The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow has announced a collaboration with Japanese studio SANAA to restore a ruined 1920s pavilion and turn it into a major new gallery space.
SANAA has created a new design for the Hexagon, a listed building that was once an exhibition centre but that is currently in ruins after a series of fires.
Located next to the main Garage Museum building in Gorky Park, the pavilion is set to become a destination for "social interaction and the display of various artistic practices".
The Hexagon is located in Gorky Park, next to the main Garage Museum building
The Hexagon was originally designed by Russian architects Ivan Zholtovsky, Viktor Kokorin and Mikhail Parusnikov to serve as the Machines and Tools Pavilion at the Agricultural and Handicraft Industries Exhibition in 1923. The building consists of a series of six identical halls, organised around a circular courtyard.
Various changes have been made to these structures over the years, as the building has also served as a lemonade factory, a cafe, a cinema and a discotheque.
SANAA's design restores the original proportions of the internal layouts, allowing double-height gallery spaces to open directly out to the courtyard.
The restoration will create 9,500 square metres of functional space, including three exhibition galleries, a library, a bookstore and a cafe.
The structures will be stripped of any non-original decorative elements to highlight the building's neoclassical form.
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