Colours of Gorky

Karres en Brands was one of the selected teams for the Closed International competition for Gorky Park Main Entrance. Gorky Park today is a point of significance for Moscow: each year, it is visited by more than 13 million citizens and tourists. The park is highly valued as a historical and cultural monument, as well as a free space, offering a rich event program for recreation in the centre of Moscow.

The entrance area is the face of the park — the portal leading visitors away from the city into the green park space. Through our design we were challenged to reconceive the historical landmark, offering a new contemporary addition worthy of the park’s heritage. “Colours of Gorky” is our search to understand the essence of Gorky Park, a proposal for the kind of space we want to create, as well as a vision for the park itself.

Gorky Park is like no other. It is not structured by recognizable corridors and has no inherent hierarchy or structure. It is a collage of spaces, each with its strong identity, that are interlinked. Gorky can be completely taken apart and put together in any random construction and would still function as it does. Its deconstruction reveals the importance of its individual spaces. Each unique space is a destination in itself and can work independently from the rest. Put together they define a park where the classical understanding of structure is irrelevant.

Through our proposal we are adding new piece to the Gorky Mosaic, and at the same time paving the way for new pieces to emerge in the future. The Gorky entrance Square, although positioned where once the border of the park used to be, now lies centrally in what is Gorky and Muzeon Park. Its importance lies thus in its ability to function not just as a representative space for Gorky, but as a node in the city, bringing the two parks together.

The open gesture of the tunnel and stairs define a large central space that can be flexibly used for a large variety of events. The generous space can house large crowds when important events are being organized, allows for maximum accessibility for service and technical vehicles and orientates the square towards the central area by defining large sitting edge overlooking the event area. At the same time the area can be occupied by the thin water film when not used for events in order to give the space a more human scale.