Moscow Residents / Courtyards

[Jose Vargas]

I have reached out to you on different occasions and it has been very successful and informative towards the project I am working on. I am studying the city of Moscow through the purview of architecture. In short that entails physical manifestations of ways of life. The project is concentrating in the trend of gating courtyards that has accompanied the city's growth for the last decade, at least. 

I am very much in need of first hand observation of this phenomenon so that I would be able to map three things:

1. Courtyards that have been fenced or gated in the recent past (say in the last 20 years) due to infill construction or other reasons that distinctly would keep the courtyard free of buildings yet closed to the public.
2. Courtyards that have been historically fenced or gated either by the government or ruling class (historically loosely defined as pre-1991).
3. Courtyards that remain open to the passerby or community beyond its own block.
 
I have tracked down a series of gated courtyard sites thus far from newspaper articles, yet considering the timeline of the project I need to gather this information more readily. To this end I hope that contributors to this list who also reside in Moscow or have contacts there,  may add some of their first hand knowledge. I would be corroborating the locations you submit with Google Earth's images and other sources in order to accurately place these sites on maps that I am developing.

I am a graduate student at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. My project is purely academic and unfunded. I am very appreciative of your feedback and welcome your advice. As well I thank your involvement in tracking down these fenced/unfenced courtyard sites.


Jose Vargas
Graduate Student
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------