This week Arhnadzor managed to stop the destruction of two historic buildings at once. According to RIA Novosti, the activists blocked the construction site on the site of the Alekseev merchants' estate, located at 11 Bakhrushina Street. build a new hotel in its place. This situation is covered in more detail by the Chastny Correspondent magazine. And in the 1st Zachatyevsky Lane, where they have already begun to destroy a 4-storey building of the early 20th century, Arhnadzor managed to agree with the investor on the temporary suspension of construction until the receipt of permits. Read about these and other "hot" addresses of Moscow on the Arkhnadzor website in the article "Summer Offensive".
Meanwhile, the defenders of historic St. Petersburg, who received congratulations from UNESCO on the suspension of the construction of the notorious skyscraper, recently once again realized that it was too early to rejoice. Smolny has officially refused to go to the 34th session of UNESCO, which is taking place in Brazil, where a resolution is to be adopted to stop the scandalous construction, Vremya novostei and Gazeta.ru write. By the way, Gazprom, by the way, apparently did not even think about stopping it, Novaya Gazeta comments on the situation. Moreover, a week ago on the site of the city order there was an announcement about a competition to justify changing the boundaries of the historical center of St. Petersburg, that is, their actual reduction for the construction of the Okhta skyscraper, while the center is still a UNESCO site. Fearing a scandal, the city authorities immediately declared this news a misunderstanding, but it managed to get into the press, for example, on the Gorod 812 portal.
The federal authorities tried to get involved in the St. Petersburg situation, but they did it in a very original way. A number of key historical sites of the city were taken out of the care of KGIOP - they were reassigned to the federal department of Rosokhrankultura. This is reported by "Nevskoe Vremya" and St. Petersburg "Vedomosti". True, it is not known whether this will benefit the monuments themselves: the Kultura newspaper writes about the low efficiency of the work of Rosokhrankultura, revealed in the course of recent inspections. In addition, the division of federal and regional property in some cases was made more than strange: for example, the ensemble of the Summer Garden, including the Tea, Coffee Houses and the famous Summer Palace, fell to Rosokhrankultura, and the garden itself remained under the control of the city.
Passions about the redistribution of property between church and state do not subside either. For example, Vremya novostei published an article with the self-explanatory title “Fathers understand little about investment projects”, dedicated to the attitude of the Moscow authorities to the problem of restitution. According to the newspaper, today the capital's officials are in no hurry to part with the objects of worship. They are in no hurry to do this in Ryazan, where a rally was held on July 1 against the draft law on restitution - here, however, the stumbling block was not priceless square meters, but museum institutions expelled from religious buildings, the local newspaper Domostroy writes. And in the "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" published an interview with the deputy head of the Federal Property Management Agency Natalya Sergunina, in which the official talks about why the state decided to share its property with the church.
Modern architecture news in the middle of summer is predictably scarce. The only project discussed by St. Petersburg publications in the first half of July was a new technopark in the Nevsky District, whose appearance deeply moved the local architectural community. In particular, the town planning council outraged the choice of the British company HOK International as a designer - the British were invited for budgetary funds, but without a public competition. The Kommersant newspaper and the Fontanka.ru portal tell more about this project and its authors. And the Gorod 812 portal published an interview with the chief architect of St. Petersburg, Yuri Mityurev, entitled "Is there an architectural mafia in St. Petersburg?", In which he asked the official about shop competition, the practice of holding competitions and construction in the historical center.
Moscow media outlets, for example, the Izvestia newspaper, again wrote about the protracted reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater. The reason for these publications was a press tour arranged for journalists. While the management of the theater is once again making statements about the imminent completion of construction, the defenders of the heritage note that the work has gone far beyond the limits of restoration. Renewal of gilding, restoration of color and individual elements of decor does not justify a major overhaul, the Vremya Novostei newspaper quotes the coordinator of Arkhnadzor Rustam Rakhmatullin.
And if for construction in the middle of summer there came a time of quite predictable calm, then the season of architectural festivals is now, on the contrary, in full swing. So, "Vedomosti" publishes an article about the upcoming "Archstoyanie", which will take place on July 24-25 in its traditional place on the Ugra, but under the supervision of the new curator Oleg Kulik. And "New Siberia" writes about the last IV festival "Golden Capital", and in particular, the next exhibition "Architecture never", this time dedicated to the "modernization" of the Tatlin tower. In the meantime, Moscow hosted the 4th Cycle Night, which brought together several hundred cyclists who traveled to historical sites between Losiny Ostrov and Izmailovsky Park - an interview with the project manager Sergei Nikitin appeared on the website of the Interni magazine. And, finally, in light of the upcoming International Architecture Biennale in Venice, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation has appointed a new Commissioner for the Russian Pavilion. This post was quite expectedly taken by the country's leading architectural critic, Grigory Revzin, and, according to Vedomosti, he is guaranteed to keep it until 2014.
