Modern Architecture of Nizhny Novgorod encompasses buildings and structures constructed from 1986 to the present day. (This is precisely the period covered by the city's architectural archive.)
The quality and ideology of modern architecture in Nizhny Novgorod — as in other cities of Russia — provoke mixed reactions among professionals and laypeople alike.
Among professionals, contemporary Nizhny Novgorod architecture more often receives positive assessments, whereas among the city's residents, negative opinions tend to prevail.
Modern architecture in Nizhny Novgorod has largely moved away from the standard designs of the late USSR. Buildings that have appeared over the past two decades reflect both the merchant-era motifs of old Nizhny Novgorod and contemporary global architectural trends, including high-tech.
Architects of Nizhny Novgorod
Gavrilov Oleg — architect at the Khudin studio
Varicheva Irina — architect at TMA Pestov and Popov
Bandakov Vasily — chief architect of NPO "Arkhstroy"
Vanchina O.
Grebennikov Aleksandr
Alekseeva Olga — architect at TMA V. Bykov
Borisyuk Viktor — director of the architectural bureau "BLiK"
Bolgov Yury — head of the creative studio "ARKO"
Volkov Dmitry — architect at the architecture and design studio "Vash Dom"
Golov Gennady — architect at the Khudin studio
Goltsev Igor — head of the architectural and construction department of JSC "Nizhny Novgorod Design Institute"
Ass Evgeny — director of the architectural bureau "Arkhitektory ASS"
Bubnova A. — architect at the Zubkov studio
Butusov Aleksey
Bykov Viktor — head of TMA Bykov
Belkina Marina
Gelfond Anna — head of the architectural design department at NNGASU
Zubkov Viktor — head of ASK "Interstil"
Zubkova Lyubov — architect at ASK "Interstil"
Zelyaev Aleksandr — architect at TMA Pestov and Popov
Razumov Pyotr
Rubtsov Andrey — architect at TMA Nikishin
Kartsev Yury — chief architect of the institute "NizhegorodgrazhdanNIIproekt"
Kalendarly Gyunduz — architect at "Nizhegorodsky Promstroiproekt"
Kanatov Oleg — architect at the Tumanin studio
Ignatyeva Tatyana — architect at the Zubkov studio
Kapustina Irina — architect at TMA Pestov and Popov
Kamenyuk Aleksey — leading architect at TMA Pestov and Popov
Kasatkin Sergey
Lafer Lyudmila — head of the architects' group at NPO "Arkhstroy"
Kravchenko Leonid — head of the creative studio of architecture and design "Vash Dom"
Kropivyanskaya Irina — architect at ASK "Interstil"
Kruglova E.
Kovalenko Vladimir — chief project architect at NPO "Arkhstroy"
Korolyov Aleksandr
Korneyasev A.
Kopylov Andrey
Kuratov Andrey — architect at the V. Zubkov studio
Kutsin Mikhail
Pavlova Elena — architect at TMA Pestov and Popov
Pripyshkina Elena — architect at TMA Tumanin
Prokopenko Aleksandr
Orelskaya Olga — associate professor at the Nizhny Novgorod University of Architecture and Civil Engineering
Nikishin Valery
Mikhaylov Aleksandr
Pogarskaya Ella
Noginov Mikhail
Polivanov Sergey — architect at TMA Stepovoy
Polutcheva Irina
Polyukhov A.
Monastyrsky Andrey
Popov Sergey — head of TMA Pestov and Popov
Potapov Mikhail
Osin Yury
Puzanov Aleksey
Puzanova Svetlana
Otkin Anatoly — head of the creative studio
Evgeny Nikolaevich Pestov — head of TMA Pestov and Popov
Pestova Natalya — leading architect at TMA Pestov and Popov
Sazonov Aleksandr — chief architect of LLC "Creative Studio of Architect Bykov"
Slepov Dmitry — chief project architect at the Bykov studio
Sorokin Andrey — architect at "Nizhegorodgrazhdanproekt"
Smetanin Vladimir — architect at TMA Tarasov
design studio "Ferrari"
Stepovoy Andrey — head of the creative studio
Sedova Maria — architect at TMA Nikishin
Tarasov Boris — head of the creative studio
Alexander Kharitonov — chief architect of the city, 1992–1999
Khvil Svetlana
Filyushkin Mikhail — head of the creative studio "KVADRO"
Timacheva Natalya — architect at TMA Pestov and Popov
Timofeyev Sergey — head of the creative studio
Tolkachev Aleksandr
Khomenkov Igor — director of LLC "Novaya Arkhitektura"
Khodynkina Yulia
Ustinov I.
Tumanin Sergey — head of the creative studio
Khudin Aleksandr — head of the creative studio
Fevralev A.
Danilovich Arkady
Zhezlyaev D.
