As you know, architects have been hit hard by the crisis - many developers are not paid for their work, the number of "live" orders has dropped dramatically, many workshops have laid off more than half (some - significantly more than half) of their employees. Unsurprisingly, on the sidelines, architects talk a lot about the crisis and with despair. However, the round table on March 31 was almost the first attempt to talk about it openly and collectively. To pose a problem. Among the issues announced by the organizers (of which there are many - CAP, CMA, VANP and NP GARHI) were the most pressing: how to collect debts from developers, where to get orders, and most importantly - how to ensure that the authorities (Moscow and federal) began to help architects survive.
Actually, this was the main topic of the round table - to ask the authorities for help. It was even planned to write an open letter “to the state authorities” (I’ll say right away that they didn’t do it). The hopes pinned on these very bodies were formulated by Dmitry Fesenko at the very beginning of the round table (you can see the full abstracts here). If we summarize the theses, the words in the press release of the organizers and what escaped from time to time during the discussion, then the following hopes are obtained.
First, developers do not pay architects - and architects would like to somehow influence developers to pay their debts. Moreover, the work of an architect is a very small part of the total cost of the project. At the meeting, it was said: 1.5%, 2-3%, Mikhail Khazanov boasted 7 percent for the government house of the Moscow region. According to Dmitry Alexandrov, developers are striving to bring prices for new orders to $ 20 per sq. M. meter, and according to government tenders, this amount is even less - $ 12 per meter.
Developers, whose profits from expensive projects were three, five or seven times, during the crisis, according to Sergei Skuratov, “decided to punish the architects first of all,” whose work was sold so dearly. In addition to non-payers, there are customers who offer to reduce the amount of contracts by half - "because of the crisis" - said Sergei Kiselev and commented: it's even good that the crisis gave us the opportunity to see what kind of people they are, you can't even say hello to such people.
So, developers don't pay their debts. Solution options: first - to come to an agreement, "to draw up some kind of agreement, well, or at least an agreement …" (words by Viktor Logvinov); the second is to involve the authorities as an arbiter and to influence the debtors administratively.
Secondly: where to get orders? The number of orders has decreased significantly. Why, many construction sites have been mothballed, projects have been frozen and canceled. As the head of the Association of Developers and General Director of Glavstroy Artur Markaryan said, the volume of developers has decreased by 10 times, apparently, the amount of work for architects has decreased by the same amount.
As for the job search, the decision was generally discussed as one thing: the state order, federal and municipal funding. It is not surprising that the discussion revolved around Federal Law No. 94 "On Placing Orders …", in other words, about tenders. Everyone scolded the law, even (with restraint) representatives of the Moscow government. Developer Artur Markaryan said: “the law is difficult and it must be changed”.
What is the main burden of the law? It requires the distribution of government orders by tenders, which seems to be correct at first glance. But: the same law offers enslaving conditions. Participant in the tender "freezes" a certain amount of money, and if later decides to refuse, this amount loses. Should choose the designer who offered the cheapest cost of work. Moreover, even the initial amounts are unrealistically small. In summary, it is obvious that the law requires the very same price dumping. At too low prices, normal work cannot be done. Consequently, Sergei Kiselev is right when he asserts that it is enough to read the law to understand that it is impossible to participate in tenders under such a law, and there is nothing more to talk about.
But I still want government orders. The same Dmitry Fesenko proposes such anti-crisis measures: the state builds infrastructure, it receives bridges and roads, architects - orders and the opportunity to survive the crisis. And he cites the example of America in the 1930s, where it helped. It is possible, however, to give another example - Boris Godunov, out of hunger, began to build stone city walls and stone trade shops to give people work. Unlike the Americans, it didn't help him.
But if we imagine that bridges and roads will be built on the same dumping, bonded conditions? What will the quality of this infrastructure be? One of those present said: if you lower the price at the tender by 50%, then you either have to steal 50% of the materials, or run away with an advance payment …
There are, however, other government orders - urban planning and territorial planning. According to the city code, from January 1, 2010, all territories must have plans, of which there are none, and so far there is no one to make them. Isn't it work?
According to Sergei Skuratov: “The workshops have little work, a colossal resource has been freed up. They can prepare tasks for competitions (required by Law 94), they can make general plans of territories, arrange an audit of all previously worked out decisions … . That is, in principle, between the workshops it would be possible to distribute state and municipal orders for planning, zoning, and so on.
But it is desirable that these state orders also bring at least some money. In this, the architects who spoke were in solidarity.
Sergei Skuratov - “I am opposed to lowering prices for architects, it is necessary to reduce taxes on architects, all over the world they pay 6%. What do we pay VAT for? We have intellectual work! " Mikhail Khazanov - “… what is the European norm? from 2 to 12% of the construction cost. Should be 7, 8% and more. The state order should be more profitable than the commercial order, all over the world they are fighting for the state order, because it is more profitable. " And one Sergei Kiselev said the following: "We have not been working with government orders for a long time and in principle."
