Armenia's SNKH to design Garage Screen movie theater in Moscow

PanARMENIAN.Net - The winner of the architectural competition to design the next Garage Screen summer movie theater near the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow has been announced, with an expert jury selecting SNKH studio from Yerevan, Armenia, Strelka Mag reports.

The competition, organized by Strelka KB for the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, received 136 applications from architects across Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Each application was reviewed by a technical commission which considered factors including ecological sensibility and spatial, function, construction, and engineering solutions. Once the review process was completed, the jury chose six finalists.

“The team from SNKH came up with an unusual idea of turning the pavilion inside out. Such innovation is the very purpose for which the competition was organized,” Garage director Anton Belov said.

That idea features a complete absence of walls and hard barriers, instead boasting a cloth covering and a light, built frame which resembles the architectural traditions of nomadic peoples. As such, the winning project fits organically and seamlessly into the Gorky Park space.

Influences behind the project span from Bedouin tents to Shigeru Ban and Ivan Leonidov, SNKH director Ashot Snkhchyan explained.

The movie theater will be built in spring 2020 in front of the main building of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, which was designed by renowned architect Rem Koolhaas and completed in 2015. It will screen premieres and special programs and collaborate with Russian film festivals.