Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center

The Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Maryina Roshcha is the largest Jewish museum in Russia and the largest indoor exhibition space in Europe. It occupies the former Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage on Obraztsova Street, a Constructivist landmark designed by architect Konstantin Melnikov and engineer Vladimir Shukhov. The combination of 1920s avant-garde architecture with a modern interactive exhibition has made the complex one of the country’s most technologically advanced cultural venues.

The garage for buses of the British Leyland brand was built in 1927 on commission from the Moscow municipal utilities department. Melnikov designed the trapezoidal 54-by-167-meter building according to his own “formula”: vehicles entered and exited only moving forward, turning at an obtuse angle of 127 degrees, which eliminated the need for reversing maneuvers and saved space. The roof of the single hall, without internal partitions and resting on eighteen slender columns, was designed by Vladimir Shukhov, whom Melnikov brought onto the project in 1926 — one of the engineer’s last major works.

All four façades of the garage were treated differently: the main one, facing Obraztsova Street, is decorated with seven entrance gates resembling half-opened books; the rear façade has round porthole-like windows, and the long walls received ribbon glazing. The building was part of a larger, unrealized concept for the entire bus depot — a single composition of an ellipse, a circle, and a rectangle.

The garage operated as intended until 1999, when the bus depot was relocated to Bibirevo. In 2001 the empty building was handed over to the Maryina Roshcha Jewish community, and from 2002 work began on developing a concept for the museum; in 2007 President Vladimir Putin donated his monthly salary toward the construction. From 2008 to 2011 the restored building housed the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture. The exhibition, following an international competition, was created by Ralph Appelbaum Associates, and the museum opened on 8 November 2012 with the participation of Israeli President Shimon Peres and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

The exhibition guides visitors through the history of Russian Jewry, from shtetl life in the Russian Empire to the post-Soviet period: a reconstructed shtetl and an Odessa coffeehouse are on display, along with a T-34 tank and a U-2 biplane, while the theme of the Holocaust is presented through a memorial hall bearing the names of the victims. Since 2013 the museum has housed a branch of the Russian State Library with the Schneerson collection of books, and the mezzanine above the entrance holds the Avant-Garde Center, set on a structure reminiscent in shape of the Shukhov Tower. The museum receives about 600,000 visitors a year.

Today the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center combines the status of a protected architectural landmark with the role of a modern educational space that uses interactive and multimedia technology alongside genuine artifacts. In 2016 its Tolerance Center received a UNESCO award, and the building itself remains a rare example of an avant-garde industrial structure that has found new life without losing its historic appearance.