The winner of the architectural competition for the Perm Riverside Station reconstruction project is now announced

Project-Meganom, a Russian architecture bureau, has become the winner of the architectural competition for the Perm Riverside Station reconstruction project.

This decision has been made by the jury of the competition, including: Oleg Chirkunov, Governor of Perm Region; Sergey Gordeev, Member of the Council of Federation representing Perm Region; Boris Milgram, Minister for Culture of Kama Region; Marat Guelman, Director of Perm Museum of Contemporary Art; George Isaakyan, Artistic Director of Perm Opera House; Prof. Vladimir Abashev, Doctor of Philology; and Kees Christiaanse, Head of KCAP Architects and Masterplanner for Perm.

As noted by Sergey Gordeev, ″The concept proposed by Project-Meganom meets the seven main criteria used by the jury to appraise all the participating projects; these are urbanism, heritage preservation, architectural concept, functionality, compliance with requirement specifications, construction methodology, and economy.″

The winner's proposal is to create approximately 10,000 square metres of exhibition and service spaces within the main building of the Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as to employ the pedestrian landside area. The latter will perform a number of functions: it will become a long quay for cruise and local ships, an open exhibition platform, and a city square for events overlooking a cathedral. The space beneath the area can be used as a place for meetings and communications. Besides, the project provides conservation of brickwork, facade units, access stairs of the building as well as preservation of survived artefacts, i.e. oak benches and the mechanical timetable.

In the opinion of Yury Grigoryan, the Head of the Project-Meganom architecture bureau, ″Preservation of the riverside station function in this place and connection between the museum space and the quay allows to create a new kind of public space. This area becomes the centre of a new museum quarter and a part of the city's new public space system.″

The jury has also made a special mention of the project proposed by Sauerbruch Hutton, a English-German company, as a most interesting and innovative project that developed a concept of a highly modern architectural form in dialogue with the heritage qualities of the existing building. Although the project convinced by its clarity, excellent functionality and original architecture, the jury considered the added volume to dominant in the urban context. Moreover, the jury considered the external façade design of perforated and colour-coated metal to be too vulnerable with respect to maintenance and the Perm climate. Besides, the embedding of the project in the urban context was judged as less attractive than the Meganom project. Finally, the jury considered that the project contradicted the requirements of the competition presented in Attachment 1, stating, ″Strictly follow the requirement. Observe difference in height along the building facades up to the top areas of cornice.″ Thereby, the proposal of the German company could not look for victory in the competition.

The architectural competition for the Perm Riverside Station reconstruction project was held in two stages. The Russian Avantgarde Foundation did financing.