Traditionally, the council began with the issue of urban improvement (after which, as always, all the cameras disappeared from the hall). This time the issue of placing advertising structures was considered. Today, the "cleaning" of the historical center from advertising has already begun. This is primarily about the zones protected by UNESCO (the Kremlin, the Novodevichy Convent and Kolomenskoye plus the internationally unguarded, but beloved area around the Cathedral of Christ the Savior). They are already actively getting rid of ads.
Now it is up to the development of the correct methodological approach to advertising placement in the city in general, taking into account both the interests of advertisers and the preservation of architectural views. As Alexander Kuzmin said, the city was divided into several zones - the central one, i.e. The Kremlin gets rid of advertising completely, the zone within the boundaries of the Garden Ring is significantly "discharged" and is freed from some structures (especially from constrictions). Advertising will be placed “wisely”, considering the site (for example, an area) in a complex way. It is planned to use more actively the architecture of small forms - all sorts of benches and bus stops. The latter, counting on advertising, have been designed at least three types - in the "Moscow style" for the center, in the "pseudo-classical" for the quarters of Stalin's time and in the "modern" one beyond the Garden Ring. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that similar benches were shown to the council exactly a year ago - then it was about freeing the center and the area around the Kremlin from advertising.
Council members were very supportive of the beautification program. Alexander Kudryavtsev only added that he would like to see watches, which have recently become very few, as "urban furniture". Yuri Luzhkov stressed that no one is going to destroy the existing advertising system overnight, but gradually it will be replaced with a more correct one. The mayor added that neither historical monuments nor traffic (signs, signs, traffic lights) should suffer from advertising structures.
The second in a row was discussed a multifunctional complex of incredible scale of a million square meters, located at the intersection of the Varshavskoye Highway and the Moscow Ring Road (ENPI LLC, GUP NIIPI Genplan). Moscow in this place "stretches" beyond the line of the ring road to the south, towards Butovo. So the intersection with the ring is not the outskirts, but a densely populated urban area, with two metro stations - Anino (a line going to Butovo) and the station of the second line under construction to Yasenevo. From the north, the Bitsevsky forest park adjoins the site, as well as an industrial zone, in the place of which it is planned to build another residential microdistrict. The presence of a transport hub here inevitably leads to the need for an intercepting parking lot - in the project, it is given as much as 400 thousand sq. M. The remaining 600 thousand are office space and a hotel, as well as a "theme park", a transforming concert hall, etc.
Supporting the concept of polycentric development of the city, the new complex should pull the working population out of the center, providing local residents with new 27,000 “places of employment”. Three variants of the volumetric-spatial composition were presented to the council, and in all three in the high-rise part there are offices and a hotel, in the stylobate there is a shopping and entertainment zone. The members of the council preferred to the third, lowered, option, in which all the volumes are arranged in a semi-ring and the height is only slightly higher than the surrounding residential buildings. This option (in contrast to the other two, with towers) turned out to be better inscribed in the turn of the junction. True, in this case, the windows of hotel rooms inevitably turn out to be facing the most polluted and noisy side.
As a plus of this project, it was noted that the "conscientious investor" also finances the construction of a section of the Varshavskoye highway backup and a loopback with a turn to the city center, an alternative to the existing interchange. True, Andrei Bokov criticized the authors for their indifference to pedestrians, whose traffic, along with automobile traffic, promises to be busy between two metro stations, i.e. directly on the territory of the future complex.
Another snag arose: on the site, as Aleksandr Kudryavtsev reminded the audience, there is a monument of Soviet architecture, the Zhiguli autotech center by architect Leonid Pavlov of the 1970s. Although Alexander Kuzmin assured that the building is now in an irreparable condition, Kudryavtsev strongly recommended including at least a "memory" of him in the new complex.
Despite the loss of the Pavlov building, as well as the unprecedented size and difficult economic situation, the council readily approved the project. The complex was called “the face of Moscow” and “a competitor for the Crocuses of the Moscow region,” which approached the Moscow Ring Road from the outside. Yuri Luzhkov agreed to approve the project for further work on the basis of the third option.
The next on the agenda was another skyscraper as part of MIBC “City” on site No. 20. Earlier, the project of A. Asadov's workshop - a “wriggling” bell-shaped skyscraper was intended for this site. The current project was carried out by the American company Costas Kondylis & Partners LLP. In this part of the City, the building of the mayor's office is currently under construction according to the project of Mikhail Khazanov, so far it is the last one. In front of him is the "central core" - a reduced volume of a shopping center, and closer to the river - an intricate twisted skyscraper of the Wedding Palace. The new volume took on the function of smoothing out the transition from the large city hall building to the palace, especially when viewed from the embankment.
The 57-storey skyscraper of a broken shape looks like a glass parallelepiped folded like an accordion. The dancing rhythm makes it akin to the wedding palace, and the scale - to the mayor's office. Mikhail Posokhin noted that this skyscraper continues the general trend of increasing the number of storeys towards the center of the composition, and does not cover either the mayor's office or the central square. Yuri Platonov found the chosen shape to be random. The mayor, however, took the following position: on the one hand, he considered that the form has the right to life, because "in the City we have a lot of unusual things, and if we add a new avant-garde form, it won't get any worse." On the other hand, Yuri Luzhkov proposed to refrain from agreeing, since another skyscraper, according to him, will complicate the already critical situation with transport. Before investigating the transport issue, the mayor refused to give progress to the project.
