The chief architect of Russia’s capital city said plans for a new station on the Moscow Metro are now on hold
British design firm Zaha Hadid Architects has pulled out of a project for a new station on the Moscow Metro, city officials said, as a series of Western companies halt operations in the country amid Moscow’s attack on Ukraine.
The city’s chief architect Sergey Kuznetsov confirmed the decision in a Telegram post on Tuesday, noting that the building plan will have to be delayed while another company is sought to finish the job.
“Zaha Hadid Architects will not continue to work on the implementation of the Klenovy Boulevard 2 station, and the finalization of their project by Moscow designers will also not be carried out,” he said. “Despite the fact that the project was actively moving ahead, and in March we were waiting for a mockup [layout], we had to cancel it.”
He added that other applicants will now be considered, and that officials will “report separately on the final decision on the design of the station.”
The construction of the Klenovy Boulevard station was set to be completed sometime this year, Moscow’s Construction Department said in 2020. The city held an international competition for the project, seeing more than 100 applications enter before Zaha Hadid was selected.
In comments cited by London-based architecture publication Dezeen last month, the design firm said it was “deeply shocked and saddened” by Russia’s attack on Ukraine in late February, declaring that it would suspend work in the country.
“Zaha Hadid was originally inspired by works of the Russian avant-garde and many of our staff have taught architecture students at universities across the country,” it said, referring to the firm’s founder, adding that it has “placed our two ongoing projects in Russia on hold.”
Other design studios, such as the UK’s David Chipperfield Architects and the Dutch firm MVRDV, have also said they would halt all work in Russia, in line with similar moves by a number of European and American companies that have also pulled out of the country.
However, Austrian architect Wolf D Prix – cofounder of Coop Himmelb(l)au – told Der Spiegel earlier this month that he had no plans to cease work in Russia, insisting that “art knows no sanctions or borders.”
“I couldn’t have predicted that the war would happen now. And I won’t retrospectively distance myself from my buildings or my Russian friends,” he said, adding that “I’m not building for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, but for the people.”
A highly influential world-famous designer, Zaha Hadid was the first female to win the Pritzker Prize, among the most prestigious award in the field, which is often described as the ‘Nobel Prize of architecture’. She completed dozens of projects across Europe, the United States, the Middle East and elsewhere in Asia, earning her at least 20 international awards and prizes. Her firm has continued to operate since her death in 2016.
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