Central Children's Store on Lubyanka

Brief information

The Central Children's Store grew out of a complex site: the new 1950s building was erected above a deep-level metro station and incorporated the foundations and part of the vaulted basements of the demolished Lubyanka Passage. So it is not merely a large store in central Moscow, but a structure where retail was linked from the very beginning with an engineering challenge and the dense urban fabric of the square.

After opening in 1957, the department store became the largest children's store in the USSR and the country's first retail building built to international standards; it even had the first escalators in a building in the USSR. The reconstruction changed the main interior space: the former three-story atrium was replaced by a seven-story one. The name also changed: since 2015 the building has operated as CDM on Lubyanka, because the historic name “Detsky Mir” remained with the former owner.

What to notice right away

From the outside, the building can be read through its materials and large openings. The granite plinth, ceramic walls, and granite archivolts around the large stained-glass windows show that the massive retail structure was made to feel lighter through arcades and glass. A separate facade detail is the restored three-bay loggia: it reminds us that the current appearance is not entirely “new,” but assembled from preserved and reinstated elements.

Inside, the main contrast is connected with the atrium. Its volume became seven stories high, but rare authentic fragments were left in it: eight bronze floor lamps, marble staircases, and railings. The new balusters echo the features of the lost ones, and the marble comes from the same quarry as the stone used in the 1957 building. Stained-glass windows inspired by Bilibin and the huge mechanical clock add a contemporary layer: they show how, after the reconstruction, the store not only restored the past but also reinvented its ceremonial space.