A series of commercial projects was diluted by one cultural museum - the T-34 tank museum (authors of Vip Service Project), which is planned to be built at the expense of the city budget on Dmitrovskoe highway, in the area of its fork with a backup, not far from the village of Sholokhovo (the site belongs to Moscow). Now there is a small museum house next to the memorial tank. The place, meanwhile, is popular with residents of the Moscow region, almost like its own Poklonnaya Gora, in connection with which the idea arose to expand the museum, building here a whole complex dedicated to the famous weapon, its designer, and the plant. In addition to the exposition itself (by the way, the team of authors of the recently opened Museum of Cosmonautics, which Yuri Luzhkov plans to present for the state prize), is working on classrooms and rooms with tank simulators for schoolchildren.
Everyone unanimously supported the patriotic idea, but opinions were divided on the appearance of the building. In its multi-part composition, the shape of the tank is clearly guessed, which seems to be leaving the workshop, crowding the glass volume located in front of it. Yuri Platonov condemned the project for "frontal semiotics", considering more abstract forms to be appropriate today. Mikhail Posokhin considered the composition too complicated, inappropriately overlapping the memorial tank itself. Andrey Bokov agreed with him, reminding, among other things, that since the project is being funded by city money, it would be fair to announce a competition. This idea was readily supported by the mayor, noting about the presented option that “he did not like the whole set. Until they got there … ". It was decided to hold a competition.
Next, we examined another large commercial facility on Malaya Pochtovaya Street, near the Third Transport Ring and the Yauza River embankment, right behind the new building-plate of the Bauman Institute (JSC TsNIIpromzdaniy). The project has existed for a long time, in particular, two years ago it was discussed at the OERG. The owners were originally going to redesign the territory of the automotive electrical equipment plant for offices, but the mayor's ban on this kind of construction forced them to come up with the idea of a public center, where 40% is occupied by a hotel (with apartments, trade and exhibition halls and galleries) and 40% - by sports premises (fitness center with a swimming pool). From an urban planning point of view, the emergence of a new complex behind the Baumanka building, according to Alexander Kuzmin, will add the missing depth to this building when viewed from the Yauza embankment.
The business complex was presented to the council in 3 variants. In the first, the composition is composed of four multi-storey buildings, placed in parallel on a single stylobate and gradually gaining height to the "plate" of the Bauman Institute, practically not showing behind it. In the second version, the premises are assembled into three buildings, deployed relative to the "plate", and thus opened into the internal structure of the neighboring residential area. In the third version, to which Alexander Kuzmin was inclined, multi-storey buildings are compactly assembled next to the Baumanki building, making up a single high-rise accent with it, but again practically not towering over it. All options are united by a kind of serf-like isolation and self-sufficiency of the complex stretched along Gospitalnaya Street and separated from it by a powerful 6-level stylobate-wall.
Council members were wary of the proposal. Vladimir Resin advised to lower the altitude, and Yuri Grigoriev - to give the site altogether for development to the Bauman Institute. Alexander Kuzmin, however, in response, refused to "seize someone else's territory." However, the mayor did not approve of the proposed volumes, seeing in them a clear overkill in terms of area and, as a result, a critical load on transport. The well-known defender of antiquity Aleksey Klimenko spoke not quite on the topic, recalling that Pushkin was born nearby, and therefore it is necessary to mark this place with some kind of memorable sign. True, the alleged birthplaces of the poet in the district are at least three, between them about fifteen minutes walk; at one of these places there is both a plaque and a monument-head of the young Pushkin. Alexey Klimenko was referring to another proposed location - on Malaya Pochtovaya. However, between it and the section considered at the council was the route of the Third Ring, and frankly, the project and the place of birth of Pushchkin are far from each other. Although it would, of course, be curious to put the boards in all three possible places; you walk through the city - Pushkin was born there, and here he was born …
Summing up the opinions, the mayor agreed on the functional purpose, but demanded to reduce the volumes and work further on the second, quieter version, in which the new complex is hidden behind the building of the institute, pointing out the inappropriateness of the volumes in the third version with towers.
The last in a row, the council re-examined the long-suffering project of the house-arch by Alexei Bavykin on the Mozhaisk highway, which we have already written about (the project was rejected at the public council on October 30, 2008). The sharp, experimental spirit of this project somehow did not immediately fall in love with the mayor, who spared no comparisons to him. And at the current meeting, Yuri Luzhkov could not resist and noticed that in the first version, Bavykin's object reminds him of the "ugliness" of the ski slope, which appeared in Krasnogorsk and thus "killed the city"; thus, in passing, the building of Mikhail Khazanov also fell.
This time, almost everything that was interesting in it disappeared from the project of the house on Mozhaisk highway: both the arch and the theme of the ruin; only the interpenetration of two volumes remained - the "stone" transverse and the glass longitudinal. The arch has turned into a rectangular opening. All the classic associations and urban planning theme, allusions to the Beauvais arch are completely lost.
I must say that this is the clearest example of how approval can ruin a project. For some reason, it turned out to be good for the Venice Biennale and for the professional press, but not very good for a number of colleagues and city authorities. They wanted something simpler. However, some colleagues supported the project - in fact, thanks to this, the house was approved this time. Yuri Platonov again spoke in defense of the project, just like last time, noting that such an interesting composition of two penetrating volumes is very correct in this place, against the background of indifferent development fronts of the Mozhaisk highway. So in the end, Yuri Luzhkov was forced to give in to the opinion of the expert community. “I think we can grudgingly agree with such an amazing proposal,” the mayor said.
