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The most unusual buildings in Moscow

This WordPress post takes us on a journey across Moscow to explore some of its most eye-catching and unusual buildings. From a copper-clad Constitution House to an avant-garde mid-century palace, these landmarks are sure to leave visitors in awe. Each building boasts its own unique style, from neoclassical and modernist influences to postmodern constructions. The article also highlights their varied cultural significance, from a symbol of global friendship to an administrative office for important government-related activities. Striking in form and steeped in history, the featured buildings in Moscow are sure to captivate visitors and provide them with endless exploration opportunities.

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Each city on the planet, of course, has its own distinctive features that make it stand out from the rest of the world’s megacities. The overall picture of the city landscape is made up of many pieces: buildings, streets, flower beds, squares, lanes and avenues, but in almost every city you can find unusual structures that “stand out” from this orderly row. There are buildings famous for their unusual architectural design, of course, in Moscow..

The most unusual buildings in Moscow
Lian Zhen. Dream City No.4

Some of them were built in the last century and have a long history of their own, but there are also new buildings that clearly stand out among the massively appeared in the capital over the past few years, residential complexes and shopping and entertainment centers. The reasons for the appearance of such architectural masterpieces are always different, but as a result, an original element always appears in the Moscow landscape, attracting the attention of both ordinary citizens and specialists..

“House-ship” on Tulskaya

This unusual building has received several names:

  • “House-ship”, due to its unusual shape and balconies, literally encircling the upper floors, which makes the building look like a cruise ship with several decks;
  • “House of atomic workers” – according to legend, one of the foremen of a large-scale construction previously worked in the nuclear industry and made some changes to the project “in the event of a nuclear war”;
  • “House of bachelors”, as one-room apartments in this residential building were often given to unmarried men;
  • “Long House” or “Big House” – a 400-meter-long building rises 50 meters in height. Such unusual dimensions have become the reason for another nickname – “Lying Skyscraper”.

The project for the construction of a house on Bolshaya Tulskaya Street originated in the 1970s, but ten years passed before the completion of the construction, and numerous changes were made to the original Finnish project.

The building has a number of features: increased seismological stability, an unusually complex water supply system, apartments have a very different area and layout, there are even unused, “extra” rooms, with windows, but without an entrance. Visually, the building looks like a 16-storey building, and the first two floors are very high, but officially the “House-Ship” has only 14 floors. The building has as many as 9 entrances and 1,000 apartments.

House of atomic scientists
“House of Atomic Engineers” on Bolshaya Tulskaya, 2

“House-egg” on Mashkova

Another unusual Moscow building, which arose on Mashkov Street not so long ago – in 2002 – and received the “speaking name” House-Egg “or” Faberge Egg “. The height of this building is 4 floors, the first floor or the so-called entrance group is made in the form of unusual volute legs, which are separated by porthole windows.

The next two residential floors are distinguished by windows in deep niches, and the last floor is a hat-shaped attic, which is separated from the main residential floors by a wide cornice.

The building stands out not only for its round shape, but also in bright red, therefore it has become one of the attractions of Mashkov Street. By the way, initially the Moscow authorities did not give permission for the construction of such an original mansion, but then they decided that the appearance of the street would not suffer too much from such an innovation. The construction took two years, the “shell” of the “Egg House” is unusually thick – a metal frame with filling, then insulation and brick. The ceiling height in the attic is 4.5 meters, in the other four rooms of the apartment – 3.2 meters. “Egg Faberge” is equipped with its own elevator, ventilation and water purification systems. The roof is made of copper and there is a garage on the top floor.

Egg house
“House-egg” on Mashkova street

It is interesting that, despite the originality of the project and a lot of advantages, no one ever lived in the house. Initially, the mansion was sold for $ 1.2 million, which was quite expensive for 2002, and already in 2007 the building was put up for sale for 10 million rubles. No new buyers have been found yet.

House of merchant Morozov on Vozdvizhenka

This is one of the oldest unusual residential buildings in Moscow, built back in 1894. The merchant Arseny Morozov traveled for a long time in Portugal and Spain, therefore, after returning home, he decided to erect a mansion in the “Moorish” style..

