Experiments with Form: Deconstruction and Neoconstructivism in the Moscow Architecture of the 1990s-2000s

At the turn of the 20th — 21st centuries, Moscow architecture was dynamic, with different architects working simultaneously, embodying individual meanings in a variety of architectural form and materials. One of the lines of the modern Moscow architecture development was experimentation with space, form and construction, which, among other things, involved references to the principles and techniques of deconstructivism and appeals to constructivism, which make the subject of this article. Deconstructivist motifs in the Moscow architecture of the 1990s — 2000s are primarily visible in the architectural works of A. Asadov’s studio and individual projects of V. Kolosnitsyn and A. Loktev. The search for non-trivial plastic solutions interested such architects as M. Khazanov, A. Bokov, S. Skuratov, S. Kiselev, G. Nadtochiy, K. Konovaltsev, B. Shabunin and others. Some of the architectural objects appeared to be full-fledged followers of constructivist traditions (e.g. the works of the architectural workshop of N. Lyzlov, some projects of A. Skokan and the Ostozhenka architectural bureau, urban objects of A. Vissarionov, A. Vorontsov, Y. Ilyin-Adaev, etc.). This article reveals one of the trends in the development of Moscow architecture which along with neomodernism, neoclassicism, capitalist romanticism (or ‘caprom’), an appeal to Art Deco, to the techniques and principles of postmodernism has permanently changed the appearance of the capital.