At the beginning of the month, the authorities of St. Petersburg officially abandoned the project of reconstruction of "New Holland", carried out by Norman Foster. Recall that in 2006, a British architect in tandem with the developer Shalva Chigirinsky took part in an investment and architectural competition, and then this project, the implementation of which was estimated at about $ 800 million, was recognized as the best. Four years later, Foster's Star-shaped Palace of Festivals was called "inadequate."
However, after many years of twists and turns with the choice of the most "adequate" project for the new building of the Mariinsky Theater, such a turn of events can hardly surprise anyone. Another thing seems unbelievable - an investor (not Chigirinsky, whose accounts are currently seized, but his partner in ST New Holland, Igor Kesaev) ordered Mosproekt-2 and personally to its head Mikhail Posokhin, a new concept for the reconstruction of New Holland. The Kommersant newspaper was the first to report this, and, according to its information, instead of the complex Norman Foster complex, the head of Mosproekt-2 is going to build a single simplified building, as well as arrange a new arch in the wall of New Holland (an architectural monument of the 18th century) from the side of the Admiralty Canal.
No less unexpected was the appointment of the same architect to two Moscow long-term construction projects - Zaryadye and Golden Island. Grigory Revzin in "Kommersant" described this news as "a turn in the construction of the capital." According to the critic, Foster lost the project in Zaryadye due to the fact that the rights to it also belong to Shalva Chigirinsky, with whom Elena Baturina has been waging a protracted property conflict since August 2009. The design of the “Golden Island” is being delayed for an even more banal reason: the company “Guta-Development” did not lease this site, but acquired it in its ownership, and, accordingly, it may not be in a hurry to go anywhere. Thus, the appointment of Mikhail Posokhin as the chief architect of the project, Revzin believes, looks more like a political move, and not a real design: “If you tell someone, you’ll play with, I’ll call Posokhin, and, you see, something will move,” the author of the article concludes. …
Meanwhile, the main work of Mikhail Posokhin of the 2000s and the favorite brainchild of the Moscow mayor - the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve, recognized in 2008 as the best completed restoration and reconstruction project in Moscow, has literally cracked. This unexpectedly became known at a meeting of the Moscow Government dedicated to the implementation of the program for the long-term development of the Tsaritsyno Museum-Reserve for 2006-2008 and the definition of tasks for 2010-2012. The head of the city department of culture Sergey Khudyakov announced the conclusion of the Moscow Housing Inspectorate about the unsatisfactory quality of construction work on the monuments restored in Tsaritsyno. According to Gazeta.ru, a very bleak picture was painted for the officials: the walls of the palaces are covered with cracks and infected with fungus, it blows from non-insulated dormer windows, and in severe frosts the temperature in the premises drops to +2.5 degrees. On this bleak note, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov interrupted the meeting ("We should have called a government meeting to tell about the leaks!" There were no complaints about the building complex.
Throughout the first half of February, passions continued to heat up around the demolition of private houses in the village of Rechnik. However, the "new environmental policy" of the Moscow authorities, aimed at eliminating all settlements built on "dubious legal grounds", did not end there. Following Rechnik, the city decided to check the legality of the village of Fantasy Island, located on the territory of the Moskvoretsky Natural and Historical Park and chosen, without exaggeration, by the wealthiest residents of the capital. After conflicting statements about whether there really are grounds for the demolition of the "Island", the Moscow City Duma nevertheless legalized it. According to the Vremya novostei newspaper, this created an important legal precedent: in fact, the city made it easier for investors to develop the same tasty protected areas.
While public attention was focused on property conflicts around Rechnik, Fantasy Island and Sokol, in the very center of Moscow, under the guise of expanding the gallery of the artist Alexander Shilov, the construction of a 5-storey business center and an elite residential building was completed. As "Gazeta" reminds, for the sake of this construction on Znamenka several historically valuable objects were demolished at once.
