Mound of Memory

The competition proposal for a memorial complex on the Pulkovo Heights by Studio 44 will not be realized, yet it deserves attention as an intriguing example of how architecture can symbolize traumatic events and thereby contribute to their processing and integration into human experience. The architects also succeed in combining memorial and recreational functions without slipping either into excessive dramatization or oversimplification. The project develops ideas explored in two earlier competition entries that likewise remained unbuilt – the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad and the Tuchkov Buyan park. It also recalls the mound-like hill that Alexander Nikolsky embodied in the form of the now-lost stadium on Krestovsky Island.

Written by:
Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

08 May 2026

Object

In 2024, Saint Petersburg announced a competition for the concept of a memorial complex on the Pulkovo Heights. Since architectural competitions have become rare in the city in recent years, the event itself seemed significant. Moreover, the large site offered the possibility of combining memorial functions with landscape transformation and the creation of a park – almost as though it could partly compensate for two previous unrealized competition projects: the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad competition of 2017 and the Tuchkov Buyan park competition of 2019.

Today, the chances of implementation may be greater, yet both the competition itself and the selection of the winner clearly reflect a different era. Participants were chosen by an expert panel based on portfolios; there was no discussion of consortia involving foreign or out-of-town firms – only Saint Petersburg offices were invited. Of the twelve participants, five advanced to the second round, with the proposal by Intercolumnium selected as the winner, responding most directly to a demand for heroic imagery.

The proposal by Studio 44, which also reached the final five, is more universal in character. It offers a compelling example of how a memorial can be integrated into the everyday life of the city – so that people remember, yet also retain faith in the future.

zooming — Siege of Leningrad memorial complex

Copyright: © Studio 44

Location

The Pulkovo Heights are a chain of hills, the tallest of which rises to 75 meters and is now occupied by an observatory. The site held exceptional strategic importance, providing access to the besieged city. It was here that the defenders of Leningrad halted the offensive and maintained their positions from September 1941 until August 1944. The Pulkovo defensive line forms part of the “Green Belt of Glory”, a memorial system uniting more than eighty sites along the line of Leningrad’s defense.

The park is planned for the very site where the fiercest battles once took place. The territory lies between the observatory and the Expoforum complex. Two phases are envisioned: the first, memorial in character, will occupy 17 hectares and feature a symbolic landmark rising up to 40 meters high; the second phase will form the park itself. Studio 44 conceived the project in such a way that the two functions not only avoid contradicting one another, but actively reinforce the overall statement.

Remember

Symbolize It

The purpose of a memorial complex connected with wartime history lies not merely – or even primarily – in commemorating a particular date or event. To know and remember is important, yet such knowledge must somehow be processed and internalized. Given the temporal distance, the often formalized approach to education and public enlightenment, and the constant informational flow that has turned wartime events into a familiar background presence, architecture acquires a larger task: to interrupt the viewer’s automatic, “sliding” perception and replace it with a sensory and emotional experience that allows for personal engagement and the formation of an individual response.

At the same time, it is crucial both to evoke an emotional reaction and not to cross a certain threshold. The ultimate goal is not to overwhelm or traumatize the visitor, but to help integrate a traumatic historical event into human experience. In addressing such a task, symbolism becomes the most effective tool. Through symbolism, we are able to confront horror without being destroyed by the experience itself.

For the memorial complex, Studio 44 adopts an approach similar to the one previously developed for the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad. The following quotation from an earlier interview with Nikita Yavein aptly describes the new project as well:

“To achieve the necessary emotional intensity, we constructed our exhibition not as a system of spaces and volumes, but as a sequence of directed sensations and dramatic effects, almost theatrical in nature. We attempted to materialize significant concepts and historical facts in architectural form”.

At the Pulkovo Heights, the project team essentially pursues the same strategy – creating a sequence of spaces designed to evoke very specific emotions connected with the history of the site. To achieve this, the architects employ historical records and documents, aerial photographs, sound, light, and even the land itself: although the scars upon it have healed, they remain visible. Each element of the complex carries significance on its own, yet they operate even more powerfully together, while simultaneously offering visitors multiple routes and scenarios of experience.

Fracture / Path

The first thing awaiting the visitor is preparation. The main entrance to the complex, located from the side of Peterburgskoye Highway, is not conceived as a triumphal gate opening onto a grand plaza, but rather as its opposite: a fracture in the body of the hill, a narrow corridor, a confined space that creates both the place and the time for reflection and transition. The incline itself suggests effort and overcoming. At the end of the path, the visitor arrives at the central part of the complex.

