The meeting between the authorities and the public, declared to RIA Novosti, did not take place in full, since only the deputy head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Compliance with the Law of Rosokhrankultura, Svetlana Zhdanova, was on behalf of the authorities. All the rest were public - Yevgeny Ass, Yuri Avvakumov, David Sargsyan, Andrey Bilzho. The position of the public engaged in heritage protection was presented by Rustam Rakhmatullin, Clementine Cecil and Marina Khrustaleva, and the opinion of the “broad and inexperienced” public, although also interested in preserving the heritage, was voiced by the head of the Moscow That Doesn't Exist project, Adrian Krupchansky. So, instead of a constructive dialogue, an interesting discussion turned out, the participants of which were ultimately divided into pessimists and optimists on the issue of the possible parity of society and power with regard to the architectural appearance of the capital.
David Sargsyan began the discussion, immediately emphasizing its timeliness and validity, since, in his words, the quantitative changes in the appearance of Moscow have grown so much that they are already turning into qualitative ones. The director of the Museum of Architecture was once again convinced of this while walking to a press conference from Vozdvizhenka to Zubovsky Boulevard: “Our city is half replaced with separate versions, copies and fantasies, that is. our time simply erases it and replaces it with some invented idea of the past."
At the same time, the public is not silent, but is actively acting, noted Sargsyan, pointing out that Adrian Krupchansky and Clementine Cecil, a member of the Moscow Society for the Protection of Architectural Heritage (MAPS), who were present at the round table, and the authorities represented by the Moscow Heritage Committee, said the director of the Museum of Architecture, these are allies, not enemies”, so what's the matter, where does“Voentorg”come from, which is worse and uglier, David Sargsyan is sure -“nothing can be invented, which embodies the “limit” of the possible … They think that this is better - demolish the old house and build a brand new copy ….
The lack of authority of a specialist in this matter leads to fatal mistakes, says Svetlana Zhdanova. The problem can be called “the wrong taste of power”, as Yevgeny Ass spoke about in his speech, and even arbitrariness, as noted by Yuri Avvakumov, when the power itself designs and corrects projects instead of architects. The essence does not change: restorers, according to Svetlana Zhdanova, still do not have serious authority that officials would "hear", legislators do not rely on professionals, and architecture continues to serve construction, as we have historically done.
According to Svetlana Zhdanova, among the important problems with the legacy is the "neglect" of this issue, which has not been resolved for decades or even centuries, which causes a natural desire to "put everything in order as soon as possible." Second, this is the issue with the new legislation, which appeared in 2002, but is still not effective due to the lack of bylaws. In the town planning code, according to Svetlana Zhdanova, there is not even such a thing as restoration. “Today everyone makes money on the heritage,” says the representative of Rosokhrankultura. “Here it has become a“bargaining chip”.
Rustam Rakhmatullin supported the discussion of the problem of blurred criteria and ambiguity of legislation. Although, in general, the state, in his opinion, is more and more on the side of the heritage defenders, a “field for manipulation” still arises due to the vague wording in the law. As an example, Rakhmatullin pointed to the Provision Warehouses adjacent to the RIA Novosti press center, around the reconstruction project of which a serious struggle unfolded at the last public council. According to the city hall's plan, they should be covered with a glass roof. “There is a ban on capital construction and at the same time there is a permit for the adaptation of monuments,” Rakhmatullin explained. Whether the roof over the courtyard is a capital construction is not specified in the law.
According to Rustam Rakhmatullin, the special urge of the Moscow mayor's office to overlap the spaces of historical monuments threatens not only with the loss of their authenticity, but also with the disappearance of the city space, where you can come freely and free of charge in the walking mode. If the main facade of the monument is in the courtyard, as in the case of the 17th century Mint (it was decided to give it to the Historical Museum and block it), then it turns out that during the reconstruction it is excluded from our free access, although it is still a "public space" for tickets remains.
Rustam Rakhmatullin also drew attention to the fact that the notorious "roofs" often suggest laying "cultural organizations" - in the near future the Conservatory may block the estate where the Rachmaninov Hall is located, the State Tretyakov Gallery initiates the demolition of house 10 along the Kadashevskaya embankment, which, according to Rakhmatullin, is being cleared from the last remnants of genuine antiquity for the development of the Tretyakov Gallery. And the Pushkin Literary Museum opened the epic with "roofs", demolishing the unique gates along Khrushchevsky Lane.
The third problem in this context, according to Rakhmatullin, is associated with such large-scale events as the overlap of the Gostiny Dvor, the Bread House in Tsaritsyno and the completion of the Grand Palace, in which the previously existing trends took on an alarming scale. Rustam Rakhmatullin called them "favorite projects of the mayor": "They are, as a rule, royal ones, dedicated to monuments and the most majestic, and legislative manipulations are possible here." But not only the authorities, but also the lack of solidarity in the restoration community threaten the heritage, Rakhmatullin said: “The designers were divided into those who serve the authorities and those who will never do it. I would initiate an individual ratification of the Venice Charter, which prohibits what some architects have been doing lately.”
