Reconstruction of Mayakovskaya metro station in Moscow

Mayakovskaya station (fig. 1) is regarded as one of the most beautiful in the whole Moscow metro and one of the finest examples of Stalinist architecture in general: quasi Art Deco design without “wedding cake” excesses, stainless steel, columns faced with ornamental stone rhodonite, where small plates, having irregular borders, were meticulously adjusted to each other by hand (fig. 2,3). Now the station is under reconstruction: rhodonite coating is removed from all columns (fig. 4), patterned tiles are removed from the side walls (fig. 5) etc. There have been no technical indications for the removal of the facing: it was visibly intact. Questions about reasons are answered by the employees of the firm performing the reconstruction: “It will be as it was and even better!” Certainly it will, but instead of the architectural monument, accomplished in 1938, it will be a “novodel” from 2009. Novodel is an internationally used term of Russian origin, borrowed from numismatics, which is increasingly in use also in architecture and construction, where it means reconstruction or making a new without much care about authenticity.

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