Struggle For The Avant-garde: Results And Prospects

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Struggle For The Avant-garde: Results And Prospects
Struggle For The Avant-garde: Results And Prospects

Video: Struggle For The Avant-garde: Results And Prospects

Video: Struggle For The Avant-garde: Results And Prospects
Video: Fight For Your King 2024, March
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The meeting was timed to coincide with April 18 - International Day for the Preservation of Monuments, established by ICOMOS in 1982. It is symbolic that it was held in the same Moiret Hall, where in 2004 the first round table on the preservation of the architectural heritage of Moscow was organized. As Natalia Dushkina, a founding member of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee for the Preservation of the Heritage of the 20th Century, noted at the press conference, “the discussion then turned into a protest movement and a struggle for the preservation of heritage in general. At the same time, the famous letter to the Moscow public was written and signed. On this wave, MAPS was founded, public organizations and websites began to work. It seems to me that since 2004 a new era has begun in Moscow as a whole, and the attitude towards heritage has changed."

At the press conference, these victories, albeit still a few, were indicated, which were achieved by the forces of ICOMOS, MAPS, Moskonasledi and other organizations and individuals over the past years. The discourse turned out to be quite lively and covered a wide range of problems that can be conditionally divided into general ones, such as issues of policy of security organizations, and private ones, concerning specific monuments.

The press conference was opened by Marina Khrustaleva, Chairman of the Board of MAPS, who briefly spoke about how the position of the avant-garde monuments has changed in recent years. She reminded the audience about one of the first MAPS projects "Moscow under threat" (https://sos.archi.ru), launched in cooperation with Archi.ru at the end of 2005.

Marina Khrustaleva:

“We released this project, but quickly realized that it required a slightly different approach, and put it off, switching all our efforts to the Report“Moscow Architectural Heritage: Point of No Return,”which was already in progress. Recently, we looked at the Moscow under threat again and found that we got a kind of statistical cut. Two years ago, we laid out about 30 monuments from a general list of more than 150 addresses. Five of these 30 buildings are no longer there, five have been restored, and of the remaining more than half are in one way or another in the works. And what is most pleasant for us, in the process of restoration for the most part there are monuments of the avant-garde. No matter how bad their condition is, not one of them has been destroyed in recent years. " As usual, MAPS operates on the principle of "showing success, and if not successful, then at least opportunities."

In many ways, a turning point in the history of the struggle to preserve the avant-garde was the largest international conference “Heritage at Risk” held in Moscow in April 2006. It was initiated by Natalya Olegovna Dushkina, the granddaughter of the famous Soviet architect Alexei Dushkin, the author of projects for a number of Moscow metro stations. Naturally, the resonance from the conference, held with the participation of presidents of well-known international organizations and under the patronage of the mayor of Moscow, was great and gave impetus to action for both private investors and the state. What tasks are facing ICOMOS today - Natalia Dushkina told about this in her speech.

Natalia Dushkina:

“The first task is to save the ruins, to slow down the process of destruction of monuments. The second, which still remains unresolved, is the raising of the status of heritage monuments of the 20th century. It is about giving them a federal status of protection, according to the contribution of these masters to world culture, while they can be in any property - municipal, federal, corporate, private. The third is to form competent restoration concepts that meet high international standards. In the previous period, mistakes were made here - somewhere the questions were not discussed, somewhere the solutions were pushed through by the customer. There are plenty of examples, I don't want to offend anyone, but this is the building of the Moscow Planetarium. We have lost this unique monument. No matter how the structure was preserved, he left us, the author's work, a very large one, was gone. And there were only two such buildings, the Planetarium in Moscow, and in Potsdam - Einstein's tower, built by Mendelssohn."

The fourth problem noted by Natalia Dushkina - this is the inclusion of monuments of the Soviet avant-garde in the UNESCO World Heritage List. So far, not a single building has been officially included in it, despite the Moscow Declaration on the preservation of the cultural heritage of the 20th century, adopted during the Heritage at Risk conference. Seven monuments were named in it: the building of the People's Commissariat of Finance, the Melnikov house, the club named after I. Rusakov, Kauchuk club, Nikolaev's commune house, Shukhov's tower, Mayakovskaya metro station. Even the three working groups that appeared in two years did not budge the problem. Natalia Dushkina listed them: this is an official meeting on the legacy of the 20th century held at the President's Council for Culture; a special subsection on the heritage of the twentieth century, first created within the framework of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Council for Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture; and an expert group at the Union of Architects.

