Until the beginning of this week, when it became known that the scandalous amendments to the inheritance law would still not be adopted, the blogging community was seething with indignation and demands to cancel the provocative decision. Among the activists, a repost of the statement of the coordinators of Arkhnadzor Rustam Rakhmatullin and Natalia Samover about the threat of the term “reconstruction” being introduced into the law quickly spread: “Trying to solve the problem of registering heritage objects as real estate objects through the legalization of reconstruction is like putting out a fire with kerosene” noted Rakhmatullin to the St. Petersburg officials who initiated the amendments. A couple of days later, everyone was already actively signing the letter to the President of the Russian Federation in protest against the distortion of the law:
The same blog of "Arkhnadzor" has been tracking a conflict with the management of the theater and the design organization (GUP "Mosproekt-4") for a month since the suspension of the construction of the new stage of the "Helikon-Opera". Recently, two important appeals in defense of the estate appeared in it: the President of the International Society for the Rescue of Russian Monuments and Landscapes, Professor Arkady Nebolsin, addressed an open letter to the President of the Russian Federation, regretting the monument for its unique front yard, "recreating the image of the old boyar court of medieval Moscow." And the deputy director of the Moscow Kremlin museums, Andrei Batalov, pointed out to the authors of the reconstruction that “the user must adapt to the monument, and not the monument to fit himself.”
The successes of Arkhnadzor in recent months have become a signal for the creation of similar organizations in the regions. In particular, city defenders of Samara have rallied into a public movement. In the samara_arch blog, they announced the creation of the SamArkh movement, with the aim of preserving "historical monuments, landscapes and views of the city of Samara and the Samara province." "SamArkh" actually clones the structure and methods of "Arkhnadzor": identifying, photographing and studying monuments, assisting in their putting on state protection, public monitoring and publicizing the facts of violation of the law, and others.
New appointments in the Moscow government were another highly discussed topic in blogs. In particular, a recent ally, if not to say the guardian of the Arkhnadzorovites, Vladimir Resin, seems to be living out his life in high political circles. The appointment of Deputy Mayor Marat Khusnullin as the head of the Moscow construction department deprived the permanent head of the construction complex of all financial flows, leaving him only with administrative control. In the ru_archiblog community, there was a discussion between Alexander Lozhkin (alexander_loz) and blogger padunskiy about what to expect from the new leader. padunskiy recalls that when Khusnullin was minister of construction and housing and communal services of Tatarstan, a monstrous Palace of Farmers was built in Kazan, and the author of the national library project, Eric Van Egeraat, was kicked out with a scandal. Lozhkin retorts that under Khusnullin, the MSZHK of Tatarstan was a co-founder of the C: SA urban planning seminars with the participation of the chief architect of Barcelona Jose Acebillo - and this, according to Lozhkin, is a sign that “at least the existence of problems is recognized and there is an understanding that they cannot be solved standard tools . Moreover, domestic specialists, who really understand the current trends in urban planning, at most 5 percent - the rest, according to Lozhkin, “work in the style of“what do you want?” and continue to exist in the paradigm of a planned socialist economy, unable to even identify, formulate the city's problems …”.
Another town planning news came from Perm. The mayor's office of this city decided to move to a more spacious building, and transfer its old mansion to the Perm Art Gallery (which suggests participation in the venture of the most active circles of the Perm arttusovka). At the city council on October 7, officials also announced the place of the move - a business park at the corner of Petropavlovskaya and Popova streets, on the site of a confectionery factory. By rejecting the idea of constructing a new building for themselves, the authorities made a great stupidity, says the Perm blogger architect Alexander Rogozhnikov (ar_chitect): “There is a Perm tendency to stuff obnoxious museums into small pre-revolutionary mansions of landowners. Here we go our own way, different from the world. New modern buildings are being built there, but this is, of course, because their officials trust specialists too much. I still see the mayor's office in this bunch of boutiques, between women's panties and the gym - "what do you want?"
By the way, the current battles for historical monuments do not seem so bad in comparison with the violent imagination of Soviet writers, who in a revolutionary technocratic rush swept away entire historical districts and turned cities into a mechanized paradise. About this - an interesting post in the blog "Interpreter" with quotes from the works of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as projects by Ginzburg, Melnikov, Fridman and Ladovsky about futuristic Moscow. By the middle of the 20th century, “almost complete demolition of the historic center was expected; avenues 120 meters wide; workers living directly in the shops; the city stretched towards Leningrad for 120 km; city-university in Khamovniki; Aeroexpress trains Moscow - London - New York and Moscow - San Francisco”.
In conclusion of the review, we would like to note one extraordinary exhibition, which is also futuristic in its own way: until the end of January in the Lyon museum Arshipel, within the framework of the Unknown Siberia festival, the architectural theorist Sergei Sitar shows the “visionary monuments” of Nikolai Lyovochkin. Since 2008, these strange architectural objects - buildings made from improvised means - have been kept in the Moscow Museum of Architecture. Sitar became interested in the Lyovochkin phenomenon and considers the works of a self-taught artist who has worked as a subway driver all his life to be something much more than kitsch: “It is interesting that the author himself perceived them not as models, but as ready-made architectural structures and noted their time in his diary. "Put into operation" with an accuracy of days, hours and even minutes "- Sitar writes about his discovery. You can learn more about the work of Nikolai Lyovochkin in the blog "Marginal architecture".