Dekhtyar Aleksandr — deputy director of NPO "Arkhstroy"
Chakrygin Yury — head of the creative studio (since 1992)
Shaganov Oleg
Nizhny Novgorod Architecture Rating
Every two years, the Ranking of Nizhny Novgorod's Architecture is held. The rating has been conducted since 1997, and its results are traditionally concluded with the presentation of a confectionery model of the best building — the winner.
Geography of Construction
The bulk of modern construction falls in the city center — Nizhegorodsky and Sovetsky Districts. Other areas that have seen active new construction include: the 5th microdistrict of Verkhniye Pechyory, the FSB residential compound, the territory of the residential complexes "Medvezhya Dolina," "Pecherskaya Dolina," "Pecherskaya Gryada," "Verkhnepechersky," "Zenit," the microdistrict on Gornaya Street, the "Burnakovskiy" microdistrict, "Sedmoye Nebo," the blocks along Betancourt Street, the area near Avtozavodskiy Park — the residential complexes "Molodezhny" and "Vodny Mir," Kosmicheskaya Street, and new blocks in the Mashinnaya Street area in Sormovo.
Outstanding Projects of the 1990s
in progress
Outstanding Projects of the 2000s
in progress
Modern Residential Buildings
in progress
Modern Administrative Buildings
in progress
Modern Shopping Centers and Public Venues
in progress
Modern Standard-Design Projects
With the collapse of the USSR, standardized building designs also disappeared for a time — or more precisely, the pace of standardized construction slowed considerably. A significant contribution to the revival of standardized residential construction was made by the company Zhilstroy-NN, which in 2003 purchased a contemporary design from Moscow architects. At present, several residential complexes have been built to this standard design: Medvezhya Dolina (Rodionov Street) Molodezhny (Molodezhny Avenue) Vodny Mir (Yanki Kupaly Street) Verkhnepechersky (Verkhnepecherskaya Street) Tsvetochny (Tsvetochnaya Street)
The company Stolitsa Nizhny is also building the residential complex "Sedmoye Nebo" (Karl Marx Street) to this same standard design.
At present, around 40 buildings in Nizhny Novgorod have been constructed according to this design.
On the Modern Architecture of Nizhny Novgorod in the Mass Media
Is it not a wonder: in recent years, provincial Nizhny Novgorod has been spoken of as the architecture capital? The largest city at the confluence of the Oka and the Volga, with no obvious claim to being a political capital, has become — in the words of German journalists — a secret capital. Secrets, like wonders, beckon. All the more so given that the Nizhny Novgorod school of architecture has been recognized as one of the defining phenomena of Russian culture at the end of the century… Even in China a brochure was published in which the latest Russian architecture is represented by a couple of Moscow photographs and a dozen from Nizhny Novgorod… Author: Marina Ignatushko. Published in: Mir Dizayna, nos. 3–4. Date of publication: 04/04/2000
Three years ago, the prominent architecture critic Grigory Revzin called Nizhny Novgorod the Russian capital of architectural craftsmanship. He probably did not know that a couple of years later, bespoke construction here would be carried out without any legal basis: a new general development plan for the city had been adopted back in 1999, yet detailed district planning projects had still not been undertaken. Construction in Nizhny Novgorod has always been fraught with problems. Upon coming to power two years ago, Mayor Yuri Lebedev abolished the post of the city's chief architect, apparently concluding that this would reduce the problems. He dissolved the urban planning councils — the very bodies where specialists sought sensible solutions for the coexistence of old and new buildings.
Author: Irina Khrenova. Published in: MONITOR, no. 7. Date of publication: 26/02/2001
Among the best works by Russian architects at the 10th Zodchestvo festival, held annually in Moscow, the projects and completed buildings of Nizhny Novgorod residents were singled out for recognition. At this prestigious competition, Nizhny Novgorod architects have led the field year after year, on a par with their Moscow counterparts. This year the architects from Saint Petersburg made a strong showing, no doubt inspired by the grand scale of preparations for their city's jubilee. But Nizhny Novgorod remains at the top. We congratulate our architects and are proud of them! Author: Marina Ignatushko. Published in: Birzha Plyus Svoy Dom, no. 40. Date of publication: 21/10/2002
The architectural capital of Russia, the city of Nizhny Novgorod, had long deserved to be inscribed in the annals, and it happened in a remarkably elegant, beautiful way. Which is hardly surprising: since architecture is music in stone, the language adequate to describing it must be, if not music itself, then a highly artistic phenomenon. "The façade-display of Etazhi… is opposed by the closed geometric box of the Shokolad complex, built on the principle of a cave luring the public inside." "…the main façade, reminiscent of a madrasa, cites the Russian theme in space. And its two parts — a padlock and a little chest that preserve the rhythm of the old buildings — stand beneath the shadow of a tamed UFO…" (on the Garantiya bank building on Malaya Pokrovskaya Street). Author: Maria Fedotova. Published in: Nizhny Novgorod News newspaper. Date of publication: 07/10/2004
Nizhny Novgorod hosted the All-Russian seminar "Contemporary Architecture as Event," which was attended by journalists from Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Samara, Saratov, Perm, Chelyabinsk, and Izhevsk. It was organized at the initiative of the newspaper Nizhegorodskiye Novosti and the autonomous non-profit organization Unity of Journalism and Culture. "In Russia today there are few cities that provide the grounds and opportunity for holding seminars of this kind," says Marina Starush, deputy editor-in-chief of the newspaper Kultura. And this is indeed the case. At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Nizhny Novgorod was recognized by professional critics as the capital of contemporary architecture in Russia; the work of its architects is gaining ever wider renown and winning various international competitions.