On this occasion, who spoke next Alexander Petrovich Kudryavtsev, President of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences (RAASN), Deputy Chairman of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Council for Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture noted that the subsection of the Methodological Council on the avant-garde is trying to do everything possible to raise the status of 20th century monuments to a higher level. However, we still have to overcome the inertia of the commission that draws up applications for the UNESCO list - Russian experts are not ready to deal with avant-garde monuments, although foreigners have long been waiting for us to propose them. In any case, no applications have yet been drawn up for any of the seven properties proposed in 2006.

Today, the state of the aforementioned "seven" of the main Moscow monuments of the avant-garde is different, which was noted Natalia Dushkina: “Of these, projects are underway for two buildings. These are the People's Commissariat of Finance and the Melnikov House. Two private foundations have been created - the Narkomfin Foundation (founded by the MIAN Group of Companies - N. K.) and the Russian Avant-garde Foundation (founded by Sergey Gordeev - N. K.), which privately owns half of the unique building - Melnikov's house, and the "Burevestnik" club, which houses the headquarters of the fund. The situation with the Rusakov and Kauchuk club is incomprehensible. Luzhkov recently suggested declaring the Shukhov Tower a "disaster object." Moving on to the 7th point - the Mayakovskaya metro station, I must say that out of all seven objects, this is the only one where intensive construction was going on. The station has lost a lot: a new vestibule appeared, the old one was changed, and finally, restoration work was carried out on seven sections of the station, despite the fact that the restoration project was neither coordinated nor approved by the Moscow National Heritage Committee. And most importantly, a huge engineering problem has not been solved - the stations of the 1930-50s are running. After the restoration, the costs of colossal money, when replacing the genuine old rhodonite, replacing the original marble floor, carrying out abortions and the desire to undress the entire station and change all the aviation steel on it - this will be the second "Worker and Collective Farm Woman"! This is the direction this station is heading. However, there is no project as such”.

The daughter and heiress of Viktor Konstantinovich Melnikov spoke in more detail about the current state of the Melnikov house Ekaterina Karinskaya: “It would be nice for us to save the house by the time the museum was created. In connection with the planned construction 30 meters from the house and the digging of a foundation pit more than 15 meters deep, the monument is in danger. When this issue was considered at the scientific and methodological meeting in August 2007, it was recognized that digging two pits side by side in the 1990s. was a mistake and caused serious damage to the house. Now the process of soil subsidence continues and the main showcase is warped - a 4-meter-high window, which was still opening in 1996. If the construction of the underground space behind the house is not stopped now, the monument will be threatened by groundwater. Mosgorgeotrest gave information that this territory is dangerous in terms of karst. Drilled two wells, one of them fell through the tool. Nobody sees this data. Twice the question was withdrawn from the public council, and what will happen to the house further is unknown."

In turn, the co-owner of the house, the Russian Avangard Foundation, is also trying to take measures to preserve it. In particular, according to Marina Velikanova, head of research for the project "House of Melnikov", "the Foundation is making active efforts to stop construction on the site Arbat, 39-41." The Foundation also bought the premises in the neighboring house no. 12 to house a preliminary small exposition dedicated to the history of the Melnikov house, while it is clearly too early to talk about the museum in the monument itself.

Marina Velikanova answered the question about the Burevestnik club:

“Our task is to carry out a scientific restoration of this building. The interiors there are filled with plasterboard and behind these smooth panels and the ceiling cladding, fortunately, there are original concrete walls and ceilings with "petals". Until there is a final concept and project of restoration, we do nothing. In the theater hall, we also did not change anything, we just put it in order. The original structures have been preserved there, the farm - you can see all this”.

