The Detsky Mir store on Moscow's Lubyanskaya Square, built in 1957, was closed for renovation in 2008. The duration of the renovation work turned out to be longer than planned, but they are expected to be completed in a few years.
Work on the project of the Detsky Mir store on Lubyanskaya Square began in 1953 under the direction of Alexei Nikolaevich Dushkin. The curator of these works was the Minister of Trade of the USSR Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan. The building was opened to the public on June 6, 1957.
In the 1990s, plots of the area of the unique building began to be leased to companies that did not have the slightest relation to the sale of children's goods. On the territory of the store there were travel agencies, banks. It even sold cars. But most of the building's area was still used to sell goods for children.
In 2005, Detsky Mir was declared an architectural monument. But the status of a protected object was received only by the building itself, but not by its interiors. And in July 2008, the store was closed for renovation.
The lack of the status of an architectural monument in the interior of the store allowed Sistema-Hals employees to destroy them almost completely. The leadership of this organization justified itself by the fact that in this way they saved the damaged building from the impending collapse. It was assumed that the interior of the renovated Children's World would be completely different from the original.
These plans were not destined to come true. In 2009, the barbaric "reconstruction" was suspended, and in 2011 it was resumed by the same company (which changed its name to "Hals-Development"), but under the leadership of the architect Pavel Yuryevich Andreev. He proposed a new concept for the preservation of Detsky Mir, according to which, although many elements of the store's interior will be rebuilt, they will be made as similar as possible to the original ones. At the same time, the building will be adapted to modern standards of fire safety and accessibility for the disabled, and its spontaneous collapse will be completely excluded.
According to experts, the updated Children's World will again open its doors to large and small visitors in 2013 or 2014.
