The Moscow Metropolitan is the second busiest metro line in the world, transporting 2.4 billion passengers a year. However despite this, it is a long way short of being the most extensive, with Beijing, Shanghai, London, New York, Tokyo, and Madrid all surpassing it in terms of total track length.
In order to rectify this, in 2012 Moscow launched an ambitious expansion plan, aiming to add over 150km of tracks and 70 new stations by 2020. For the first time, they have launched a competition to design two of these new stations in the South-West of the city, in the Solntsevo and Novo-Peredelkino Districts.
Read on for more about the Moscow Metro and the competition
The two new stations will be part of a new line running from the Delovoi Tsentr station in the Moscow City business district out to Rasskazovka in the South-West of the city. The population in Solntsevo and Novo-Peredelkino alone exceeds 200,000 people, and with plans for the new line's construction going back as far as 1971, its implementation is long overdue. It is now scheduled to open in 2017.
The design competition for these two stations is part of an attempt to recapture the architectural excellence that originally underpinned the Metro in the 1930s; under the USSR, the intention was to "give the Proletarian Capital the best Metro in the world," resulting in some stunning subterranean designs. After a policy change in the 1960s led to more standardized designs for a number of decades, stations built in more recent years have attempted to recapture the original artistry of the Metro.
Marat Khusnullin, Deputy Mayor of Moscow, said that "The Moscow Metro has been recognized by international experts to be one of the most beautiful in the world. Several dozen stations are officially listed as architectural monuments, granted state protection. Special care, therefore, must be taken in designing the internal appearance of the stations under construction."
For the two new stations, the competition specifies: "with minimalist solutions, the stations have to be contemporary, with bright and memorable design schemes. Emphasis must be placed on the light and colour aspects, and the combination of materials."
To enter, visit the competition website here. Once registered, entrants will be assigned one of the stations and sent the relevant materials. The deadline for submissions is 31st July.
