The New Space of the Theatre of Nations, located at 12 Strastnoy boulevard was presented today. Architectural fate of the building wasn’t an easy one. In 1811 this piece of land was purchased by a merchant of the third guild Fyodor Pick, and a stone mansion was built here. The building survived the fire of 1812, and then burnt away during reconstruction. The Pick family owned it until 1856, when the building was bought by Doctor Adolf Redlich. It became home for a gymnastic society, and Anton Chekhov once paid a visit to one of their classes. Later the mansion was converted to become a hydropathical establishment. Then when Bolsheviks came to power, the building went into the ownership of the state and in 1967 it housed the archive of the central military commissariat. In the 1990s it was squatted by a community of non-conformist artists. In 2011 the building was given to the Theatre of Nations.

Opened after reconstruction, now the mansion is meant to become a part of the Moscow Theatre Quarter. Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin, Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky and Head of Moscow Department of Culture Alexander Kibovsky paid a visit to the place, welcomed by Artistic Director Evgeny Mironov, Curator of the New Space Vera Martynova and artists of the theatre. The New Space is to become one more venue to hold social projects and artistic workshops for people with special needs. The Program of the New Space to be launched next season and will consist of seven sections, namely visual art, performance, music, cinema, literature, architecture and curating.