Giles Prendergast

Moscow – Arts & Entertainment – Museums

Set in a crumbling classical mansion in between the Stalinist behemoth of the Lenin Library (okay it’s called the Russian National Library these days, but it’s a mammoth all the same) and the Pentagonesque building housing the Russian General Staff and Arbatskaya metro station, this place is confusing and oddly intimidating.

Part of it is clearly rented out to an Italian restaurant, you half expect to find the main door locked, and most importantly, this is effectively and exhibition space, not a museum.

In the main building you get to see a few sparse exhibitions in a series of elegant rooms on the first floor. Through a door underneath a staircase on the ground floor you walk out into an cluttered internal courtyard, where, despite the plethora of stuff you might see, there are only two areas that are actually open to visitors. One, in the far left corner, is the Apothecary Office building dating back, apparently, to the 17th century. The other, right in front of you, is the Ruin Pavilion, so called because it looks even more run down than anything else here. This is probably deliberate, but the exposed girders make it look vaguely unsafe from a health and safety point of view.

Except in this pavilion, expect to be challenged by members of staff wishing to inspect your tickets. These you buy for 100 roubles (at the time of writing) from the lady at the entrance, and I can’t think of any other way to get in. I don’t know why they would want to see your tickets again and again, unless of course they have a lot of gatecrashing incidents.

The exhibitions – not just architectural, but artistic in general – are cool, cutting edge and occasionally very interesting, but
sadly some of them last only a few days.

In a city with a troubled architectural history that is Moscow, this museum could do so much more, but I suppose they work with what they have.
Check out my review of Architecture Museum – I am prendergast – on Qype