In 2015 A+M was invited to enter a two-stage competition for the design of a new station for legendary Moscow Metro. The project was driven by A+M’s search for meaning and beauty in everything that is common, ubiquitous, always in plain sight and therefore often invisible and forgotten. The famous interior worlds of the early metro stations in Moscow provided a challenging context – how to formulate a new and contemporary solution that isn’t foreign to its unique precedents?

Legend has it that the marble and granite interiors of the early stations were more the result of necessity than choice – in the early 1930’s the ceramic tile industry (the material of choice in Paris, London and NYC subways) was virtually non-existent in the Soviet Union. Stonemasons and sculptors were however available, and so was the resolve to make something unique – and the result, driven by circumstance, formed a magical architectural ensemble. In the 2010’s, the situation is reversed – cheap materials are in abundance, while skillful professional labor is not, the conceptual vision is blurred, and the budgets are thin. A+M embraced these conditions, and finding inspiration in standard studded tile and its color palette, in the remote site that once housed a fabric-dying factory, and in the glimpses of shared childhood images and experiences.