Advanced Urban Design

The experimental exhibition “Tretyakov: An Other Edition” has transformed one of Russia’s most prominent galleries. A joint project of the Tretyakov Gallery and the Advanced Urban Design master’s program (Strelka Institute / Higher School of Economics Graduate School of Urbanism), it provides a new “edition” of the iconic museum.

The program’s graduates treat the museum as a city within a city, and have accordingly produced their own interpretations of its buildings and collections.

The project team, comprised of specialists from the Tretyakov Gallery and young urban designers from Russia, Latvia, Sweden, and the United States, have set up a new colonnade by the entrance to the museum. Facing the Moskva River, each of the six added columns functions as an art installation dedicated to an aspect of contemporary urban design.

The team have also proposed a new ‘pathway’ for visitors inside the New Tretyakov Gallery called “An Other Route.” The path makes its way through the existing exhibitions, uniting the works from various genres and periods into a general history of urban paradoxes from the 20th century. The exhibition’s curators asked Russian writers, poets, artists, architects, art historians, economists, and urbanists to comment on selected works from different genres and discuss how to look at the city through the lens of Soviet fine art — from 1920s avant-garde to Moscow conceptualism.

After two years of intensive interdisciplinary research and field trips, the joint master’s program by Strelka Institute and the HSE Graduate School of Urbanism sees its first graduates. Congratulations to the first Advanced Urban Design alumni!