Two topics, how to get old money back and how to make new ones. The questions are, in general, clear, the problems have been posed. Their discussion … It cannot be said that this time it turned out to be constructive, although all three groups of stakeholders were present at the round table: architects, developers (one, but the president of the association), and the authorities (Moscow, three people: Svetlana Bachurina, advisor Resina, from the Moscow government; Sergey Palladin and Alexey Kurennoy, deputy chairmen of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction).
An outside observer of this discussion had a strong feeling that everyone was persistently talking about his own.
Artur Markaryan shared his experience in drafting the law on development. He also said that since November all the money from the sale of real estate goes only to pay off debts. And that the crisis is bad, on the one hand, and good, on the other. Previously, the development business existed on loans, now it will no longer be credited. This means that he will live on the shareholders' money. This means that developers will only have more potential investors. But also tougher working conditions. And he turned in the direction of the architects - they will be required to calculate the cost more accurately. In general, it turned out like this: come on, gentlemen architects, to improve the quality of work, the crisis calls us to this. But do not forget that the crisis calls us to respect money. We had too many non-commercial projects, it is necessary that all projects have a commercial component.
The architects, however, quietly, gently asked: how can we come to an agreement in order to pay off debts? And, without waiting for an answer, they turned the conversation to something else.
This other - namely, the speeches of the representatives of the "authorities" - took up a significant part of the entire discussion and there is no way to retell it, therefore, we will focus on the general feeling and on several interesting subjects.
The general feeling is that the Moscow authorities, like the developers too, find that the crisis is bad, on the one hand, and not that bad, on the other. And - again: we need to work better, comrades, we all need to work better. They were spoiled, they say, gentlemen architects, got fat on expensive orders, but now let's work efficiently, raise it and so on. And then the same thing - from the architects: the crisis, it's so good, now we have time to speak out and discuss, now we will tell the officials everything how to send projects for reconciliation because of little things.
The bottom line is as if everyone likes the crisis. All, almost without exception, express the hope that others will do better. And each in its own way: developers about money, the mayor's office about the city plan, architects about social activities. Then why, gentlemen, is the anti-fish round table? Crisis (to summarize many of the above considerations) - you must love it! And it’s better to work, you must, you know, to work better.
And the plots are as follows.
All approvals will now be free. That is, absolutely. In the formal part, of course; what will happen in the informal - you can guess, but better not, we will not. But what is not news - free approvals? Here it is an anti-crisis measure, we need to talk about this separately!
In addition, the approval of the pre-design stage is canceled, the architects will now receive from the Moskomarkhitektura instead of the ARI (Act of Permitted Use) GPZU (master plan for the development of the site), and immediately agree on the project. Experienced architects immediately noticed how sad it would be if, upon approval, they “hacked” and sent for alteration a ready-made, detailed project. And they asked about it. To which Aleksey Kurennoy replied that it would of course be possible to show the preliminary draft informally, to those who know how to do it.
By the way - one more situation. Dmitry Aleksandrov asked representatives of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Architecture what would happen with the program for the construction of kindergartens, whether they would be built according to individual projects. As you know, back in the spring, the chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, gathered well-known architects and asked, almost even persuaded them to take part in such a city program for the individual design of kindergartens. In response, it turned out that Yuri Luzhkov demanded that the program be completed as quickly as possible, and in order to accelerate, the Moskomarkhitektura decided to build according to standard projects. Individual projects - after all, it takes a long time to coordinate them. Please note that it is not expensive to design, but it takes a long time to coordinate. Although it would seem, on whom does the speed of coordination depend?
Further: Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Architecture Committee Sergei Palladin called on 50-year-old architects, recognized masters, "until things got worse," to go to work at Mosproekt 1, "to lead the direction and defend."
Here is your answer, my dears, to your professional appeal - to support a free domestic architect, artificially maintain a balance between workshops and institutes, issue government orders to a creative freeman at favorable prices, as in Europe. Welcome to our arms, at the rate, but from ten to six, but under the beginning, under the beginning! We will work together, it is high time for us to strengthen the ranks of real professionals - how can we not be happy about the crisis, how can we not love it? The professional has nowhere to go, the bourgeois money has run out …
To summarize, let's say that almost all the architects present agreed that the economic crisis threatens the death of the profession. Maybe.
But - our socialist experience shows that an even more certain death of the profession lies in two things - standard design and general work in large institutions. Boring, from now on, work for little money in large institutions on standard projects. Although I may be exaggerating. It is known, after all, that now many of those dismissed are already joining institutes. But there must be some alternative.
