Hani Rashid is out as the Hermitage Museum's Moscow expansion architect as the development changes gears abruptly

A row is developing in Russia after renowned designer Hani Rashid was rather abrasively let go from a contemporary expansion of the State Hermitage Museum in Moscow.  The Art Newspaper is reporting that the 63-year-old architect was “unceremoniously” dropped from the museum’s satellite project after not hearing from the city or developers LSR Group in over a year.  “We received all of the necessary approvals for this project, but we stopped hearing news from Moscow about a year ago, just when we were ready to pour the concrete,” Rashid told TAN’s Sophia Kishkovsky. This marks the second time in four years that the architect has been removed from a cultural project in the Russian Federation. Rashid was previously involved in a Putin-backed scheme for a cultural center in Vladivostok that ultimately led to his resignation owing to an issue surrounding the financial house that was backing the development, which the U.S. government had sanctioned.  A rendering of Rashid's now-scrapped d...