Yury Grigoryan

Yury Grigoryan (born August 13, 1965, Moscow, USSR) is a Russian architect, Urban planner and educator. He is Co-Founder (1999, with partners Alexandra Pavlova (Kaplya), Ilya Kuleshov and Pavel Ivanchikov) and Director of the Meganom office for architecture. He teaches Architectural Design at the Moscow Architectural Institute (since 2006) and MARCH Architecture School (since 2021), was Director of Educational Program at Strelka Institute (from 2011 to 2014).
== Early Biography and Education ==
Yury Grigoryan was born in Moscow on August 13, 1965, into a family of engineers to Galina Ivanovna Grigoryan and Eduard Artashesovich Grigoryan.
In 1989, he completed an internship at Columbia University.
In 1991, he graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute (MARCHI), defended his graduation project under the guidance of Professor A. F. Kvasov. 
== Architecture ==
In 1999, Yury Grigoryan, together with friends and architects Alexandra Pavlova (Kaplya), Pavel Ivanchikov and Ilya Kuleshov, founded Meganom office for architecture.
Since the advent of Meganom in 1999, Yury Grigoryan and his partners have been designing and constructing architectural projects in Moscow and Moscow region. After 2005, the geographical base expanded: the bureau has worked on competition proposals in Beirut, Tel Aviv, Perm, Russia|Perm, with further projects appearing in New York City|New York, Kaliningrad, Sochi and other cities.
Meganom’s early work was dedicated to private buildings and apartments. In the early 2000s, a villa and house were built in Molochny and Korobeinikov lanes in Moscow, villas in the villages of Sosny, Snegiri, Nikolina Gora and X-Park in Moscow region.
Built in 2006, Barvikha Luxury Village shopping street marks the beginning of Meganom’s interest in urban planning. Over the next eight years (between 2006 and 2014), Grigoryan and his partners built a number of public spaces in Moscow and Moscow Region: Mercury Theater, Tsvetnoy department store, Ether business center, and Razdory wellness center.
Work from the early 2010s is largely devoted to urban planning and Moscow: masterplan of the Gorky Park (Moscow)|Gorky Park, masterplan and design code for the former ZiL|ZIL plant territory development, extension and reconstruction of the Pushkin Museum buildings and territory, and revitalization of the Moscow River territories. Starting with competition proposals, the ZIL, Pushkin Museum and Moscow River projects will determine the work of the bureau for years to come.
By 2015, Kauchuk residential towers were built in Moscow. In 2015, Yury Grigoryan began to design 262 Fifth in New York – a skinny high-rise apartment building, the construction of which began in 2021.
In 2017–2018, residential buildings Levshinsky 7 and Sugar Blocks were designed in Moscow, followed by the Lucky (Spectrum) hyperblock on 1905 Goda Street in Moscow. The Lucky is planned to be commitioned in 2022, while the first two projects remain on paper.
Since 2018, Grigoryan develops a number of projects for the new cultural cluster on Oktyabrsky island in Kaliningrad. The urban development plan includes a Contemporary Art Museum (the Tretyakov Gallery brunch), a School of Arts (Gnessin State Musical College brunch), and an Opera and Balley Theatre (the Bolshoi Theatre brunch). In 2019, the construction of the Museum began, and is expected to be completed by 2023. The School of Art is being prepared for the construction start.
In autumn 2018, Yury Grigoryan began work on a concept for the development of the territory of the Red October factory in Moscow and a project for a residential building on Bersenevskaya Embankment.
Art and architecture critic Grigory Revzin writes about the architecture of Yury Grigoryan:
‘Yury Grigoryan is perhaps the only one of the modern Russian architects who did not quite accept Ladovsky’s thesis that ‘space, not stone, is the material of architecture’. He, in my opinion, allows stone to also be its material, at least to some degree. He returned the wall into an artistic challenge, and this is the whole point of a number of his projects.’
== Teaching activities ==
In 2006, Yury Grigoryan, along with Alexandra Pavlova, began teaching architectural design at the Moscow Architectural Institute. Under their leadership, three groups of students (graduates from 2008, 2010, 2012) received diplomas in Architecture. Many of the graduates subsequently became part of the Meganom team. After Alexandra Pavlova passed away in 2013, Yury Grigoryan has continued to teach with former students.
From an interview with Yury Grigoryan by Strelka, 2011:
‘I'm not really a teacher, let's start with that. There is such a tradition that architects at some point go on to teach. This ethic in Western countries is extremely strong, it is believed that at a certain stage you should go and return the knowledge that you have received, your experience, you should share this. It’s not even craft solidarity, nor professional ethics, but you just have to and that’s it. And so it was that I went to Moscow Architectural Institute|MARCHI six years ago.’
In 2010, Yury Grigoryan became a teacher (in the studio of Public Space) and, since 2011, Director of Educational Program at the Strelka Institute|Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design. His last studio was devoted to the research of retail in Moscow and was presented in 2014. In 2016, he became a member of the Board of Trustees of the Strelka Institute.
In 2017, at the initiative of Yury Grigoryan, the Auditoria opened. In addition to the educational and research processes, the Auditoria hosts open lectures, discussions, presentations and exhibitions on architecture and related disciplines.
In 2019 Grigoryan became a member of the board of advisors at the MARCH Architecture School, and in 2021 started teaching within the MA programme at the MARCH.
== Research and books ==
In 2010, Moscow Architectural Institute graduates led by Grigoryan and Pavlova developed the Green River urban urban planning project, a visionary concept for the future growth of Moscow. The project was based on an analysis of the industrial and natural areas of Moscow and became the ‘starting point for further research of the city.’
In 2011, a new set of students conducted a pre-diploma study in Moscow as part of the curriculum, called Inventory. Students collected data on the physical condition of Moscow inside the Moscow Ring Road, calculating how many residential and green areas are on the territory of houses and streets, the percentage of pavement relative to the entire city area, what types of houses and courtyards are found in the city and so on.
The Green River was published in the Project Russia magazine in 2010, and Inventory as an appendix to the Project Russia magazine in 2011. Both researches were implemented as a student project, but they also laid the foundation for research in future work by Yury Grigoryan and Meganom. Subsequently, the ideas of Inventory and Green River were developed in several projects: the interdisciplinary study Archaeology of the Periphery (2013), the project for the development of the bank territories of the Moscow River: Moscow Future Ports (2014), the general plan for the ZIL Peninsula (2014 – present) and the project for the development of residential areas of Moscow: Dvorulitsa (2016 – present).
Since 2014, Yury Grigoryan has been running the MGNM publishing program, in which books have been published about the architects Leonid Pavlov, Alexander Pavlova, and the Director of the Moscow Museum of Architecture, David Sarkisyan. Under MGNM, catalogues of the exhibitions Moscow River Age and Negatives were published.
== Facts ==
When communicating with clients sitting opposite him, Yury Grigoryan often draws and writes upside down – for the client’s benefit.
In 2018, as a result of work on the implementation of the tender Moscow Future Ports, a public project Moscow River Friends appeared.
 
Category:1965 births 
Category:Russian architects
Category:Russian urban planners
Category:Russian educators