In Nizhny they may readily remind you that a city is a cluster of problems, a sum of urban planning mistakes or urban planning attempts. But even on snow-covered streets in twenty-five-degree frost you will feel the warmth of newly built residential complexes and sense the kinship between contemporary projects and the city's historic character."
And there is something deeply human about the architects of Nizhny Novgorod. They never tire of repeating the name of Alexander Yevgenyevich Kharitonov, confessing their love and gratitude to the city's chief architect who died before his time — a man who managed not only to educate generation after generation of masters, but also to accustom those in power to hear and respect his voice. In large part thanks to Kharitonov's efforts, Nizhny preserved its former character and acquired new features in keeping with it. Author: Olga Kharitonova. Published in: Saratovskaya Oblastnaya Gazeta. Date of publication: 08/02/2006
Every major city, if only quietly, aspires to be a capital — if not of the country, then of some particular region, industry, or something else. Nizhny Novgorod today is called the capital of Russian architecture. Not everyone agrees — Muscovites least of all — yet this view, if it has not taken permanent hold, is at least rarely challenged. Over the past fifteen to twenty years, a good hundred interesting and even outstanding buildings have appeared in Nizhny. Twice, local architects have been awarded the State Prize of Russia. Nizhny regularly hosts what is known as the Architecture Rating, through which the finest building to have appeared in recent times is selected.
Here is what is interesting: while visitors and specialists gasp in admiration, the ordinary Nizhny Novgorod residents one encounters take the new architectural landmarks entirely for granted. "Yes, they build good buildings here," they say, almost in passing. Pearls before swine? Quite the opposite. The process of cultivating taste has already been set in motion, and it is not easily reversed. Nizhny Novgorod residents already live in an atmosphere where relapses of decay and drabness would seem like nonsense and barbarity. Author: Ayvar Valeyev. Published in: Chelyabinskiy Rabochiy. Date of publication: 13/04/2006
Writing about contemporary Russian architecture is difficult enough, but it is clear that for the professional press of the post-Soviet period, certain regional schools became a special, tenderly beloved discovery. In this regard, the Nizhny Novgorod school — in the density of its artistic allusions and the latitude of its interpretations — surpassed even the contemporary architecture of Saint Petersburg. The peak of interest in Nizhny fell in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It became apparent that four hundred kilometres from the capital there existed and was developing an utterly unique architectural "reservation" which, in defiance of Moscow's clumsy reflections on postmodernism, had formed its own palette of expressive means, found its own scale and methodology for integrating into the historic environment.
Among more than thirty buildings selected for Nizhny Novgorod's 2006–2007 Architecture Rating on the principle of "impossible to ignore," the overwhelming majority did not conform to traditional notions of the Nizhny Novgorod school — chief among them: the play with projecting and receding volumes and the active use of colour. Of the ten buildings that made the shortlist, based on a survey of seventy Nizhny Novgorod architects, only three matched the stereotype (Oduvanchik, Kovboy, Park Avenyu)."
In the rest, the familiar "Nizhny Novgorod" traits gave way to a style fundamentally different from the stereotypes of yesterday's mainstream in this school. Instead of bright, Russian-avant-garde-style patches of colour creating anti-camouflage façades, restrained and sober colours now prevail, enveloping laconic forms. One senses how the charmingly vivid "dandelions" are yielding ground to shades of grey, beige, and greenish… serious. Yet in Nizhny, "restraint" implies neither coldness nor, heaven forbid, dryness. The character of the new Nizhny Novgorod architecture is still defined by the most attentive care for subtle nuances of form and proportion, as well as — and this is no small thing — the human scale of these buildings. Both together give them warmth without extravagance. It is as if the Nizhny Novgorod architects, having passed through a phase of experimentation, have begun working in a register they have found, one that is in harmony with their native city. Author: Elena Petukhova. Published in: archi.ru. Date of publication: 04/02/2008
Faced with the Nizhny Novgorod situation, one wants to give everyone their fair share — to honour the local architectural school and encourage international tendencies alike. The Nizhny Novgorod school, the very one that earned the city the unofficial title of "architectural capital of Russia" in the 1990s, is defined by active work with form and colour, sometimes elegant, sometimes frankly unruly — a distinctive effort to render contemporary architecture in a local idiom.
Author: Alexander Zmeul. Published in: Citytrends. Date of publication: 08/02/2008