The Bowl

The central space takes the form of a bowl that evokes, from the outside, the mouth of a volcano, the crater of an explosion, a smelting furnace. At the same time, the bowl also recalls the Holy Grail – a symbol of salvation and sacrificial redemption. The fracture leads the visitor toward an eternal flame burning at the bottom. Rising upward from it are stepped terraces populated by “shadows” – monumental sculptural figures symbolizing fallen soldiers. Within this almost mystical space, the present comes into contact with the past. The amphitheater-like structure also helps visitors feel that they are not alone in their thoughts and emotions.

Yet the earliest prototype here is not even the amphitheater, but a still more ancient way of understanding space – the burial mound or “kurgan”. A similar solution was once employed by Alexander Nikolsky in the design of the stadium on Krestovsky Island, though there an artificial circular embankment was created, whereas on the Pulkovo Heights the natural topography itself allows the architecture to merge with an existing hill. Nikita Yavein’s work on the memorial complex coincided with Oleg Yavein’s work on a monograph devoted to Alexander Nikolsky, making the reference appear especially likely to us.

The description of the stadium also draws attention to the varying impressions the bowl may produce: imagined filled during a ceremonial event, it conveys solemnity and grandeur; imagined on an ordinary day, the sensation of emptiness becomes all the more acute.

Fire, the circular form, openness to rain and light, rootedness in the earth, and the sculptural “shadows” all guide the subconscious back toward times when people identified the natural with the divine, sensing themselves as part of this connection and of larger natural cycles. Are such sensations appropriate within a memorial complex? It seems to us that they are more than appropriate.

Siege of Leningrad memorial complex. The bowl

Copyright: © Studio 44
Siege of Leningrad memorial complex. A fragment

Copyright: © Studio 44

From the steps, visitors ascend to a broad “rim” forming a circular route that allows the entire complex to be viewed from above. At one point, the ring is interrupted by a large viaduct directed toward Berlin. In developing this part of the complex, the architects searched for images and forms capable of expressing the transition from war to peace, turning to works of art for inspiration – among them installations by Ilya Kabakov and Emilia Kabakov such as The Bridge and How to Meet an Angel.

Rings of Time, Craters, and Bell Tower

From the rim of the bowl, visitors may proceed onto one of the four rings of time encircling the mound, each corresponding to one year of the war. These rings are connected by pedestrian paths that reveal the complex from different perspectives. Together, the rings divide the mound into stepped tiers reminiscent of a ziggurat, transforming movement through the site into a ritualized journey. A fifth ring, dedicated to the year of victory, could potentially appear at the foot of the hill during the second phase of implementation.

Scattered across the slopes are crater-like depressions whose approximate locations were reconstructed using German aerial reconnaissance photographs. The result is a kind of land art: at times the craters fill with rainwater, at others they freeze beneath a crust of ice, while in summer they are emptied again by the sun.

Another element inscribed into the earth is a trench cutting through the hill from north to south. Its outline, too, was reconstructed from German aerial photography. Visitors follow its dark curves, and with every turn encounter more names of the fallen defenders of Leningrad. Thanks to the work of search teams, these lists continue to grow year after year. Yet at the end of the path, light becomes visible.

A winding trail extends outward from the bowl and mound toward the open fields. It passes through rows of metal panels displaying archival photographs, military maps, and other historical documents. In plan, the composition of this section resembles a schematic radio wave – a signal transmitted from the past into the future.

As the vertical landmark of the complex, the project team chose a 40-meter carillon – an openwork structure with bells on top of it – positioned at the highest point of the terrain, yet slightly removed from the main circulation routes. The distant sound of the bells helps intensify the emotional impact of the memorial on visitors.

Life will prevail

Most of the memorial elements listed above can equally be described as landscape or park structures: the scenario is primarily conceived as a kind of route – a contemplative walk that sets the visitor into an elegiac state of mind. By the end of this journey, a person is meant to be somewhat different from when they began.

The complex, of course, also includes spaces for ceremonial events, flower-laying rituals, guided tours and lectures, as well as open-air concerts. Yet it would be wasteful to turn this territory – now increasingly surrounded by residential development – into a place that comes alive only on commemorative dates and is populated mainly by visitors arriving on tour buses. On the one hand, the Pulkovo defensive line is a site of memory and reflection. On the other, people did not die so that sorrow alone would multiply. Therefore, the second layer of the project is about life.

In this regard, the decision to use less concrete and rely more heavily on landscape-based techniques feels particularly appropriate – techniques that already contain within them the dual idea of life and death. The architects, for example, propose to re-sow the fields and reintroduce gardens that once helped save the besieged city from famine. Another powerful space is the oak grove on the banks of the Pulkovka River – a place of timelessness and silence.

Closer to the Pulkovo Reservoir, the symbolic charge gradually dissipates, and the park transforms into an ordinary urban landscape: with walking paths, a beach, playgrounds, and outdoor cafés. Over time, this park will naturally expand: trees and grasses will grow, gradually covering the “rings”, craters, and viaduct with a green carpet. Life will prevail.

08 May 2026

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View

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