The last fifteen years of Russian history have profoundly altered Moscow, bringing dramatic changes to the Communist city from the eighties. These alterations have increasingly highlighted Moscow’s many contrasts and multiple facets.
The guide seeks to do more than just recount and illustrate the city’s architectural history. It strives to be a tool for the study of building trends and the process of shaping them.
After a concise introduction and the essential information needed to plan a visit, the book includes several essays that give the city’s historical context and then critically consider its possible future developments.
The itineraries include a hundred architectural works, both historical and contemporary, which are fully illustrated with images, drawings and descriptions, and are marked on the front of the map with a reference number corresponding to the section in the book and the icon on the back of the map. The guide also provides information about museums, libraries, institutions, movie theaters, restaurants and gathering places.

ALESSANDRO DE MAGISTRIS, is an architect, who teaches History of architecture and town planning at the Milan Polytechnic. He has authored numerous publications, treatises and articles on the history of contemporary architecture and town planning, published in Italy and abroad. He has, among others, written La Città di transizione (1988), High-Rise. Percorsi nella storia dell’architettura e dell’urbanistica del XIX e XX secolo attraverso la dimensione verticale (2004).

UMBERTO ZANETTI works in Milan and Moscow. He organized and curated the “MOCKBA XXI” exhibition at the State Museum of Architecture in Moscow — MUAR — and the Triennale di Milano, and “Gabriele Basilico: Vertical Moscow” at the Cité de l’Architecture in Paris and the Spazio Oberdan in Milan. He has also written many articles about the city of Moscow and its urban transformation.