The White Tulip

Currently, there are two relevant projects for the Great Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, which was transferred to a land site in Admiralteiskaya Sloboda in February. One of them, designed by TsLP, was recently showcased at Arch Moscow. In this article, we are covering another project, which was proposed during the same period for the same land site. Its author is Aleksey Ginzburg, the winner of the 2022 competition, but now the project is completely different. Today, it is a sculptural “flower” dome symbolizing a white tulip.

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

16 June 2023

Object

Architect:

Firm:

Ginzburg Architects http://www.ginzburg.ru

Designing large-scale church buildings, especially timed to coincide with high-profile anniversaries, is rarely a simple story with a linear plot. Accordingly, the story of the Great Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, timed to coincide with the adoption of Islam by the Volga Bulgaria in 922, is putting on new details. The land sites and projects prepared for them keep on shuffling. In the spring of the anniversary year of 2022, a competition for the design of the mosque for 10,000 people was announced; then, in May, the amusement park Kirlay on the right bank of the Kazanka River opposite the Kazan Kremlin was demolished and the first stone of the future construction was laid there. In July 2022, the results of the architectural competition were announced, and at that time the first place was shared by the project by Alexei Ginzburg (a hypostyle hall of white lotus-shaped columns overlooking the public space of the square), and the project by Aivar Sattarov (a netted domed hall with four minarets).

Then, virtually without making any announcements, the city considered a few new locations for the construction of the anniversary mosque. Specifically, according to the 116.ru website, three locations were considered: one in the eastern part of Kazan in the Troitsky forest, one south of the Kremlin near the River Station on the left bank of the Volga, and one next to the Park of Newlyweds.

The third location – one in Admiralteiskaya Sloboda, on the cape where the old riverbed of the Kazanka joins the Volga – became the main one in May 2023.

For this location, two projects were announced, upon which their authors had been working – as far as I am informed – since February 2023. One of the projects was authored by the winner of the competition 2022, Aleksey Ginzburg, who throughout fall and winter worked upon adapting his competition proposal for other locations, and in spring came with a totally different concept for Admiralteiskaya Sloboda. The other project was by Alexander Tsimailo and Nikolai Lyashenko, upon which, according to the architects, they worked at the commission of the republic’s president, Rustam Minnikhanov. The concept was presented at Arch Moscow, at the “Architect of the Year” TsLP booth (check out here and here).

Alexei Ginzburg’s project was published on the company’s website in the first decade of May, and received less publicity. Now we are telling you about it. What the two projects have in common is the plot, the capacity of the mosque, and the rectangular platform on the water; then the differences begin: the first project proposed a black Kaaba, the second – AK LALE – a white tulip.

Let’s, however, say a few words about the location first.

The site is a rounded cape. To the east, there is a housing estate, north, there is Clara Zetkin Street, then, two kilometers away, there is the railway station “Admiralteyskaya Sloboda”. This place is essentially countryside, although the Kazan Kremlin is still viewable from here. The context here is not so much urban as of the riverside type: the Volga in front of the Kremlin makes a 90° turn, flowing from the west and turning to the south. In addition, the river is rather wide here – the reason for that being the Kuibyshev reservoir, located downstream in front of Ulyanovsk. After the creation of reservoirs, the Volga changed the shape of its riverbed in many locations, so there are its flood lands and backwaters here as well. Looking at the satellite images, one can see that the cape in question – the future mosque site – is 140 meters away from the Kamenny (“Stone”) Island that is partially flooded. And there are two channels of the Kazanka River, the old and the new.

Situated on such a water surface, the Cathedral Mosque will become the “gate” to the city, a landmark from the side of the river. At the same time, the cape should be viewable from the Kremlin, elevated on a tall hill.

“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Copyright: © Ginzburg Architects
“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Alexsey Ginzburg

The new site has completely different characteristics, and we understood that it would be impossible and even wrong trying to adapt our first project to it. So when we were asked to think about an option for Admiralteyskaya Sloboda, we proposed a whole new idea, which comes from the urban planning features of the new site. The building can be seen from afar, from the river as well as from the city – in our opinion, it should have an iconic silhouette that is easily readable and recognizable from afar.

That is why we offered the idea of a “tulip” building with four minarets: it correlates with the silhouettes of the most famous mosques; it allows you to make the main sculptural accent of the prayer hall volume; and finally it does not exclude the modern form that we tried to “mold” as being flowing and visually mobile, especially if we are to consider the building in motion, for example, when cruising down the river. At the same time, the symmetry of its composition works beautifully for representativeness and solemnity of the image, which is appropriate based on the anniversary meaning of the project and its significant scale.

