Published on: 2026-10-05
Source: Moscow Government – Правительства Москвы –
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From October 15 to 17, the Moscow Transport Museum will hold the 4th annual conference “Museums in Motion.” This year, it will be dedicated to the theme of movable and immovable industrial heritage. Leading experts will discuss the fate of factories, transport, and metro stations, the preservation of their historical value, and opportunities for adaptive reuse. The main focus will be on practical tools for working with industrial sites and their integration into the process of developing a modern city. The program also includes a curator-led tour of the museum’s permanent exhibition and a special track of the Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation.
“This year, the fourth scientific-practical conference ‘Museums in Motion’ of the Moscow Transport Museum will take place. From October 15 to 17, the museum will become an open platform for professional dialogue and exchange of experience for dozens of specialists and experts. Everyone interested can register for the event and learn more about modern approaches to the preservation of industrial sites,” noted the Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Transport and Industry.
The conference will take place in the “Club” space on Novoryazanskaya Street (building 27). Entry is free, with registration at website. The full event program is also available there.
Preservation of industrial heritage
Industrial heritage rarely has an obvious museum fate. The factory occupies an entire block, transportation requires maintenance, and the metro station serves millions of passengers every day. Such sites are difficult to separate from city life and preserve unchanged. Therefore, specialists have to find answers to complex questions: can an old car from a museum hall be driven on the road again, how to preserve a factory building after production stops, and whether a metro ride is considered an encounter with cultural heritage.
“Every year we change the focus of the ‘Museums in Motion’ conference, choosing a theme that reflects the challenges of the museum sector and our own professional interest. This year, we are turning to industrial heritage. For us, this is the most relevant direction, as the Moscow Transport Museum is an institution specializing in working with it: from transforming Konstantin Melnikov’s garage into a museum space to restoring historical urban equipment and researching the art of the Moscow Metro. Every encounter with objects of industrial heritage is unique; there are no ready-made solutions or clear guidelines: all decisions are made based on the experience of predecessors, expert opinions, and our own expertise. In these circumstances, the exchange of real, practical experience becomes especially important,” said Oksana Bondarenko, director of the Moscow Transport Museum.
From factory to creative cluster
The first day of the conference will be dedicated to immovable industrial heritage. Experts will discuss what is currently included in this category, how to preserve the historical value of industrial sites while giving them new life. Participants will consider the approaches that exist beyond conservation and restoration, as well as how to prioritize and combine different solutions in a specific project.
The discussion will also cover modern models of adaptive reuse — from museification to the creation of creative clusters and multifunctional complexes. Experts will talk about architectural and ecological approaches to the renovation of industrial buildings, their impact on heritage preservation, and how not to lose the identity of structures during their transformation.
The first day’s program will also include discussions on the revitalization of factories and industrial areas. In addition, participants will discuss how to make heritage preservation projects financially sustainable. A separate meeting will be dedicated to the role of art, cinema, theater, and digital technologies in understanding industrial culture.
The day will end with a screening of the documentary film “Manufacture of Culture.” The film tells about the second life of industrial sites in five regions of Russia. Residents of Kaliningrad, Samara, Sysert, Yaroslavl, and Yegoryevsk transform former factory and plant territories into creative clusters and artistic spaces that attract tourists and locals.
Operation and museification
The second day will be dedicated to movable heritage. Participants will discuss industrial tourism and talk about the Moscow Metro as both an operating infrastructure and a cultural space. Another topic will be historical machinery: experts will have to answer questions about whether such transportation can be preserved in motion and where the boundary lies between operation and museification.
The discussion will also cover the impact of industrial culture on the identity of the city and its residents. Experts will explore methods of documenting intangible heritage and discuss who should be responsible for this work. Additionally, they will try to determine how to measure the effect of a tourism project and what is more important — the number of visitors or the transformation of the area’s image.
One of the unusual formats will be an expert panel in the restoration workshop. Its participants will try to restore the history of a rare KIM-10-51 car, for which complete technical documentation has not been preserved, and will analyze controversial restoration decisions.
At the end of the day, there will be a discussion about the future of cultural heritage. The focus will be on digital twins, virtual reconstructions, and artificial intelligence. Experts will separately consider objects that originally exist only in the digital environment and discuss what needs to be preserved for future generations if part of modern culture no longer has a material form.
Industrial heritage adaptation
On the third day, guests will have curator-led mediation on the recently opened permanent exhibition of the Moscow Transport Museum in Konstantin Melnikov’s garage. The building itself serves as an example of adaptive reuse of industrial heritage.
In addition, there will be an introduction to the project of the grant recipient of the “Industrial Experiment” contest of the Vladimir Potanin Charity Foundation in the Moscow Region.
A wagon of the Moscow horse-drawn tram from 1872 can be seen at the Moscow Transport MuseumThe Moscow Transport Museum presented archival drawings of metro stations at the exhibition “The Lady with a Puzzle”
A large-scale project is presented on the mos.ru portal special project, dedicated to the development of key areas of Moscow. These include transport, industry, healthcare, education, sports, and construction. The special project helps to learn how the capital has changed over the past years, what initiatives are currently being implemented to make the lives of residents even more comfortable, and what awaits Moscow and its inhabitants in the near future.
On the project page “Culture, heritage, and leisure industry” you can learn about how architectural monuments are preserved in the capital.
Moscow is the cultural center of the country and ranks among the leading megacities in the number of museums and exhibition halls. The city has established a film cluster that includes the Moskino film factory on Ryazansky Avenue, the Gorky Film Studio, and the Moskino film park.
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