Joining Moscow’s cathedrals, skyscrapers, and industrial chimneys spewing steam and smoke as stark vertical elements on the skyline are four bright blue slender pipes of GES-2 House of Culture. This  decommissioned 1907 Russian Revival-style power station stands out on the Bolotnaya Embankment in the central part of the city. Originally designed by Vasili Bashkirov, the building has been radically reinvented by Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) into a glowing contemporary art space, the new permanent home of the V-A-C Foundation, founded by director Teresa Mavica and Russia’s wealthiest man Leonid Mikhelson, to promote contemporary art from this country  and former ones in the Soviet Union .

GES-2, which opened in December, is the latest museum—much like the  Guggenheim Bilbao and Tate Modern—to search for new spatial means to incubate 21^st century culture. The approach here, totaling over 36,600 square feet of space for art making and display, is particularly interesting.