and rarely looks contemporary. Nevertheless, there are enthusiasts in this field out there: the cemetery church of Archangel Michael in Apatity, designed by Dmitry Ostroumov and Prokhram bureau, combines tradition and experiment. This is not an experiment for its own sake, however – rather, the considered work of a contemporary architect with the symbolism of space, volume, and, above all, light.

Object

Champions’ Cup

At first glance, the Bell skyscraper on 1st Yamskogo Polya Street, 12, appears strict and laconic – though by no means modest. Its economical stereometry is built on a form close to an oval, one of UNK architects’ favorite themes. The streamlined surface of the main volume, clad in metal louvers, is sliced twice with glass incisions that graphically reveal the essence of the original shape: both its simplicity and its complexity. At the same time, dozens of highly complex engineering puzzles have been solved here.

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Semi-Digital Environment

In the town of Innopolis, a satellite of Kazan, the first 4-star hotel designed by MAD Architects has opened. The interiors of the hotel combine elegance with irony, and technology with comfort, evoking the atmosphere of a computer game or maybe a sci-fi movie about the near future.

Object

History never ends

The old railway station in Kapan, a city in southern Armenia, has been given new life by the Paris-based design firm Normal Studio. Today, it serves as a TUMO center.

Object

A Deep, Crystal Shine

A new luxury residential development by ADM architects is set to rise in the Patriarch’s Ponds district, not far from Novopushkinsky Square. It will replace three buildings erected in the early 1990s. The project authors, Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova, have placed their bets on the variety among the three volumes, modern design solutions, and attention to detail: one of the buildings will feature smoothly curved balconies with a ceramic sheen on their undersides, while another will be accented by glass “sculpture” columns.

Interview

Grigory Revzin: “What we should do with the architecture of the seventies”

Soviet modernism came in two flavors: the good, author-driven kind, and the bad, standardized kind. The good kind was “on the periphery”, while the bad kind was in the center – geographically, in terms of attention, scale, and everything else. Can we demolish it? “That would be destroying public consensus out of thin air”. So what should we do? Preserve it, but creatively: “Bring architecture into places where it hasn’t yet appeared”. Treat these buildings not as monuments, but as urban landscape. Read our interview with Grigory Revzin on the pressing topic of saving modernism – where he proposes a controversial, yet really intriguing, way of preserving 1970s buildings.