Zaryadye Park with modern amphitheater, Moscow, Russia.

© Viacheslav Lopatin/Shutterstock

Park Zaryadye

Moscow


Moscow's first new park in 50 years, Zaryadye was inaugurated in 2017 and occupies a prominent site along the Moscow River, wedged into historic Kitay Gorod. The idea behind it was to replicate the vastness and diversity of Russian nature, from Kamchatka to Karelia. In addition to the parkland, there's a vast outdoor amphitheatre and a media centre.

The park was designed by the New York firm Diller Scofidio & Renfro (DS&R), which is renowned for its use of 'wild urbanism', a technique that merges the historic city streets with wild natural habitats.The 13ha site includes four different areas representing Russia's geographic zones – tundra, steppe, forest and wetlands – flowing seamlessly into each other. The most interesting feature, perhaps, is a sort of bridge to nowhere, which stretches out across Moskvoretskaya nab and over the Moscow River, then loops back to Zaryadye.

The Park Zaryadye Pavilion serves as a museum of Park Zaryadye, providing an overview of the park and its development. The building was introduced by architect Sergei Kuznetsov at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2012.