Alexander Ostrogorsky, Yuri Palmin.
GES-2: Energy of Transformations

A history of GES-2—how the Tramway Plant became the House of Culture.

The history of Moscow from 1907 to the present day is reflected in the fate of GES-2. Newspaper articles, archival materials, recollections of former employees, photo chronicles and blueprints, film footage and literary diaries—these are just some of the fragments from which the journalist and architectural critic Alexander Ostrogorsky compiles the history of the place, the capital’s power industry, and the GES-2 building itself.

This building is the merit of not only me, but also of many people who participated in the construction here at the beginning of the last century. And, of course, the merit of a bold visionary who, a hundred years later, bought it all to turn it into a cultural and museum ensemble. A real miracle has happened. In the old city center, there is a space open to the new. We, architects, produce buildings: they are born as children are born. And the only thing we care about is that our creation should be happy. And for that, it needs to be loved.

– Renzo Piano, architect

Ostrogorsky’s documentary chronicle is supplemented with a commentary by Renzo Piano, the mastermind behind the architectural reconstruction project, an explication of the objectives of GES-2 House of Culture by Teresa Mavica, the co-founder of V–A–C Foundation, and by photographs by Yuri Palmin.