The Garage, Moscow’s most important contemporary art center, has unveiled the Japanese firm SANAA’s scheme to expand its facilities: the reconstruction of the Hexagon, a ruined 1920s construction beside the museum in Gorky Park. The Garage, which opened in 2015, was designed by OMA, turning the old Vremena Goda restaurant into a cultural institution.

The Hexagon was built by the Russian architects Ivan Zholtovsky, Viktor Kokorin, and Mikhail Parusnikov to serve as the Machine and Tools Pavilion at the 1923 Agricultural and Handicraft Industries Exhibition. The complex presents six volumes organized around a round courtyard. Clad in panels of class and anodized aluminum, the project conceived by the firm of Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa seeks to preserve the original design and proportions, including double heights. Using different strategies to optimize their energy efficiency, the new pavilions include a library, a bookstore, a café, and exhibition galleries, one of which is a large circular underground hall.

Garage Museum of Contemporary Art press conference