Quite a little time has passed since the previous ECOS meeting, and the chief architect of Moscow has already assembled a new council, and in full, once again confirming his intention to finally establish interaction with the expert community, to the opinion of which architectural officials have demonstratively not heeded the last few years. Opening the meeting, Alexander Kuzmin urged experts to stop criticizing the master plan and instead get involved in a more constructive process of bringing this document “to mind”. He also said that at the end of summer, preparations for the so-called. the plan for the implementation of the general plan for the next 5 years - in this document, members of the ECOS can make clarifications and thereby remove their claims to the document.
It is no secret that the greatest criticism of experts was caused by section 3.3, devoted to the preservation of objects of cultural heritage and the historical appearance of Moscow. It was to him that the current meeting was dedicated - Alexander Kuzmin began his opening speech with the most detailed presentation of "Measures in the field of protection of cultural heritage sites and preservation of the historical image of Moscow", thus trying to show that the new master plan "does not contain any destructive potential." … “For example, we introduced such a concept as a 'stabilization zone' and thereby preserved 25% of the capital's territory, because, according to federal legislation, the entire city is a reorganization zone where you can build anything you want.” True, in conclusion, the head of the Moskomarkhitektura, nevertheless, admitted that so far the general plan is something like a declaration, and a number of terms in it require clarification.
As the Deputy Chairman of the ECOS Boris Pasternak, who spoke next, confirmed that there are indeed a lot of such "raw" passages in the document. Thus, the work to preserve the historical heritage of Moscow is still significantly hampered by the absence of developed sites for monuments. Currently, about four thousand objects need them, while the materials are ready only 400. Meanwhile, due to the lack of a single map with the boundaries of these territories, experts have to develop them for each specific case, for the money of investors. This often leads to the fact that the most phantasmagoric ideology of “recreation” or “preservation” is sometimes invented for the monument, and for example, under the guise of “compensatory construction” (ie, recreation of the morphology of the former building), a modern object is being built on the territory of the manor garden. As an example of just such a development of events, the speaker cited the notorious project of rebuilding Elagina's house on Strastnoy Boulevard. It is possible to protect heritage sites from such reconstruction scenarios only if there is a unified methodology in determining the territories of monuments, says Boris Pasternak, that is, by developing a historical and cultural reference plan, which will indicate both the territories of monuments, and their protected zones, and former streets, and so on. …
The deputy head of ECOS considers the concept of historical zones to be no less important from the point of view of correcting and "decoding". In fact, we are talking about the protection status for fragments of historically established buildings impressive in their area, valuable precisely in their integrity. For example, the development of Leninsky or Kutuzovsky avenues could well become historical zones, says Boris Pasternak.
The master plan also provides for the consolidation of several historical zones in order to restore scattered fragments of the historic city and calls such sites "places of interest." However, according to experts, so far this is one of the most controversial and vague concepts of the updated general plan, and therefore also needs to be adjusted. In particular, it is not entirely clear to the ECOS members which territories can claim such a status. One street, for example, Tverskaya, or a whole area, for example, of the former Trekhgornaya manufactory? By the way, ECOS is preparing proposals for the recognition of the latter as a landmark.
Another issue of concern to experts is related to the so-called. red lines, i.e. the boundaries of buildings and the road network. As a concept, they are absent in the general plan, but the designers continue to use them. The gradual transfer of ownership of these "technical zones" of buildings and the emergence of stalls and parking lots on them threaten to turn into very unpleasant consequences for the historic city - in fact, one fine day the owner will be able to simply block access to some streets.
Other adjustments to the general plan, which ECOS members consider mandatory, include the return of the concept of "historical monument" (for example, in the form of a memorial apartment), the clearly spelled out status of the nine identified historical panoramas of the city and the inclusion of Moscow in the list of forty historical settlements in Russia allocate the entire historical center into a single protected area and, accordingly, protect it entirely).
The experts also had a lot of specific questions about the fate of certain historical territories. Perhaps most of all ECOS worried about the fate of Zaryadye. Alexander Kuzmin, however, did not say what would be built on the site of the Rossiya hotel, referring to the fact that the new project had not yet been presented to the mayor, but said that the designer would not be Mosproekt-2. Most likely, there will be no new competition for this territory, but the project will certainly be submitted to the Public Council. When asked by Rustam Rakhmatullin about the fate of Khitrovka, Kuzmin replied that the new buildings on the square would not exceed the height of the former technical school.
According to the chairman of the council, Alexander Kudryavtsev, in general, ECOS was satisfied with the dialogue with the chief architect of Moscow. In the very near future, the council is ready to form working groups to prepare all the clarifications that, in the opinion of experts, are necessary for the general plan in its current form. ECOS intends to carry out similar work in relation to the new Rules for Land Use and Development.