The merchant’s friend, the architect Viktor Mazyrin, helped Morozov realize the idea, but the merchant personally took part in the implementation of the plan, painted shells and curls, which later adorned the facade.

House of merchant Morozov on Vozdvizhenka
House of merchant Morozov on Vozdvizhenka

It is interesting that the merchant’s mother, who actually gave him a piece of land on which a pretentious mansion so unusual for Belokamennaya appeared, reacted to her son’s quirk like this: “Before, only I knew what a fool you were, but now all of Moscow will know about it”.

The building with openwork turrets is located at Vozdvizhenka street, 16 \ 3.

“Openwork House” on Leningradsky Prospect

The author of this unusual project was the famous Soviet architect and engineer-inventor Andrei Burov. The building project originated in 1936, was implemented in 1941 and was planned as an example of a typical house, in which all Soviet citizens will live in a few years..

Openwork house
“Openwork House” on Leningradsky Prospect

The peculiarity of the unusual building is the openwork panels that hide all the loggias (access to which, by the way, according to the layout, comes from the kitchen). The graceful panels were cast according to the sketches of the artist Vladimir Favorsky, the facade was adorned wonderfully, but the house did not become a typical house, remaining in a single copy, which is not surprising, given the desire of the Soviet government to build the cheapest possible housing.

“Stolnik” in Maly Levshinsky Lane

The famous 8-storey residential building called “Stolnik” is an ultra-modern building made of glass and concrete, which rises in Maliy Levshinsky lane, 5.

Its shocking, latticed, metal-like fencing palm leaves make the building look more like a modern office center, rather than an elite residential building located in the historical part of the capital..

The building has a real penthouse that fully corresponds to such a high rank.

Steward
“Stolnik” in Maly Levshinsky Lane

The construction was carried out from 2000 to 2003, the project was developed by the workshop “A-B” and became a real “explosion”, located in the iconic place of the historical center, original and very daring.

“House-rebus” on Verkhnaya Maslovka

This new building distinguishes it from a number of typical residential complexes in Moscow in that it is possible to find out exactly how many floors there are in the building only after a thorough study of the design documents. In fact, the unusual appearance of the building is caused by the fact that the architects were trying to solve the main problem – to place as much usable area as possible on the smallest possible territory. As a result, the size of the apartments was increased due to the corridors, lift halls and stairwells..

House rebus
“House-rebus” on Verkhnaya Maslovka

All apartments are located so that one corridor “serves” two floors at once, and each apartment has two levels – high, with ceilings of 5 meters, and “sleeping” – the ceilings here are exactly 2 times lower.

Large and small windows correspond to the apartment levels on the façade. Experts note the similarity of the project with the experiments of constructivists, who often met in the development of the capital during the Soviet era..

“Dairy House”

The building got its name only because of its location – the address of this elite residential complex is Molochny Pereulok, 1. For two years the house bore the title of the most beautiful building in Moscow, the project developed by a group of architects under the leadership of Sergei Tkachenko received a lot of awards and was recognized the whole architectural community.

At the same time, apartments in a house in Molochny Lane became the most expensive in the capital – in 2002 more than 10 thousand dollars were requested for 1 square meter of housing.

Dairy house
Residential complex in Molochny lane

Meanwhile, despite such a number of titles, the facade of the building is very simple – made in the style of minimalism, it is decorated only with window openings located in a “beat down rhythm”, no decor or unnecessary details, only finishing with expensive stone and a transparent base.

In the “Milk House”, the facade of which curves in an arc in front of the green lawn, there are no balconies – they were replaced by “French windows”, stretching from floor to ceiling of living quarters.

Residential building Copper House

The famous architect Sergei Skuratov is the author of many Moscow projects, including unusual residential complexes. Copper House consists of three cube-shaped buildings, which are located on small “stands” in Butikovsky Lane. The construction of the residential complex was completed in 2004, and the project was developed by an architect 2 years earlier. The facades of 6-storey buildings were faced with patinated copper, which gave the buildings such an unusual, bright color.

