Last week, Arkhnadzor suspended the dismantling of the Volkonsky estate (built in the 1880s), located at 17 Tverskoy Boulevard. ". Arkhnadzor is convinced that this demolition is a consequence of the implementation of the July order No. 1457-rp "On the demolition of vacated houses and buildings in the city of Moscow in 2010". However, Moscow officials themselves deny this information: in early September, they announced that they had changed their mind about demolishing certain emergency monuments, having decided to turn them into office centers or hotels. For this, according to Gazeta and RIA Novosti, the monuments will be transferred to the specially created structure Mosstroyvozrozhdenie and the Bank of Moscow.
On September 2, a regular meeting of the "intolerable" commission of Vladimir Resin took place, and, as the site of "Arkhnadzor" reports, its results "inspire cautious optimism." Konstantin Mikhailov, who was admitted to the "holy of holies" for the first time, writes that nine out of twelve considered historical addresses managed to avoid demolition. But these decisions may not be final, the expert believes, since the objects are still in the ownership of the city.
The echoes of the capital's "battles" for monuments were the events in Yekaterinburg, where in the center of the city a building of the 19th century - a complex of a former hydropathic establishment - was demolished. Next in line is a luxurious architectural monument of the Stalinist era - an ambulance hospital in Zelenaya Roshcha, which, due to its dilapidation, the Russian Defense Ministry asked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to exclude from the list of protected objects. Arch66 portal tells more about the events in Yekaterinburg.
But the Oryol authorities have shown themselves to be more liberal in matters of heritage and are conducting a survey of citizens about the future of the historical house of the merchant Seliverstov on Gostinaya Street. True, the choice is not too great: to demolish the building, to reconstruct it with the preservation of its historical appearance, or to completely change it, writes Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
In Moscow, meanwhile, discussions about protection legislation continue. In particular, in early September, the authorities again started talking about the need to toughen the responsibility of owners of monuments and the fate of historical settlements. According to RIA Novosti, the Moscow Heritage Committee has prepared amendments to the federal law on monuments: the committee proposed, on the one hand, to tighten control over the fulfillment of security obligations, and on the other, to allow the overhaul of historical buildings with the arrangement of underground space. True, the last point concerns mainly the buildings of the Soviet era.
The intention of the two ministries - culture and regional development - to reduce the list of historical cities in Russia also looks alarming. However, as Izvestia reports, even those cities that retain their historical status will not be protected too seriously, since the concept of a “historical settlement” is not spelled out in the law and cities are protected only as a collection of separate buildings.
The town planning news of the beginning of September was rather scarce. Thus, Gazeta.ru announced the closure of both stations of the Moscow metro - Belorusskaya Koltsevaya and Radial, which are planned to return to their historical appearance. There is, however, another opinion: the stations were closed due to the construction of a multi-level transport and pedestrian hub in the area of Belorusskaya Square. And "Vremya novostei" and "Gazeta" commented on the speech of Patriarch Kirill, who proposed to build about 600 new churches for Muscovites. It is unlikely that it will be possible to allocate so many plots of land within the city limits for new places of worship, so today Moscow is seriously discussing the possibility of organizing parishes on the first floors of residential buildings.
New facilities, according to the already established tradition, were opened in Moscow for the City Day. The most significant of them should be recognized the Palace of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in Kolomenskoye and the museum of the sculptor Vera Mukhina, housed in the pedestal of the famous statue "Worker and Collective Farm Woman". Rossiyskaya Gazeta and Nezavisimaya Gazeta note that in Kolomenskoye, a very loose copy of the historical palace was produced, and Radio Svoboda tells about the new museum.
In St. Petersburg, the main news at the beginning of September was the collapse of an 8-storey residential building on Ligovsky Prospekt, the reasons for which, according to Izvestia, are still being sorted out. In addition, last week the city authorities named the participants of the international competition for the development of the concept of a new zoo in Yuntolovo: in addition to the rather large companies Beckmann-N'Thepe (France) and Amusement Logic (Spain), the local St. Petersburg bureau somehow made its way to the contestants " Studio-17 ", the portal ZAKS.ru reported.
The main foreign architectural event during this period was the International Architecture Biennale held in Venice. Various publications continue to talk about the Russian pavilion, which this year aroused genuine interest of both domestic and European critics. In particular, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an interview with one of its curators Sergei Tchoban, architect Yuri Avvakumov told Vremya novostey about the pavilion, and Mikhail Shvydkoi personally reviewed our exposition in Venice for Rossiyskaya Gazeta. And according to the former Minister of Culture, it was the Russian pavilion that became "one of the main events of the 2010 World Architecture Championship" at the Biennale.
