Tsiolkovsky Museum of the History of Cosmonautics, Kaluga

Tsiolkovsky Museum of the History of Cosmonautics , Kaluga
designed by Boris Barkhin, Evgeny Kireev, Nataliya Orlova, Valentin Strogy and Kirill Fomin in 1961
completed in 1967

One of the best postwar Modernist buildings in Russia, Tsiolkovsky Museum in Kaluga had been constructed in 1960s. It’s design was based on winning proposal for an open national competition held in 1960-1961. Monumental volume stands on the edge of a steep bank overlooking the Yachenka lake. Design concentrates on setting up a monument to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky expressing evolution of his ideas before and during the conquest of space. The building’s form is massive, the long rectangular volume is covered with a wide roof slab and deep overhang. An elliptic dome lined with aluminum panels forges through the roof. Surrounding area is used as an open-air museum. The building includes three principle sections – the ideological contents of the exhibition, scientific biography of Tsiolkovsky and the history of space navigation, all in one large hall. Service premises include library, workshops, laboratories. Now it is under reconstruction that aims at extending museum's exhibition spaces.