To render “standardized” Moscow in colours

Cities are like people, each has its own appearance, its own character. And each city has a unique hue, too. That of Moscow is golden, ochroid, to match the material conventionally used for construction of building in the city. But sand rock and brick have been replaced by concrete and glass. And the city architects were willing to escape from the monotony and grey commonness of residential districts being developed.

Today, the coloristic palette of Moscow is developing at a blistering pace. In the pre-war years architects and city planners employed only 40 colours, by sixties the range of colours enlarged to a hundred, while at the turn of the millennium the number of colours reached around 400, chief artist of Moscow Igor Voskresensky said. The present concept of colour renovation of the city, permanent and changing depending on the season and even the time of the day, enables professionals to propose most interesting solutions in 600 colours. It include all that we see around: buildings, highways, public gardens, minor architectural forms, even transport.

A harmonic combination of modern trends and traditions gives the city a unique look. So special attention was paid to the historic centre, first of all it is the Kremlin and adjacent buildings, the Novo-Dyevitchiye convent, Kolomenskoye. The main point here is to do no harm, all solutions here serve to stress the beauty and importance of the historic and cultural heritage using colour and light. And such solutions were taken based on scientific studies, archeological excavations and historical data.

The colour range of the “median” zone related to the era of modern, of monuments of the so-called “Stalin classicism also refers to the history. But new districts the number of which has grown not insignificantly in the past decades are another pair of shoes. This domain offers opportunities for interesting solutions, the use of advanced technologies. The residential bearing-wall housing typical to the 70-ies of XX century has rather a dull look. The overhaul programme offers the possibility to revive five-stored bearing-wall residential houses, at least, their colour design, using active colours. Furthermore, the city lacks warm tones — the winter lasts for nearly half a year in Moscow and the sun may not shine for months during the autumn. All this sometimes causes depression in inhabitants and guests of Moscow. Why not compensate the nature’s “drawbacks” with bright and rich colours?

Today, colour solutions are taken for specific buildings, every year around 3 thousand colour passports are issued for residential and non-residential buildings. The look of a quarter or a district depends on the local lighting, on the design of lawns, public gardens, fountains. Initially artists had plans to divide the districts of Moscow according to the colour scheme, but it was decided to give up such solution for it could result in the same monotony they were fighting against. Nowadays the look of the city highways is changing, too. At present architects are developing the image of Yaroslavskoye highway, the next one in turn is Shchyolkovskoye highway.

Colour and lighting solutions help the city change its look even depending on the time of the day. The concept is based on the use of media fronts consisting of LED and capable of changing the look of the building throughout the day. Such an experiment is being carried out in several places in Moscow. One of them is the glowing fronts of two hotels opposite the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building of.