-
Architects: KOSMOS Architects
- Area: 5500 m²
- Year: 2014
-
Photographs:Yuri Palmin
Text description provided by the architects. EMA is a project of revitalization of an ex-industrial territory in the center of Moscow. In the last decade, the industry (factory of Electrical Medical Apparates) was relocated and the territory became abandoned. EMA renovation project reveals and leverages the hidden infrastructure of the city, which plays a substantial role in everyday life, but remains hidden and mute. Both physical and digital elements are brought back to light in order to create a new reality.
Electrical cables, sprinklers, light fixtures, reflectors, insulation materials, retail signages - all of those elements, excluded by default from aesthetic perception or labeled as junk are restored in their power and revealed visually. EMA shifts the meaning of banal infrastructural objects creating new aesthetics and manipulating sensory experiences of its visitors. The immense shining of foil reflections, theatrical scaleless geometries, video projections, and unique light ambiances transformed EMA space into a new cultural hub in Moscow.
EMA project consists of several interventions of different type: first is silver background – a new façade, made from insulation foil, which is traditionally used for covering the ducts and insulation. Second one is the Infrastructural Sky, consisting of suspended wires which carry lights reflectors and loudspeakers. Third one is the Disc (the pill, the moon) – a 9m- high circle which adds to the scenographic atmosphere of the space. This “paper moon” is painted by the special roadwork paint, which has reflective particles inside and because of, that it looks extra-white and abstract.