So! The mosque is placed on a rectangular platform that is “rooted” in the bank part and protrudes in the direction of the river, forming an effect of a building that “floats” on the water, and picking up all the reflections you can possibly think of – the river is quite wide at this point.

The platform is embraced by an arched structure that does not obscure views from the plaza around the mosque, at the same time providing a rather austere orthogonal contour that puts you in the mind of the Sinan mosques of Istanbul – those are also built of light-colored stone, have a dome shape and a fence that ensures a confident distance. Inside of the platform, from the side of the dry land, there will be a parking lot; in addition, some of the earth will be built up and propped up by a concrete wall.

Unlike the austere contour of the arcade, the building is designed in the spirit of the approach that is commonly described as a “non-linear” or a “sculpture” house. Both the dome hall of the mosque and the four minarets are formed by large planes of light color with noticeable thicknesses – full of plastique, but not exactly flowing, as is sometimes the case with modern digital constructions.

You can easily imagine how these slabs are first flattened from sculptural modeling clay, and then are molded confidently and neatly, in a freehand manner, without any excessive dynamics. The architects make incisions in the “pipes” of the minarets, similar to the spring sprouts of some plants, superimposing giant petals on top of each other – for example, above the entrance. They “grow” the verticals of the minarets from a single “root” – at the bottom they all point toward the dome.

Meanwhile, we cannot say that the “biological” associations are literal, but rather that they form a vital energy, a kind of subtext of the form. Of course, we are facing a flower, but at the same time we are facing the sign of a flower.

Abstraction is further enhanced by the large form, generalization and, of course, the symmetry of the entire composition and the spiraling centripetal nature of the main volume. Minarets, paying tribute to the “root” center, then turn into slender verticals, hugging the rods of glass structures, glowing, like glass shafts between the “petals”.

“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Copyright: © Ginzburg Architects
“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

On the inside, the petals are covered with quotations from the Koran in Arabic; between them, there is a combination of triangles of structural glazing. Accordingly, here you get a hall that is well illuminated and permeated by natural light in the daytime.

“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Copyright: © Ginzburg Architects
“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

The entire form – the white petals and the intricately curved glass structures – is an integral shell, calculated through BIM and based on metal structures (including ball-and-stick ones) that combine round and rectangular bars and hidden joints of structural stained glass frames. So we are not seeing a mass, as it may at first seem, but a grid that forms the desired plastique: both the petals and the glass form a single integral structure.

The symbolism of the form is obvious: the tulip is worshiped in the Islamic world because its Arabic name, “lale”, consists of the same letters as the name of God, Allah. Hence the frequent appearance of tulips in Arabic ornaments, especially in combination with the crescent, which also has the same letters as the name of Allah. The white color is interpreted as a sign of purity of intentions. All this creates quite a literal figurativeness, the transformation of a symbol into a form – historical mosques were decorated with tulip flowers, and here the building itself is a flower – which falls in line both with the anniversary sense of the construction, and with the spirit of modern architecture, where small forms are often transformed into larger ones.

If we are to speak about the contemporary architectural context, the project fully fits into it as well, as it develops the direction started by Oscar Niemeyer – the petals and stained-glass windows between them remind the Brasilia Cathedral (1958-1970) – and the trend continued by masters of neo-modernist deconstruction of the early 2000s. Ayvar Sattarov, the winner of the second place in the 2022 competition, author of the Kremlin’s Kul Sharif Mosque, cites an analogy to the White Rose Mosque project proposed in 2014 by architect Festim Toshi for Tirana city center (the project was not implemented, as they built the traditional “Sinan” mosque instead), but the similarity here lies primarily in the “flower” theme; besides, in the rest of the Muslim world the approach of sculpting a modern building out of sculptural “shells” connected by glass fills has been popular for quite some time. In addition to Niemeyer, the Sydney Opera House designed by Jorn Watson certainly plays a big role in shaping it. Closer examples include Paul Paul Böhm’s Mosque in Cologne built in 2017 (while this may not be the most charming building on this list, it is still a good demonstration of the variability of the approach) or, more related in form, the Bahai temple in South America designed by Hariri Pontarini (2002-2016).

In other words, the context is rather wide – “sculpture” buildings and “flower” buildings have been around for at least 60 years now. You cannot call this project hyper-innovative – but the idea behind it develops a modern trend that definitely makes it possible to create a bright and memorable landmark with a clear agenda on the river in front of the city.

Now we will closely monitor the development of the design process of the Great Cathedral Mosque – one way or another, this is a very ambitious project.

