RUSSIA NOW

Russia has seen the emergence of a creative community that has long been making an international name for itself in the areas of architecture, interior decoration and design. Almost 20 years since the collapse of the USSR the anonymous planning institutes of private architecture practices and design studios are a thing of the past. Serial building forms and collectivised designer constructions, which for generations were part and parcel of what it meant to live in the Soviet Union, have given way to new styles of architecture and a wide variety of building types. The 'anything goes' attitude of the early '90s has been distilled to a new Russian identity that is capable of asserting itself in the globalisation circus of today. This volume presents 25 examples of contemporary Russian architecture and product design, all of which can more than hold their own on the international stage. The new Russia has long since adopted as its own the former Soviet Union's ambitious desire to be a leading player in the creative disciplines, but the designs and construction processes coming out of Russia now often reflect those of the country's former ideological foe.