Evgeny Ass looked at the problem somewhat differently, seeing the root of evil in the “monstrous investment pressure” that Moscow is experiencing. According to Ass, it is obvious whose interests in this case are defended by the authorities - the investor, not the city. There is also the problem of the so-called “taste of power”, which supports the existing “climate”, although, according to Yevgeny Ass, “the power should not have any taste at all. When they say that Luzhkov and Resin have such taste, it scares me. " The public is simply excluded from this process due to the absence of civil society in the city, Yevgeny Ass believes. There is ECOS, but it “has actually become an instrument of manipulation by the city government. Specific cases such as Voentorg were never brought up to ECOS at all."
Yevgeny Ass was fully in solidarity with Rustam Rakhmatullin about the role of the Venice Charter in the issue of heritage, where it is clearly stated that architects should not reproduce a historical monument, otherwise, according to Ass, it becomes a business tool: “And then such 'city decorations' appear. how Tsaritsyno is a fantasy, a story worthy of Zamyatin, the construction of a monument to Bazhenov and Kazakov at last! The authorities have privatized history and can deal with it the way they need it. And the architects do not contradict her in this. “When they offer big money, this is a difficult moral challenge,” Yevgeny Ass believes, although in his own restoration practice in Nizhny Novgorod he strictly adheres to the provisions of the charter.
More harsh in his speech was Yuri Avvakumov, who called the current situation with the legacy a consequence of professional ignorance and cultural rudeness. An example of the first is Gostiny Dvor, the space of which, according to Avvakumov, no longer belongs to the city, although it was conceived just the opposite. Gostiny Dvor instead of a square became a building, and for only 2,500 thousand people, although "its dimensions are equal to St. Mark's Square in Venice, which no one ever thought of blocking." Yuri Avvakumov partially relieves the architects of responsibility, since, according to him, "they do not have the ability to correct the system."
Towards the end of the discussion, the participants touched upon the most poignant monuments - the Moscow Hotel, Voentorg, Provision Warehouses and the Central House of Artists. In the case of the hotel, David Sargsyan believes, the most pity of all is its magnificent interiors: “They are dying in Russia at a wild speed. As for its appearance, they promised that it would be similar to the previous one, although it is not clear how it is possible with a different height of the floors - it looks yellow now, and they added brown. " With Voentorg, in Sargsyan's opinion, everything is much worse: “He killed the entire town-planning district. Nearby is the wedding house of Parasha Zhemchugova, a wonderful Empire-style mansion, which is now like a pitiful gray booth, which will also soon be "changed". I would have done this with Voentorg - I would have cut off the top and everything that has grown there - the attic, the dome …”.
Yuri Avvakumov called the projects for two other well-known objects - the Central House of Artists and the Provision Warehouses - monstrous. “It is proposed to block the ensemble of several structures, - Yuri Avvakumov does not cease to be surprised at the creation of Stasov, - close the Parthenon then, it will protect from precipitation …". The project "Orange" on the site of the Central House of Artists can not be called anything more than a whim - says Evgeny Ass, and "a whim, which turns into a complex urban planning and social problem." “It will be a national shame,” said David Sargsyan, we are closing the national gallery and making an office center, in which it will be included! In the city that we will leave now, there will be many quirks, architectural eccentricities, and unsuccessful ones. And if the symbol of the Orange Revolution stands opposite the Kremlin, no one will understand it, and it will look rather ridiculous."
“The patient is more likely dead than alive,” said Andrei Bilzho, a psychiatrist by profession. The disease that beset the capital's investors, authorities and some architects is called "construction schizophrenia." Bilzho characterized it with such signs as bulimia - lack of satiety, aggression and, ultimately, death. Not all participants in the discussion, however, shared such a deep pessimism. The project "Moscow which does not exist", according to Adrian Krupchansky, "hopes to break the passive resistance of the Moscow Heritage Committee officials." Now the main task is to publish the list of monuments that are in the process of consideration, since more than a thousand applications have already been received there, but their further path is a great secret for the public.
According to Marina Khrustaleva (MAPS), a way out of the current situation with the heritage is still possible - it is worth, at least, to turn to the experience of Europe, where there has long been a practice of investing capital in the restoration of a monument with the expectation not for short money, but for 30-50 years, which in the end still pays for itself. Moscow investors are still counting on quick money.
Another conversation about legacy summed up the loudest "cases" of recent months - from Orange to Voentorg. In the future - Provision warehouses. They just started. What will happen to them? After all, the dialogue between the public / authorities / investors is such a strange dialogue. It is getting better and then backwards. Here the public, if its representatives in general agree, is able to productively discuss the problem. And that's good. In any case, it is obvious that we are marking a milestone in the process of destroying Moscow's heritage: high-profile remakes have been handed over (six months have been handed over); future destruction announced; and the dialogue - it seems to be getting better.