Speaking of typical design - Mikhail Khazanov remembered: in the Baltics during restructuring, despite the lack of money, standard design as such was banned.
And one more plot. In response to Sergei Skuratov's words about the fact that it would be good now, when the workshops have “free up resources,” to attract venerable architects to urban planning issues (Sergei Skuratov: “I am worried about Moscow squares - why were they all built up? The project of the Pushkin Museum - why is it done by Foster? A project for gas tanks - I would love to do it, but they didn’t invite me …”). To these words, the representative of the mayor's office, Svetlana Bachurina, answered with a question - where were you personally while we were discussing adjustments to the city plan with the public? You, not as an architect, but as a Muscovite?
What was followed by the natural question of Elena Gonzalez - how could we, the public, influence the public hearings on the Crimean shaft? We, who are not residents of Yakimanka. But no - the answer followed, Krymsky Val is a general plan of a specific territory, there is only for residents, but you come to discuss a general general plan, we have two thick volumes written there …
It is clear from this small, but vivid fragment: architects, when offering work to the mayor's office, consider themselves (not unreasonably) - professionals, but the mayor's office keeps them for the public! So far independent. They did not find a professional place. All for a clean-up day, fellow architects. As citizens, everyone is equal.
And if you don’t want to go to a clean-up day, please come to the Mosproekt-1 schedule. Then you will no longer be the public, you will be subordinates.
In the light of what has been said, architects also found a topic from the category “about their own”: about increasing the prestige of the profession. We put ourselves in the pose of a hairdresser, we allowed our great creative profession to be called a service - said Mikhail Khazanov, allowed to shout at ourselves in all institutions … We allowed ourselves to be lowered below the plinth - Dmitry Velichkin supported him.
The crisis has freed us, let's engage in raising the prestige of the profession, they are knocking on the doors that are closed for us - this is Mikhail Khazanov again. However, as Dmitry Fesenko rightly noted, architects always talk about raising the prestige of their profession, this is such a sore subject.
The question is how to raise it. The chairman of the Moscow Association of Landscape Architects, Ilya Mochalov, spoke very clearly on this score. He said there are two ways - PR and GR, talking to the public and talking to the authorities; specialists in these areas have fallen in price due to the crisis (again: what a good crisis), and now we can afford them more than before. Ilya Mochalov spoke about a combination of two methods, in other words, advertising-promotion and lobbying. But those present were keenly interested in only one way: how much does a lobbyist cost? Where can I get it? Well, who can tell you so easily …
In a word, the architects recommended to colleagues in connection with the crisis: go to the library (Sergei Kiselev), buy a house and retire (aka), knock on the closed doors of authorities and prove that architects are not hairdressers (Mikhail Khazanov). All this is good for the very famous, prestigious and earned. What about those who are younger and have just started to set up a successful workshop?
On this score, Konstantin Khodnev from the DNA group spoke very clearly, to the point and briefly. He said: they were going to discuss where to get orders, how to get government orders and did not discuss at all. In Mosproekt-1, he said, one does not want to go and is not worth it, it threatens with professional regression.
Holy words. And a good basis for weighing everything that was said at this round table. In addition to lyrical digressions, it spoke about how to get a government order for decent money. It was to discuss with whom: with representatives of the mayor's office and the Moskomarkhitektura. Those who constantly thanked for being invited, as well as for every question - but it was felt that in fact everything was the other way around, the organizers are deeply grateful to the "authorities". We are grateful for the fact that they came, and even somehow there was a feeling of fear - what if they won’t come again?
So, a government order for decent money. From the standpoint of an outside observer, little can happen here, at least not yet. Summarizing, the position of the architects: government order, but payment - 7-8% of the cost of construction; and it is desirable to distribute orders in such a way as to support everyone evenly. The position of the "authorities": either help us as a public (for free), or leave your workshops and go to our rate at Mosproekt, or - be content with what law is (everyone, you know, criticizes laws). Well, these positions do not agree with each other. They will not agree.
Or it is necessary to discuss such things separately - among architects among themselves, then with the authorities, lobbyists, and other representatives. Apparently, at open round tables, they are not resolved in any way.
The discussion dragged on until late in the evening. At the end, admitting that it turned out to be more than preliminary, the presenters (Viktor Logvinov and Dmitry Alexandrov) proposed to create a commission in order to prepare an appeal to the authorities, which was mentioned at the beginning. In addition to the leaders, this commission includes Mikhail Khazanov, Dmitry Fesenko and Pyotr Kudryavtsev.
As we learned today, GARHI, in collaboration with the Federal Union of Designers, is preparing a proposal for the government as part of the government's anti-crisis program. The proposal will be discussed on April 16 at the AGR conference.
We, in turn, offer architects interested in understanding the current situation as a whole to discuss it online and create a special forum for this on Archi.ru. We invite you to participate.