Residential building Copper House
Copper House in Butikovsky lane

Interestingly, there are practically no windows on the opposite side of the buildings – the entire residential complex is aimed at the embankment and it seems that with its copper frame it competes with Peter the Great Tseretelli, visible from the windows of the apartments..

Copper House named as the most famous example of modernist architecture to date.

On the ground floors of Copper House there are offices, on the rest – luxury residential apartments. The only drawback of the houses is the lack of balconies and loggias, which the architect decided to sacrifice in favor of the implementation of an unusual project. On the front facade of one of the houses, overlooking the square at the corner of Butikovsky and Molochny lanes, mirror plates are fixed at different angles, which reflect the sky, neighboring buildings and surroundings, therefore, they seem to hide the building’s own facade.

“Pompeian House” in Filippovsky Lane

The official name of this unusual residential building is Amorini Dorati, which was the name of one of the aristocratic houses in ancient Greek Pompeii. The author of the project was the architect Mikhail Belov, who decided to decorate the facade of the building with unusual paintings, and the windows of the last floors with original cornices, porticoes and columns.

Pompeian house
“Pompeian House” in Filippovsky Lane

The shape of this residential building is the most common – a box, of which there are many on Moscow streets. But the idea to “sew” this box into such an attractive, bright and unusual facade turned out to be a win-win and for the first time in the capital the “Pompeian style”, with which the architects tried to work before, became the main theme of the house..

The construction of the building was completed in 2005, the development of the project took the architect 2 years.

“Roman House” at 2 Kazachiy Lane

The authors of this unusual new building decided to turn to a style that will never go out of fashion and will always be relevant, thanks to its many admirers – classicism. A semicircular residential building with slender columns and porticoes surrounds a typical Roman courtyard.

Roman House
“Roman House” at 2 Kazachiy Lane

Due to the severity of the lines and the interesting solution proposed by the architect Mikhail Filippov, the Izvestia newspaper named the residential complex the most beautiful building in Moscow over the past hundred years. And experts unanimously noted that this project, implemented by the author in 2006, gave hope for the revival of traditional Russian classicism.

“Teremok” in Khvostov Lane

The authors of this building – Alexander Shchukin and Mikhail Leonov – decided to erect the building in a very special style, which experts often call “Russian pattern”. This is a typical architectural style for Medieval Russia, in which almost all boyar and merchant mansions were built.

Teremok
“Teremok” in Khvostov Lane

The architectural community called Teremok, located at 5 Khvostov Lane, “lovingly made wildness”. This striking example of an unusual idea of ​​the architect has all the features of a typical 17th century tower: a casing, a tower with a turret, arches, an abundance of details that adorn the facade. It is interesting that from the yard the house looks like a typical representative of a modern city and cannot boast of any delights..

Such unusual buildings, even if their attractiveness, feasibility and functionality often become a controversial issue, of course, fulfill their main task – they bring variety to the landscape of city streets, draw attention to the creativity and capabilities of architects who are able to design not only typical residential complexes, but also create such unusual masterpieces.

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Comments: 3
  1. Piper

    Could you provide more information about the most unusual buildings in Moscow? I’m curious to know what architectural wonders I should keep an eye out for while visiting the city. Any particular landmarks or unique designs that stand out?

    Reply
  2. Josiah Cooper

    What are some of the most unusual buildings in Moscow? I’m curious to learn about the unique architectural wonders that are prominent in the cityscape.

    Reply
    1. Hazel Martin

      Some of the most unusual buildings in Moscow include the Shukhov Tower, a unique hyperboloid structure built in the 1920s, which was used as a broadcasting tower. The House on the Embankment, built in the 1930s, is another interesting building due to its unique design and historical significance as a residence for Soviet elites. The Melnikov House, designed by architect Konstantin Melnikov, is a distinctive avant-garde masterpiece with its geometric forms and unconventional layout. The Central Pavilion at VDNKh, built in the 1950s, is notable for its futuristic design and features a soaring spire. Another building worth mentioning is the Triumph-Palace, which stands out due to its height and unique, twisted shape. These architectural wonders contribute to the eclectic cityscape and showcase the diverse range of architectural styles found in Moscow.

      Reply
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