Architectural Design Description

The New Office Building design conveys the freedom and openness of the United States, while respecting the culture and environment of Moscow. It represents American architectural quality and technology for the 21st century.

The new building will be an asymmetrical design which responds to the surrounding embassy compound and reaches beyond to metropolitan Moscow. Its vigorous forms will mediate existing site geometries and boldly orient the new office building westward to overlook Konyushkovskaya Street, a major urban thoroughfare, and the significant city park lying directly opposite to the west.

The new office building is a monolithic building of dressed stone with a specially-clad curtain wall set into its west facade. The windows within the stone veneer are “punched” into the walls, emphasizing the visual weight of the building. The south facade is asymmetrically composed at ground level with the main entrance shifted left from the building’s centerline. Above the main entry a vertical recess cuts into the wall plane, revealing an inner building skin distinctly different from the outer stone surface.

The west facade receives formal attention as the building’s face on the city of Moscow. The sweeping, curved curtain wall inserted into the stone-sheathed facade, opens onto the outlying panorama. The curtain wall is a glass window wall which creates shimmering, dynamic images that shift with the natural light and the weather conditions. The primary building mass is notched, forming the illusion of a roof terrace where the curved window wall slides into the main form of the building.

The new office building breaks out of the visual confines of the embassy compound and engages Moscow on a grand, sweeping scale. The design makes a bold architectural statement adding a new, contemporary landmark to the city skyline.