On Tuesday, April 6, it became known that the position of director of the Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchuseva appointed the head of the Center for Contemporary Architecture (C: SA) Irina Korobina. It should be reminded that after the death of David Sargsyan, the position of the museum director remained vacant for three months. Briefly about the prehistory of the appointment of the new director of MUAR, the newspaper Kommersant told, there are also comments of the chief curator of the museum Irina Sedova, president of the Union of Architects of Russia Andrei Bokov and Deputy Minister of Culture Pavel Khoroshilov. The general conclusion is that "the responses to the appointment of Irina Korobyina are rather positive." At the end of the week, the new director of the museum gave a detailed interview to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, in which she spoke about her first steps in her new post.
In particular, among the upcoming events, Irina Korobyina named exhibitions of architects Rafael Vignoli and Rem Koolhaas, anniversaries of the classics of Soviet modernism and the legendary director of the Museum of Architecture Viktor Baldin. Meanwhile, now the museum is hosting an exhibition of neoclassical architecture of Leningrad in the 1920s and 1930s, "Everyday life of a new style", dedicated to the memory of David Sargsyan. Architectural critic Sergei Khachaturov on the pages of Vremya novostei praised this exposition "for its spectacularity and lack of boringness."
The loudest architectural exhibition of the month was opened this time not in Moscow or even in St. Petersburg, but in Perm. The director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Marat Gelman brought together the most famous works of the artist, which over the past 15 years have repeatedly represented Russia at major international exhibitions and biennials. Grigory Revzin talks about the significance of this exposition in more detail in Kommersant. You can evaluate the exhibition itself with the help of the photo reportage of the Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
The main organizer of this representative retrospective, Marat Gelman, just yesterday again became the hero of newspaper publications. According to Gazeta, the chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, and the speaker of the Moscow City Duma, Vladimir Platonov, demonstratively left the meeting of the Public Chamber dedicated to the General Plan for the development of the capital until 2025 after Mr. Gelman joined the discussion. The well-known gallery owner and political strategist said, in particular, that "for us, Moscow is love, for Luzhkov, it is a vegetable patch."
In early April, the press again witnessed an increase in interest in the topic of the Russian pavilion at the upcoming International Architecture Biennale in Venice. Several articles on this topic appeared in the last issue of Ogonyok. The main material was written by the curator of the pavilion, Grigory Revzin, in which he explained in detail why this time the conversion of industrial buildings was chosen as the main topic. And about how Vyshny Volochok lives today - the "model" city chosen for the implementation of this idea, tells the article by Alena Kudryavtseva "Tverskaya Venice". Sergei Choban, curator and author of the concept of the Russian pavilion, spoke about him in an interview with ArtChronica magazine. In a conversation with Milena Orlova, he also raised more general issues, for example, such as the social responsibility of the designer, the imperfection of Moscow's urban planning policy, the inability and unwillingness to preserve the historical and cultural heritage. When asked what Tchoban himself would have done in the post of chief architect of the Russian capital, the architect replied: “If I were in this position, I would become the most unpopular chief architect of Moscow in its entire history - I would have introduced the most severe altitude regulations.”
However, so far the position of the chief architect of the city is vacant only in Sochi. There, as "Novye Izvestia" writes, this week the head of the department of architecture and town planning of the administration was replaced. The former (Oleg Sheveiko) was dismissed "for inactivity", and Natalya Kleimenova, who previously held a similar position in Ulyanovsk, was appointed acting chief architect. However, already on April 8, reports appeared in the press that Kleimenova did not hold on to this position for a long time. According to the Ulyanovsk Online portal, a new specialist has been appointed to this position - Andrey Yuryevich Kuzminsky, an architect and urban planner from Adler. As for Natalia Kleimenova, she will continue to work as the deputy chief architect of the city.
Contradictory urban planning news never ceases to come from St. Petersburg. The governor of the city, Valentina Matvienko, proposed to resolve the controversial issue of the Okhta Center skyscraper not through a referendum, for which activists are fighting in court, but with the help of a public opinion poll. This caused a new wave of criticism against the head of the city, writes Kommersant. No longer counting on the justice of the St. Petersburg authorities, the defenders of the historical appearance of the city filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights about violations committed, mainly during public hearings on the high-rise. Kommersant also talks about this in more detail.
A new scandalous turn has become apparent in the fate of another "hot spot" on the map of St. Petersburg, namely Sennaya Square. The publication of the project for its reconstruction last fall caused a serious scandal. The chief architect Yuri Mityurev then assured the public that the quarter could only be considered comprehensively, and the competition for the development of the concept for the reconstruction of the square would be announced in early 2010. However, this did not prevent developers from “cutting” the project into many small plots and trying to coordinate the development of each of them separately. More about this - "Novaya Gazeta".
In April, controversy continued over the forthcoming law on the restitution of church property. Nezavisimaya Gazeta published a critical article by Mikhail Sitnikov, who is convinced that "the discussion of the bill on the return of religious monuments to the Russian Orthodox Church and the process of their actual transfer are taking place today independently of each other." And the INFOX.ru portal invited Gennady Popov, director of the Andrei Rublev Museum of Old Russian Culture and Art, as one of the main experts on the scandalous issue of restitution.
Also in early April, it became known that the court refused to satisfy the activists' claim to recognize illegal the inaction of the Moscow City Property Department and the Moscow Heritage Committee in relation to the collapsing boards of the Guryevs in Potapovsky Lane.
And yet, at the beginning of April, there seems to be more positive news. Over the past two weeks, journalists have written more about open and upcoming exhibitions (including the Venice Biennale) than about urban planning scandals and new losses. We can only hope that the positive spring mood, together with the constructive suggestions of smart people, will leave the newspaper pages and transform the realities of life in the spirit of goodness and justice. You cannot promise this, but you can always hope for the best.
