In less than a month of leadership of the city, Acting Mayor Vladimir Resin has earned a reputation, if not a defender of heritage, then an ardent ally of public organizations that are guarding historical Moscow. The meeting of Acting the mayor with members of "Arkhnadzor", which was also attended by Alexander Kuzmin, Valery Shevchuk and other officials. According to Kommersant, Vladimir Resin promised to include activists in the capital's commission for the preservation of historic buildings and to create a city council on heritage, which Arhnadzor proposed in a Memorandum published the day before. The result of the significant meeting was also the promise of the head of the Moscow Heritage Committee Valery Shevchuk to mothball the architectural monument of the Guryev Chamber.
Following the cancellation of construction on Borovitskaya Square, the dismantling of the attic at Pasternak's house in Oruzheiny Pereulok and other decisions in favor of the heritage, Vladimir Resin made two more no less high-profile decisions: last week, the construction of a new stage of the Helikon-Opera theater in the courtyard of the Shakhovskys' estate was halted, against which "Arhnadzor" fought for several years, as well as construction on Pushkin Square. Rustam Rakhmatullin, a longtime opponent of the project, immediately wrote about the estate in Izvestia. It is curious that to this decision of the authorities, the artistic director of the theater Dmitry Bertman threatened to leave him if he refused to implement the project.
Around the same time, on Pushkinskaya Square, a clash between members of the Public Coalition in Defense of Moscow and builders took place - the reason was the appearance of concrete fences, which marked the beginning of geodetic and archaeological work, says Vremya Novostey. In response to the incident, Vladimir Resin withdrew the building permit, and the investor promised to remove the fences and curtail work in Novopushkinsky Park within a week, Gazeta writes. The chief engineer of the Research and Development Institute of the General Planning Mikhail Krestmein, however, has already told reporters that the city will still develop underground space and will not abandon the idea of building a tunnel under the boulevard.
Continuing the theme, we also note the unexpected initiative of the Moscow Heritage Committee to add the House of Synodal Composers to the register of cultural heritage sites. Rossiyskaya Gazeta tells about this in more detail. Let us remind you that according to the project for the reconstruction of the Moscow Conservatory quarter, developed by Mosproekt-4, this apartment building loses its original layout and interiors and is being adapted for the music library. At the same time, Vladimir Resin emphasized that, in general, the project for the reconstruction of the conservatory should be completed. As Gazeta clarifies, it includes the restoration of the Bolshoi, Maly and Rachmaninov halls, the renovation of educational buildings, the construction of a new opera house on the side of Sredne-Kislovsky lane.
However, even against the background of such high-profile victories of the Moscow defenders of the heritage, alas, there were some losses. In particular, IA Regnum reported that, according to eyewitnesses, destructive work on the reconstruction of the Children's World at Lubyanka entered an active stage.
The era of "interregnum" that began with the resignation of Yuri Luzhkov gave critics and experts a reason to identify the most important, in their opinion, priorities of the future mayor's policy. Some organizations, for example, the Union of Architects of Russia or Arkhnadzor, even came up with special memoranda. The famous architectural critic Grigory Revzin also tried to draw up his own "mandate" to the new mayor Sergei Sobyanin. In this, however, the critic, in his own words, was not very successful, since all of Moscow's big problems are so politicized, "that it is not entirely clear whether they are correctly diagnosed." Revzin limited himself only to a proposal to create an institute for Moscow's strategic problems. One of these problems, of course, was the rapid disappearance of historical buildings, which allowed the chief architect of the TsIGI Boris Pasternak to sum up - "to a certain extent, we already live in a different city that we call Moscow." In an interview with Chastnoy Korrespondent, the expert told how over ten years Moscow has lost its most important prospects and acquired new and completely alien in spirit.
Another acute issue - the unification of Moscow and the region - after the departure of Yuri Luzhkov, again began to be actively discussed in the press. So, Vyacheslav Glazychev sees in such a union the possibility of forming a single urban planning policy (for example, in relation to transport), and not creating an administrative union, from which nothing good can come of, the expert told the Slon.ru portal. Vyacheslav Glazychev gave another interview to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, in which, in particular, he said that “it is best to develop development plans, taking into account the adjacent 30-40-kilometer territory from the Moscow Ring Road, that is where daily activities are spread”.
Curious urban planning news came from Perm, where a new master plan is being implemented. As a reminder, this document is being developed based on the master plan of the Dutch company KCAP. Recently it turned out that the initiators of the general plan from among the officials of the Perm mayor's office clearly overdid it: as Kommersant reported, they became involved in a criminal case initiated by the FSB on disclosing information containing state secrets to foreigners. We are talking, in particular, about the cartographic data that officials "shared" with the Dutch designers.
But the urban planning news of St. Petersburg during this period was mainly devoted to the project "Okhta Center". Last week, a number of media outlets, including Vremya novostei, reported on the positive conclusion that Glavgosexpertiza gave to the project of a 403-meter skyscraper. And on October 9, two thousand Petersburgers went to a rally in defense of the historic city, not intending to surrender to the decision of the authorities, Radio Svoboda reports. The conclusion of Glavgosexpertiza removes all formal obstacles to the implementation of the scandalous project. However, it seems that the supreme power has not yet fully decided how it relates to the skyscraper. So, recently, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that a decision on the construction of a skyscraper could not be made until "the completion of all judicial procedures and consultations with UNESCO," says Kommersant. However, at the same time, American architect Anton Glikin, one of the designers at RMJM, told the press that the bureau "regularly receives 'memoranda of support' from Mr Putin."
Continuing the St. Petersburg theme, we note the re-launched competition for the right to reconstruct New Holland. According to Kommersant, there was only one contender for the famous island - Roman Abramovich. The rest, according to the publication, are unlikely to be able to fulfill the main condition of the competition - to make a deposit of one billion rubles.
Another notable architectural news in October, of course, was the international festival "Zodchestvo". However, oddly enough, the press almost completely ignored him. Apart from an article in the Agency for Architectural News, only the Architectural Bulletin and Moscow Perspective wrote about him. The exhibition "The Golden Age of Architectural Graphics" at the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin, who presented fifty drawings by European masters of the 18th - 19th centuries from the collection of Sergei Tchoban. Gazeta.ru, Vedomosti and Kommersant wrote about the exhibition, in particular.
