The idea for Yandex. Street Photographer came to Daniill Maksyokov on a Friday night, while he was surfing the internet [...] “In Yandex.Maps there’s an analogue of Google Street View called Panoramas but it only has views of Russian cities and some former-Soviet countries [...]” say Maksyokov. “What’s more, faces, labels, registration numbers of vehicles and other personal data are not blurred … As a result you have a complete sense of presence and can see everything from a fresh perspective.” — calvertjournal.com

The Finnish Committee for the Restoration of the Viipuri Library with the Central City Alvar Aalto Library in Vyborg recently won the 2014 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize for restoring Alvar Aalto's historic Viipuri Library in Vyborg, Russia. Established in 2008, the prize is awarded biennially for an innovative architectural or design solution that has preserved or enhanced a modern landmark or group of landmarks. — bustler.net

In A Model for a City photographer Petr Antonov studies Moscow as the perfect example of a post-Soviet urban environment. The streets, buildings, cars and people captured by his camera are isolated from their everyday purposes and work like visual elements of the cityscape. [...] Antonov successfully captured the change so typical for most post-Soviet cities: newly built high-rises and faceless malls emerging on the horizon, ugly signage and never-ending building works. — calvertjournal.com

The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art announced yesterday that its forthcoming permanent home inside the Soviet-era eatery in the capital’s central Gorky Park is due to open in June 2015. [...]

And Rem Koolhaas, who was tasked with transforming the abandoned restaurant's ruin for the museum, is leaving it largely untouched. — blouinartinfo.com

Architecture theorist Jacob Dreyer explains how the Stalinist model of urbanism – a centrally planned component within a national economic unity – is thriving in modern China — theguardian.com

... the 92-year-old structure had fallen into disrepair since it stopped transmitting TV signals in 2002. Plans to dismantle and relocate the tower were announced earlier this year, prompting Norman Foster, Rem Koolhaas and other architects to petition Vladimir Putin to save it. Moscow's city council has now announced that the tower will be preserved at its current site. — newscientist.com

It was only a matter of time before someone saw the commercial potential of drones. Their compact size and swift mobility makes them ideal vehicles for transporting goods and information around the crowded streets of a city.

Amazon has recently been testing the potential for drone deliveries, but Russian creative agency Hungry Boys’ campaign has brought a new dimension to both advertising and drone use. — popupcity.net

It is not rare for a civilisation to abruptly falter, give way and fold into a new one. This insight seems obvious in the territories of the former Soviet Union — a universe transformed into a memory overnight. [...] that a city turned ruin continues to be inhabited, that the collapsing buildings and boulevards stained by a thousand footsteps, after the apocalypse, host new forms of human life, new memories. Harbin, in the far north-east of China, used to be a very Russian metropolis. — calvertjournal.com

Moscow City Hall has formally prohibited the moving or reassembly of a Soviet architectural landmark that has been under threat of demolition blamed by conservationists on real estate developers. [...]

The radio tower's materials, architectural composition, structural elements and location all fall under the conservation order by City Hall's heritage department, published by Consultant.ru judicial database.

This puts an end to earlier proposals to move or dismantle and rebuild the tower. — themoscowtimes.com

A senior U.N. official warned the Security Council at an emergency meeting Tuesday that the humanitarian situation in eastern Ukraine is steadily worsening as power and water supplies are scarce, homes are destroyed and health workers flee. John Ging, director of U.N. humanitarian operations, said that violence, especially in urban areas, will put more people at risk and lead to "an increase in the numbers killed" if a political solution can't be reached. — ABC News

English photographer Rebecca Litchfield braved radiation and KGB-style interrogation techniques to capture the beauty of this bygone era in a series called Soviet Ghosts.

Her work took her to schools, hospitals, factories, and accidentally, a top secret radar installation. “Many of the abandoned buildings are pretty unknown to the public, they are hidden behind tall fences and gates, I think it is easy to just pass without knowing what is inside,” says Litchfield. — wired.com

The "Fair Enough" exhibition of Russia's 2014 pavilion at the ongoing Venice Biennale gives a clever response to the Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014 theme that Biennale director Rem Koolhaas assigned to curators. Curated and designed by the Strelka Institute, Russia received one of three Special Mentions out of 84 national pavilions during the 2014 Biennale awards ceremony. — bustler.net

Moscow wants to make Russia the "center of the sporting world," but the price tag will be steep. Four years before the 2018 World Cup, costs are exploding in the next host country, with the two most important stadiums each costing more than a billion euros. — spiegel.de

The Russian architect Yuri Grigoryan, and his firm Project Meganom, have been chosen for the long-delayed 22bn ruble ($640m) expansion of the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow. The new design replaces a controversial proposal by the British architect Norman Foster that required the destruction of historic buildings, upsetting preservationists. Foster pulled out of the project last year. — theartnewspaper.com