Zodchestvo Festival

Zodchestvo is a Russian word for architecture with spiritual connotations. It is also the name of the architecture festival held in Moscow every October.

Zodchestvo is the premier Russian annual architecture festival. It stimulates the development of Russian architecture and it plays one of the central roles in modern-day Russian culture. The event is held at the Central Exhibition Hall Manezh. This broad gabled-roof neoclassical building built in 1817 is located in the heart of Moscow, just a few steps from Kremlin. In March 2004, the day after presidential elections, this stately edifice became a victim in a fire. The flames destroyed the building’s original roof – a unique system of intricate 150-foot long wooden trusses that were designed to provide column-less space for grandiose cavalry parades of Tzar Alexander I. The structure was rebuilt after a painstakingly yearlong restoration and reopened in 2005.

The idea of Zodchestvo Festival was originated by Feliks Novikov in 1992, a distinguished Russian architect, author, and educator who since 1993 lives in Rochester, New York.

In 2009 the XVII Zodchestvo Festival was curated and designed by Yuri Avvakumov who proposed the theme: Index of Stability. His exposition was based on the pavilion organization with 12 monumental pavilions, each the area of 12m x 12m (40ft. x 40ft.).