The vast territory of the abandoned mill No. 4, located not far from the Moscow-City MIBC, is predictably classified by the new general plan as an area in need of reorganization. The site occupied by the plant is a trapezoid in the plan: from the north-west of it passes Shmitovskiy proezd, from the west, behind Mukomolny proezd, there is a five-story residential building of the 1960s, and on two other sides there is a railway. The investor proposed to consider the reconstruction of this territory in a complex with a nearby residential area, but the Public Council rejected this idea in 2008. At the same time, another 40 percent of the territory of the industrial zone is allocated for the development of the street and road network, and the rest of it is divided into three sections, which have a single underground space associated with nearby transport hubs: the lobby of the new metro station (on Shmitovsky pr.), Designed by the Okrug station. railway and the planned complex of the Euro station.
The team of authors led by the architect Sergei Tkachenko presented to the council three variants of the volumetric-spatial composition. The first one is conventionally called "post-beam composition" and is a prism of skyscrapers, on which horizontal "beams" are placed on top, in turn, decorated with sculptures. The deliberately simple geometric silhouette is intended to contrast with the complex silhouette of the City, and from the side of the Moskva River, its powerful volumes will make up a “new river facade”. An apart-hotel will be located in the upper part of the complex, and offices in the lower part.
The second option is, on the contrary, a complex sculptural composition of several high-rise volumes, which is a logical continuation of the City. Due to its higher height, it has a more compact building area: if in the first case the maximum mark is 155 meters, then in the other two it is about 180 meters. And finally, the third option is a kind of free interpretation of the first, in which geometric shapes are combined with decorative, egg-shaped ones, unambiguously reminiscent of the postmodern architecture of Sergei Tkachenko of the 1990s. In this variant, two volumes are allocated for a hotel, one for offices. In all three solutions, the ground floor is a public space connecting the complex with transport hubs. There are also objects of social infrastructure and ramps-arrivals to the underground parking.
The Council praised the team of authors for the detailed and competent presentation of all materials. The greatest concern of experts was caused not by the architectural, but by the social component of the project, which directly affects the nearby quarter. In particular, residential buildings here have a one-sided orientation of apartments, so they need to be resettled before the plant is demolished and large-scale construction begins in its place.
The historical and cultural part of the project was another topic for the experts' thoughts. It turned out that this section does not exist at all, since the investor demolishes all existing buildings of the plant completely. However, according to the project assistant, Alexander Tsivyan, the dominant volume of the elevator is a landmark industrial facility in the region. Built under the direction of the architect Nikolai Kolli, the structure, 60 meters high and 12.5 meters in diameter, still possesses colossal power and safety margin and can be reconstructed for modern functions. Tsivyan noted that, despite the instruction to preserve this object in the preliminary historical and cultural studies, the decision to demolish it somehow passed through a tolerable commission and ECOS. The team of authors also completed the original version with the preservation of the elevator, but the investor categorically refuses to follow this path, and, by the way, once again confirmed this at a meeting of the Architectural Council.
Finally, one more circle of questions arose from the experts about the projected apart-hotel. Alexander Tsivyan urged to call a spade a spade: an apart-hotel in Moscow means not a hotel, but elite housing, only without proper infrastructure. Council members agreed that over half a million square feet of luxury housing and offices near the already congested City hub is too much. After that, the referent urged the architects to think about an option with the preservation of the elevator and its reconstruction for a different function, for example, cultural, or at least the same residential one, but on a reduced scale.
Most of the council members supported Alexander Tsivyan that the redistribution of capacities and functions of the complex with a decrease in the load on the existing networks in this place would be more than appropriate. The experts urged the authors to once again try to convince the customer to use the historical potential of the place and explain to him that today, as Alexander Kudryavtsev noted, “is no longer an architectural fantasy, but architecture based on history, is an advanced direction in design”.
As for the actual architectural solution of the complex, the council members, by a majority vote, chose the first option as a necessary alternative to the City. Yuri Platonov and Alexander Kudryavtsev urged not to equate new objects with skyscrapers already erected and not to allow this "Americanized model" to creep apart. But experts recommended removing the sculptures: to place them at a height of 155 meters is, to put it mildly, pointless. On the whole, the project was approved, but the architects received a recommendation to supplement it with a historical and cultural section and a fourth option while preserving the existing elevator.
The second item on the agenda of the meeting was the reconstruction of the regional shopping center "Capitol" near the Belyaevo metro station. We are talking about the completion of the existing shopping and entertainment center on Miklukho-Maklaya Street with a 4-storey additional volume on the site of the current parking lot, as well as the addition of one floor to the old building for the placement of a cinema. As a result of the reconstruction, the area almost doubles, but the appearance will remain the same - the authors (workshop named after Shekhoyan) made the facades in the style of the old building. In contrast to the first, this project seemed to the experts not at all significant, and it was accepted without discussion.