The beginning of February was generally rich in news, one way or another connected with high-profile restoration projects. So, the head of the reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater Yakov Sarkisov left his post. The reason for his sudden resignation was the conflict between Sarkisov and the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, who categorically did not like the idea of making one concert hall under the theater instead of a foyer and a hall for rehearsals. This was reported by Gazeta and Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
As you know, the Moscow mayor took personal control of another "cultural" construction site - the wooden palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye. According to Izvestia, despite the summer statement of Yuri Luzhkov that he did not have money for the project, which suddenly rose in price by almost 20%, workers recently started interior finishing of this facility and promise to partially open the palace in September 2010.
In early February, the attention of all major media was attracted by another, much more "modest" restoration story. At the All-Russian Art Scientific Restoration Center named after academician I. E. Grabar opened the exhibition "Heaven of Handmade", which presents painted ceilings and icons from the temples of the Kenozersky National Park - a preserve of wooden architecture of the 18th-19th centuries. For them, the architect Yuri Avvakumov built special frames imitating the floors of North Russian wooden chapels. The exhibition was attended by the correspondents of Kommersant, Vremya novostei, Izvestia.
Another high-profile topic at the beginning of the year is church restitution. Konstantin Mikhailov writes about the contradiction between the statements on the return of museum treasures to the church and the laws in force in our country in the Ogonyok magazine.
Among the applicants for the transfer of the ROC, buildings of other confessions were found, for example, the Catholic Cathedral of Kaliningrad or the Georgenburg castle of the Teutonic Order transferred to the ROC by the regional authorities the other day, about which the Independent Newspaper wrote. The NG Religion supplement calls restitution as "arbitrariness", comparing the current situation with the experience of foreign countries.
Returning to Moscow's architectural life, it is worth noting that Khitrovskaya Square was added in February to all of the above-mentioned “architectural” concerns of the capital's mayor, who personally oversees many “significant” construction projects. Following the law, the mayor defended this heritage site, which was subjected to the New Year's attack by an investor, by suspending, by his decision of February 5, the implementation of an investment contract with DS Development LLC. However, construction work resumed on February 8, Gazeta and Novaya Gazeta reported.
And, as the beginning of this month showed, this practice is flourishing in the regions. Novaya Gazeta published two articles at once on similar conflicts - in Yaroslavl and Kazan. On the famous Volkov Square, right next to the Znamenskaya Tower, which, like the entire historical center of Yaroslavl, has been taken under the protection of UNESCO since 2005, nothing can stop the excavation of a foundation pit for the construction of a shopping and entertainment center. And in Kazan, the construction of the building of the Ministry of Agriculture of the republic, just two hundred meters from the Kazan Kremlin, which is amazing in its scope and splendor, has just been completed. directly in the protected area of the UNESCO cultural heritage site.
As the architect Yuri Avvakumov wrote in his article, "we were so enthusiastic about building the best city in the world, rich and healthy, that we did not notice how we raised an old, sick monster, which should go to the cemetery." This short article on the Grani.ru portal was published following the rally of heritage defenders held by Arhnadzor on 6 February. More than 500 people gathered at the rally, according to Novaya Gazeta and the Kultura TV channel. An extensive report on this event can be found in the report of Arkhnadzor itself.
January's premonitions did not disappoint: towards the end of winter, construction activity intensified on many previously frozen projects. Moreover, one of the most controversial and at the same time influential designers of our time, Mikhail Posokhin, was attracted to the loudest of them. The authorities are also doing their best to "urge" the implementation of two major Moscow "restorations" - the Bolshoi Theater, which with the dismissal of Yakov Sarkisov again threatens to end up in a dead end, and the palace of Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye. And it seems that the officials have already forgotten that in the same way they at one time tried to rebuild Tsaritsyno as quickly as possible. The fact that such a rush threatens to turn into devastating consequences for the monument has become especially evident this month thanks to the scandal that happened at a meeting of the city government. However, the way of solving problems used by the authorities is no less indicative. Officials have clearly demonstrated that they do not intend to slow down the pace of reconstruction and, if necessary, will always be able to find the extreme ones responsible for its quality.