Architect:

Firm:

Ginzburg Architects http://www.ginzburg.ru

16 June 2023

Headlines now

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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Overview

A Roadside Picnic of Urban Planning Theorists

Marina Egorova, head of Empate Architectural Bureau, brought together urban planning theorists – the successors of Alexey Gutnov and Vyacheslav Glazychev – to revive the substance and depth of professional discourse. At the first meeting, much ground was covered: the participants revisited the theoretical foundations, aligned their values, examined a cutting-edge case of the Kazan agglomeration, and concluded with the unfathomable intricacies of Russian land demarcation. Below, we present key takeaways from all the presentations.

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Perspective View

CNTR Architects has designed a business center for a new district in Yekaterinburg, aiming to reduce the need for commuting and make the residential environment more diverse. The architectural solutions are equally focused on creating spatial flexibility, comfortable working conditions, and a memorable image that could allow the building to become a spatial landmark of the district.

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Malevich and Bathhouses, Nature and High-Tech

The Malevich Bathhouse complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025 on the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway. The project, designed by DBA-GROUP under the leadership of Vladislav Andreev, is an example of an unconventional approach to the image of a spa in general and of a bathhouse in particular. Deliberately avoiding any kind of allusion, the architects opted for streamlined forms with characteristic rounded corners, a combination of wood with bent glass, and restrained contemporary shapes – both inside and out. Let’s take a closer look at the project.

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Rather, a Tablecloth and a Glass!

After many years, the long-abandoned Horse Guards Department building in St. Petersburg has finally received the attention it deserves: according to a design by Studio 44, the first restoration and adaptation works are scheduled to begin this year. Both the intended function and the general scope of works imply minimal alteration to the complex, which has preserved traces of its three-century history. All solutions are reversible and aimed, above all, at opening the monument to the city and immersing it in a lively social scene – hence the choice of a cultural center scenario with a strong gastronomic component.

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Materialization of Airflows

The Nikolai Kamov International Airport in Tomsk opened at the end of August last year. We have already written about the project – now we are taking a look at the completed building. Its functionality is reinforced by symbolic undertones: the architects at ASADOV sought to reflect local identity in the architecture as fully as possible.

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The City as a Narrative

Sergey Skuratov’s approach to large urban plots could best be described as a “total design code”. The architect pays equal attention to the overall composition and the smallest of details, striving to ensure that every aspect is thoroughly thought out and subordinated to the original vision. It’s a Renaissance-like approach, really – a titanic effort demanding remarkable willpower and perseverance. The results are likewise grand – architecture that makes a statement. This article looks at the revived concept for the central section of the Seventh Heaven residential district in Kazan, a composition so thoroughly considered that even the “gradient of visual emphasis” (sic!) across the facades has been carefully worked out. It also touches on the narrative idea behind the project – and even the architect’s own doubts about it.

A Garden of Hope for Freedom

In October, at the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery in Suzdal, the Prison Yard Garden opened on the site that had served as a prison from the 18th century until the Khrushchev Thaw. The architectural concept was developed by NOῨD Short Film, and the landscape design by the MOX landscape bureau. In fact, there are two gardens here – very different ones. We try to understand whether they evoke the right emotions in visitors, while also showing the beauty of June’s ruderal plants in bloom.

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A Laconic Image of Time

The Time Square residential complex, built on the northern edge of St. Petersburg, appears more concise and efficient than its neighbor and predecessor, the New Time complex. Nevertheless, the architect’s hand is clearly felt: themes of “black and white”, “inside and outside”, and most notably, the “lamellar” quality of the facades that seems to visibly “eat away” at the buildings’ mass – everything is played out like a well-written score. One is reminded of both classical modernism and the so-called “post-constructivism”.

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The Flower of the Lake

The prototype for the building of the Kamal Theater in Kazan is an ice flower: a rare and fragile natural phenomenon of Lake Kaban “froze” in the large, soaring outlines of the glass screens enclosing the main volume, shaping its silhouette and shielding the stained-glass windows from the sun. The project, led by the Wowhaus consortium and including global architecture “star” Kengo Kuma, won the 2021/2022 competition and was realized close to the original concept in a short – very short – period of time. The theater opened in early 2025. It was Kengo Kuma who proposed the image of an ice flower and the contraposition of cold on the outside and warmth on the inside. Between 2022 and 2024, Wowhaus did everything possible to bring this vision to life, practically living on-site. Now we are taking a closer look at this landmark building and its captivating story.

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Peaceful Integration on Mira Avenue

The MIRA residential complex (the word mir means “peace” in Russian), perched above the steep banks of the Yauza River and Mira Avenue, lives up to its name not only technically, but also visually and conceptually. Sleek, high-rise, and glass-clad, it responds both to Zholtovsky’s classicism and to the modernism of the nearby “House on Stilts”. Drawing on features from its neighbors, it reconciles them within a shared architectural language rooted in contemporary façade design. Let’s take a closer look at how this is done.