An expert from the Moscow Heritage Committee told the audience about the state of a number of Melnikov's other structures in Moscow Natalia Vladimirovna Golubkova … At the beginning of this year, a complex of repair and restoration work in the Dorkhimzavod Club was completed, which lasted for about three years. The club was built in 1927-28, and in the next couple of years a kitchen factory was added to it. Over the years, the building was rebuilt beyond recognition, the windows of the first floor were almost completely laid - and this was Melnikov's “hobbyhorse”, large openings that were allowed when using a specially developed heating system. Today it has survived only in his own house in Krivoarbatsky. The kitchen factory, according to Golubkova, was recently burned down by tenants evicted from there. During the restoration, it was possible not only to recreate the appearance of the Dorkhimzavod club, but also its spatial core - a transformable theater hall.

A separate topic is garages built according to Melnikov's designs in Moscow. According to Natalia Golubkova, there is a restoration project for the Bakhmetyevsky garage.

Natalia Golubkova:

“Now the territory of the Bakhmetyevsky garage is used by the Jewish community with a project for the construction of a number of structures and the transformation of the garage into a leisure and entertainment center…. The only building that has not undergone any reconstruction or restoration is the still functioning garage for trucks on Novoryazanskaya Street. Projects for the adaptation of such structures are mainly aimed at creating modern museums in them”.

Another object, which was discussed especially at the press conference, was the Shukhov radio tower. A short report on the legacy of the famous engineer Shukhov was made by his great-grandson Vladimir Shukhov, President of the Shukhov Tower Foundation. He began his speech with good news - the rescue of the Shukhov tower in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Before the restoration, one third of the lower supports of the tower remained, there was not one ring between the lower section and the next. As Vladimir Shukhov said, the Nizhny Novgorod Architectural and Construction Institute prepared all the reports, attracted German specialists - as a result, the tower was restored at the expense of the owner - RAO UES, now work is underway to strengthen the bank of the Oka near the tower.

Vladimir Shukhov:

“Nothing has been done about the Shukhov Tower in Moscow. I have addressed twice to the President, to the Ministry of Culture, who is in charge of the object. The main thing that we demanded was that an examination of the object was carried out, and then, having created an expert commission with the involvement of foreign and domestic specialists, to understand how the tower could be restored. The only one who supported us on this issue was the Moscow government. They expressed their readiness to put the monument in order, restore it and use it as a tourist site."

Despite the fact that in general the press conference was devoted to the avant-garde, they could not ignore the next historical layer - the architecture of the Stalinist era, which today is under the threat of destruction.

Natalia Dushkina:

“Unlike the avant-garde era, Stalin's architecture is already going through demolitions, iconic buildings in the city center are being demolished. I remind you of the Moskva Hotel, of the demolition of the A. Samoilov Institute of Balneology. Samoilov is generally destroyed as an architect, as if there were no such figure. His sanatoriums in Sochi are being demolished, and this is not being tracked in any way. Unprecedented reconstructions are being carried out, which are pushed through by the customer. I must name the building of I. Zholtovsky on Mokhovaya as a magnificent example of neo-Palladianism. So, from this building there is only one front wall. Unfortunately, I am now concerned with preserving the heritage of my family. The Children's World project is underway, and at best one outer shell will remain of it. It seems to me that the task of the next period is to work not only with the avant-garde, but also with the 1930-50s. They are leaving faster than the avant-garde, despite their external fundamentality."

In this regard, Natalya Dushkina shared with those present her idea to convene the second conference “Heritage in Danger”, dedicated this time to the Moscow metro: “We need to develop conceptual approaches to preserving these monuments. 10 years ago there was a struggle in Berlin for the preservation of the underground, which has a shallow foundation, the problems there are incomparable. I want to convene an international conference in Moscow and jointly identify approaches to saving underground spaces. First of all, these are London, Paris, Chicago, etc."

The press conference held by MAPS was generally positive - the results obtained over the past few years have convincingly proved that even in the most critical situation it is possible to find ways out with the right tactics. As Aleksandr Kudryavtsev correctly noted, "we always act either vertically - we write directly to Luzhkov, the president, or we discuss problems in our close circle." Meanwhile, how should we appeal to the public, show them these monuments, "instill in the minds of the townspeople, administrations, prefectures, and the intelligentsia the value of the avant-garde." In this regard, Kudryavtsev noted as a sign of success "the initiative of the La Sapienza University of Rome, which was unexpectedly born out of MAPS, to make a one and a half year program together with MARCHI." So, in February of this year, the project "Moskonstrukt" was launched with the money of the European Union, aimed precisely at expanding knowledge about this valuable period of our architectural history.

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