We don't really have a spot on these boards to discuss Art and Design (although they're discussed on R3), but I found this piece from the New York Times interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/arts/design/10olig.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin

The Melnikov House (built in 1927, and the central topic of this article) is one of my favourite buildings in Moscow.  What the article doesn't really mention (perhaps outside its remit) is that a lot of the modernist architecture is being torn-down in Russia these days, as the functions the buildings performed (primarily as buildings for different Party structures) disintegrated when the USSR imploded, whilst cities like Moscow suffered from a chronic lack of office-space, and of outlets for basics like groceries, newsstands, etc.

I think "Arts, Speech & Drama" would widen the scope to cover much of general interest, as well as R3 broadcasts on these topics too

(Sorry about the smiley - apparently these are extraordinarily offensive to a small group of pedants?)

I agree that its always desirable to find new uses for old buildings, rather than lose them if they're of artistic merit.  On the other hand, I can appreciate that for many who were born here and lived through it all, some of the buildings represented ideologies and misdeeds with which reconciliation would be hard.

I have mixed feelings about the Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia, (his birthplace) for example...  putting aside for a second the issue of its dedicatee,  it's an outlandish and garish example of  of the "Soviet Suprematist" style at its most full-blown, and almost worth the bumpy ride from Tbilisi for this alone. However, the exhibition within it is scarcely reconsidered from the days when it opened - even in the USSR it was considered an offensive anachronism,  and elsewhere in the country all statues to him, museums about him etc were torn-down in the Khruschev era.   I suppose what the museum really needs is a reconsideration, and its extraordinary displays preserved as an example of how far it was possible to fool an entire population?   Many would like it closed, and some demand it be demolished. 

Here in Moscow the Lenin Mausoleum is another astonishing piece of architecture, but one which promotes even greater public debate.  Frankly I'd like to see it moved off Red Square and re-erected elsewhere, and Lenin's own wishes for a private burial at Shushenskoe (the clinic where he spent time after the assassination attempt) honoured retrospectively.  I can't imagine what alternative use could be made of the Mausoleum, however... and probably one shouldn't spend too long looking for one either?   (The Mausoleum is still operational, and groups of foreign tourists take the chance to file past "Uncle Ilich" weekday mornings from 1000 to 1300.  Red Square is closed to all other users during this time, to prevent any "manifestations" by either side in the debate over the proposed closure.  For this reason alone - bringing the city's main square to a standstill daily - I believe this awful thing should be closed down).