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

The Moscow city government is asking citizens to weigh in on the fate of the Shukhov radio tower, a rusted icon of Soviet constructivist architecture that’s threatened with demolition. [...]

The vote, which began this week and runs until July 6, is being held on Active Citizen, an iOS and Android app released by the city last month. The app polls citizens on topics such as street-tree planting and changes to daylight savings time. — qz.com

Preserving the rich history of an iconic site while modernizing any aspect of its design is always a tricky feat. For MVRDV, one of their latest competition wins is redeveloping the urban plan of the historic Serp & Molot (Hammer & Sickle) Factory...In the two-stage competition, the winning team was chosen out of a shortlist with LDA Design (UK), Ateliers lion Associés (France), Mega Project (Russia), and De Architecten Cie. (Netherlands). — bustler.net

Up next in the Park Russia proposals comes from HOSPER (Niek Roozen – Cepezed – Witteveen+Bos). At the end of the international competition, the Dutch team placed in second out of the five finalists. — bustler.net

Commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield led the consortium that won first prize in the recently concluded Park Russia competition. The international consortium included Buro Happold, Populous, and Gillespies -- who led the masterplanning design team.

The Russia Geographic Society and Moscow Region Government hosted the contest to find the most suitable architectural design and financial models for the "Russia"-themed 1,600 ha. Park in the Moscow region. — bustler.net

WAI Architecture Think Tank sent us their design for Moscow's New National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) that was shortlisted in the top 10 designs during the competition. Heneghan Peng's design was chosen as the winner, as announced earlier today. — bustler.net

Christmas came early for Heneghan Peng Architects: the Irish firm was announced on December 23 as the final winner of the international competiton for Moscow’s new National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA). — bustler.net

The Strelka Institute for media, architecture and design announced on Dec. 12 the three finalists for the international competition to design the National Center for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) at the Khodynskoe Pole in Moscow. — bustler.net

Have a closer look into the Zaryadye Park design scheme by TPO Reserve with Maxwan Architects + Urbanists, Latz + Partner, and Buro Happold. The team recently won second place in the international Zaryadye Park competition in Moscow. — bustler.net

Diller Scofidio + Renfro has won the Zaryadye Park competition in Moscow. Set in the historic district of Zaryadye in downtown Moscow, the design competition was established to find an architecture and landscape plan to transform the 130,000 sq.m. former site of Hotel Russia into a multi-functional public park.

Coming in second and third place are TPO Reserve and MVRDV, respectively. — bustler.net

Five teams were selected for the second stage of the international architectural "Russia" theme park competition. The Jury, the Expert Council, and "Russia" park representatives met this past September to begin searching for the concept and financial model for the theme park.

Twenty-six submissions out of 180 registered applicants from 41 countries made it to Stage I, which was then narrowed down to 18 after the Expert Council made further evaluations. — bustler.net

Earlier today, we published the ten shortlisted firms which qualified to move on to stage 2 of the international architectural competition for the new National Center for Contemporary Arts (New NCCA) in Moscow, Russia. The entry by Los Angeles-based Tom Wiscombe Design didn't quite make the list, but we are happy to present it here to a wider audience. — bustler.net

The Jury announced the list of participants of the second stage.

During the press conference on October 1, 2013 competition Jury announced the names of 10 participants of the second phase of the International competition for the architectural concept of museum and exhibition complex of the New National centre for contemporary arts. — New NCCA

Renowned British architect Norman Foster has resigned from a proposed expansion to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

In a statement released on Thursday, Foster + Partners claimed it had formally resigned from the project more than two months ago.

In 2009, the Russian government approved Foster's plans and agreed a sum of $650m (£415m) to modernise and expand the museum.

But the project subsequently stalled. — bbc.co.uk