Recall that in March this year, a new version of the project for the reconstruction of a transport hub in the area of Pushkinskaya Square, providing for the construction of a shopping and entertainment center, was submitted to ECOS for consideration. The reason for the revision of the project was the harsh criticism of its first version: ECOS angrily rejected it back in 2006, the Public Council - in 2007, after which a decree of the Mayor of Moscow was issued, which indicated, in particular, the need to abandon the underground trade and will focus on the main task - the transport hub. However, the shopping and entertainment complex returned to the 2010 project, and in fact, its only difference from the previous version was the absence of ground structures. As a result, the ECOS meeting in March again rejected the project as destructive in relation to the historical and cultural heritage of the capital. Among the main complaints about the new option, the experts named the neglect of archaeological monuments, the change in the relief of Novopushkinsky square (a monument of gardening and park art), the lack of the possibility of through pedestrian traffic on the square and, most importantly, any qualitative improvements in the existing transport situation.
"The official project still does not have the status of approved or at least partially agreed, but, nevertheless, it is stubbornly promoted by the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Design and the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan," said ECOS Chairman Alexander Kudryavtsev. - Whereas no alternative projects, with all the criticism of the developers, have not yet been considered. " Actually, it was this situation that ECOS tried to fix. Experts, in particular, are very embarrassed that the reconstruction of Pushkinskaya Square is officially positioned as part of the "Bolshaya Leningradka" and is still associated exclusively with concern for the transport welfare of the center of Moscow, although, as Alexander Kudryavtsev noted, this undertaking from the point of view of any little the least knowledgeable specialist-urban planner should have a completely different goal - its careful preservation. And both alternative projects developed by the "Old Moscow" society and architects A. V. Ganeshin and Z. V. Kharitonova, convincingly prove that concern for the historical appearance of the square does not interfere with solving its pressing problems. Moreover, it is this approach that can be considered the most civilized.
The proposal of "Old Moscow" is focused on a detailed study of the historical basis of the place, and, first of all, it concerns the main structures of the square - the cathedral and bell tower of the Strastnoy Monastery, Tverskiye gates, the walls of the White City. At the same time, according to the authors, it is possible to restore the morphotype of historical buildings here, for example, the quarters of Bronnaya Sloboda, since Pushkinskaya remains one of the few squares that have preserved the old layout of streets and driveways. Alexander Kudryavtsev, however, noted that the reconstruction of the cathedral and the bell tower of the Strastnoi Monastery is more than a controversial issue, but in fairness it should be said that the project pays the least attention to it - in the first place for the developers is the task of preserving the currently existing monuments. In addition, "Old Moscow" proposes to return the monument to Pushkin to its historical place - at the beginning of Tverskoy Boulevard and restore the memory of Onegin Moscow at the beginning of the 19th century.
The second project, developed by A. V. Ganeshin and Z. V. Kharitonova, offers a reasonable alternative to the option of laying two tunnels along the Boulevard Ring - in the form of building a tunnel along Tverskaya Street. As Z. Kharitonova explained, the main problems of the transport hub on Pushkinskaya Square are caused by traffic lights on Tverskaya Street and traffic jams in the area of the Belorussky Railway Station. It is because of this (and not because of the low traffic flow of the boulevards, as the developers of the official project believe) that the stream moving along the Boulevard Ring barely crosses the square. In the rejected project, by the way, this problem only threatens to worsen due to the merger of two traffic flows in the area of Sytinsky Lane. But most importantly, the construction of the two tunnels in their current form leads to the loss of archaeological objects. The passage of the tunnel along Tverskaya, in turn, will allow, firstly, to reveal and demonstrate the finds (for example, the foundations of the cathedral), and secondly, to keep the relief of Tverskoy Boulevard, a monument of garden and park art, intact. This solution to the transport hub will help to avoid inconvenient pedestrian connections, to preserve the transit movement of people across the square, to make exits from the metro escalators directly to pedestrian crossings and much more. The authors of the project are confident that no reconstruction will make Pushkinskaya Square a part of Bolshaya Leningradka with its declared speed of 120 km / h - primarily due to the presence of traffic lights and other obstacles. At the same time, it is possible and necessary to improve the interchange, but the tunnel and the shopping and entertainment complex, in their opinion, are not compatible.
Both projects convincingly prove that the solution of urban planning problems can be approached from the point of view of the historical potential of the place, and not in spite of it. However, experts understand that neither the city nor the state today will allocate funds for large-scale projects for the regeneration of historical zones. As Alexander Kudryavtsev noted, if you look for these funds, it will be “in the investment component”. At the same time, the investment component, of course, does not have the right to “roughly tread” on the historical heritage, therefore, ECOS intends to reject projects like the official proposal for the reconstruction of Pushkinskaya Square over and over again. But to what extent is it really capable of stopping their implementation?
In fact, by the current meeting, the Council has exhausted its methods of influencing the project and officials who make urban planning decisions. Both alternative proposals will now be combined and sent to the Moskomarkhitektura, Moskomnasledie, the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and VOOPIiK. ECOS, of course, understands that the chances of their implementation are scanty (all the more so since the regeneration of historical buildings on the square is now hampered by the adopted General Plan, which ranks it as part of a natural complex and therefore prohibits any ground construction on it), but hopes that the authors of the real project the reconstruction of Pushkinskaya Square will take into account the most detailed materials accumulated by "Old Moscow" for several years of voluntary research and, possibly, this will help to avoid many irreplaceable losses.
