This project came to ATRIUM as a result of winning the competition. The key design decision in the reconstruction of the facade of the former Havana cinema was to shift the visual emphasis from the facade facing Suschevsky Val to the corner of the building.

This was prompted by changes in the urban context since the building’s construction in the 1980s. A busy junction has since formed nearby, and an entrance to Maryina Roshcha metro station has appeared, while Suschevsky Val at this point has been taken into a tunnel, whose structures block the frontal view of the building. As a result, the main staircase is oriented towards the metro, while the building itself — formerly a rectilinear Modernist volume — is partially “wrapped” by two seemingly flying “sheets” made of perforated aluminium. The arrangement of the panels conveys the streamlined quality of the new envelope, while the supporting frame remains faintly visible through them. The curves of the two “ribbons” are dynamic, responding to the character of the traffic flows at the junction of the Third Ring Road and radial Sheremetyevskaya Street.