Soon, in a month and a half, the World Expo 2010 will open in Shanghai. For the first time after a long break, Russia is building its own pavilion at the exhibition (designed by Levon Airapetov), and this event became the subject of intense discussions within the country and slight bewilderment of the Chinese. The architecture of the pavilion, by the way, is pretty pretty, does not raise any special questions, although many countries are building from topical environmental materials, and for some reason we do not. The main subject of controversy is non-architectural - the composition of the exposition, and the subject of bewilderment is the symbol of the Russian pavilion, Dunno from children's books, whose wonderful name is not adequately translated into Chinese. The magazine "Ogonyok" tells about it.
The preparations for the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which kicks off at the end of August, seem to be doing better. Recall that Grigory Revzin, Pavel Khoroshilov and Sergei Tchoban are responsible for our exposition in Venice this year. True, the press is not yet very interested in this event - only three “paper” editions responded to the press conference held in early March with an almost two-week delay. The Kommersant newspaper spoke in detail about the essence of the project, the Kultura newspaper published an interview with Sergei Tchoban, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta asked Oleg Menshikov, the mayor of Vyshny Volochok, to tell about the project, which was chosen as a springboard for the design.
The topic of church restitution, which has escalated after Prime Minister Putin's January initiative, has received record-breaking media coverage over the past three months, given how important it is for the preservation of monuments and for society as a whole. Employees (including directors) of museums wrote open letters to the president and the patriarch, departments responded sluggishly, and it was already beginning to get the feeling that the remaining valuables would be given away quietly. But no, in March they started talking louder about the problems of restitution. Of particular note is the remarkably informative interview with the distinguished Byzantine professor Olga Sigismundovna Popova and the brilliant article by Grigory Revzin. From these articles it is possible, in particular, to learn the details of the story with the icon of the Mother of God of Bogolyubskaya, not so long ago ruined by an oversight in the Prince's Monastery of Vladimir; that a significant part of church property until 1917 was on the balance sheet of the state; that in church use, in most cases, new copies replaced ancient originals, and many other things that, definitely, society should comprehend before adopting a new law.
A number of foreign architects visited Russia in March. The author of the world's largest inflatable installations, French architect Xavier Juillot gave a lecture to Moscow students, and his compatriot Philippe Nys, a teacher at the University of Paris 8 and the architecture schools of Versailles and La Villette, visited Novosibirsk. The Vesti TV channel spoke about Jujo's speech, and the visit of Philippe Nys covered the NGS news portal in detail. However, the most significant and significant was the speech of Lord Foster, who did not visit our country, but sent an open letter to the Moscow authorities with an appeal to save the Moscow Shukhov Tower. The letter was published by the Tower Foundation and RIA Novosti.
The Moscow authorities are in no hurry to answer Lord Foster. But the decision was made to recreate from scratch another, much more ancient monument - the capital's mayor's office agreed with the proposal of the Moscow Patriarchate to rebuild the Church of St. Nikolay Yavlenniy, which was destroyed in 1931. Rustam Rakhmatullin discusses the possibility of such a restoration on the pages of the Izvestia newspaper.
Following Moscow, other cities of Russia are also willingly engaged in recreations. So, in Yekaterinburg, a decision was made to restore in the area of the present Labor Square the Catherine Church of the 17th century, which was blown up in the 1930s. According to the portal "API-Novosti", this idea was recently discussed at the town-planning council, and experts came to a disappointing conclusion: not only will the temple be surrounded by constructivist buildings, it will also "eat up" a large green area.
Another story of reconstruction recently ended in St. Petersburg, where at the corner of Nevsky Prospekt and Vosstaniya Square, the Stockmann company built a shopping complex, allegedly recreating a historic building that had been on this site. Instead of the 28 meters permitted by the regulations, the new volume increased to 35, and almost nothing remained of the historical proportions. Rosbalt and Fontanka tell more about this story.
Rustam Rakhmatullin remembered another, once very famous, Moscow monument in Izvestia. 20 years ago, in the late 1980s, residents of the Moscow district of Nemetskaya Sloboda unsuccessfully fought against the construction of the buildings of the NIITP plant around the only 17th century chambers that have survived in this area - the so-called "Anna Mons Chambers" (in fact, the houses of Van der Gulstov) … The chambers were built up, access to them was closed, this was one of the last perestroika failures of the defenders of the Moscow heritage. In the 1990s, everyone (or almost all) forgot about the wards; So, remembering this long history, Rakhmatullin states: the built plant has not been working for a long time, apparently, it was not really useful to anyone, and the legendary chambers were just as forgotten in the courtyard of the late Soviet ruins. However, in light of the upcoming anniversary of the Moscow Metro (on May 15, it will celebrate its 75th anniversary), the capital's authorities have directed most of their attention to underground construction. The press has already published reports on the completion of restoration work at two of the most beautiful Stalinist stations - "Mayakovskaya" and "Revolution Square". According to Izvestia, the completion of the restoration of the Mayakovskaya station, which does not cease to be flooded with groundwater, will probably be accompanied by an emergency. It is calmer with the Revolution Square - by the end of March the eastern lobby will be opened, the historical appearance of which will remain the same after reconstruction, writes Moscow Perspective. In addition, the city authorities are going to deploy a truly Olympic pace of metro construction. In the plan approved by the mayor for the period from 2012, about a dozen new stations should appear in Moscow. Moreover, we are talking not only about the extension of the lines, but also the completion of previously mothballed objects, for example, such as the Spartak station, partially built under the Tushino airfield back in 1975. Kommersant, Izvestia and Gazeta.ru talk about this in detail.
Interestingly, funds for the metro construction were allocated a third less than last year, and for the first time Moscow was left without federal budget support. However, the modesty of real resources has never prevented from making "huge plans". The only pity is that you will not be full of plans and the international prestige of the country will not be strengthened either.
