Almost two months have passed since the Moscow government suspended work on the construction of a new stage of the Helikon-Opera theater on the territory of the Shakhovsky-Glebov-Streshnev estate, located at 19/16 Bolshaya Nikitskaya street. Let's remind that the public movement "Arhnadzor" has been opposing this construction for two years already; all this time, work continued as usual, until a new mayor of Moscow was appointed - his inauguration was accompanied by the cancellation and suspension of several scandalous projects at once. The project for the reconstruction of "Helikon-Opera" was also suspended.
The construction was frozen, and heritage defenders began to seek changes in the project. At the same time, of course, the contractor bears colossal losses, and the theater staff is in an extremely unpleasant state of limbo, because now they are not sure that the sore "housing problem" will be resolved in the near future. All this could not but provoke confrontation (the press already writes: “theatergoers against Moscow scholars.” On the one hand, the musical theater with considerable world fame (as soon as the construction was stopped, the artistic director of “Helikon” Dmitry Bertman was offered the leadership of the theater in Sweden), as well as and the architects of Mosproekt-4 under the leadership of the President of the Union of Architects Andrei Bokov. On the other hand, Arkhnadzor, which must be recognized as the first effective movement to protect monuments over the past 20 years: heritage defenders consider it necessary to restore the recently demolished during reconstruction The confrontation is tense, the press is filled with articles, yesterday's press conference was organized by the Union of Architects of Russia to voice the position of the "Helikon" side, and as a result, the majority in the hall were musicologists.
Andrey Bokov was the first to speak. First of all, he recalled the merits of the Mosproekt-4, headed by him, then presented the audience in detail the most famous foreign projects of reconstruction of cultural institutions. In particular, the Louvre pyramid and the new Tate Gallery building constantly flashed on the screen, Covent Garden and La Scala were also mentioned. “We have an opinion that a cultural institution can be located anywhere, and that if there is no opportunity to expand a historic building, it should be moved to a dormitory area,” Andrey Vladimirovich complained. - However, both world and domestic experience suggests that this practice is vicious! Remember the new building of the Moscow Art Theater or the House of Music, built as a branch of the Moscow Conservatory - on their basis new collectives have grown, but the problems of the old have not been resolved. It seems to me that it is necessary to protect not only buildings, but also that special space of creativity that specific people create in them. In other words, the architect is for the monument to serve the society, and not vice versa. This is not the first time Bokov has voiced this thesis, but it was at this press conference that he received warm approval from the audience.
Unfortunately, despite the fact that the main author of the architectural project was the host of the press conference, the video sequence shown to journalists for some reason turned out to be small. In addition to the already mentioned world theaters and the Louvre, only separate plans of the reconstructed estate appeared on the screen, while neither visualizations of the new stage, nor photographs of the current state of affairs were shown. When asked by journalists about the demolished buildings and new construction in the courtyard of the estate, Andrei Bokov invariably answered that he was acting within the framework of the law: "It's a pity that this is not visible on the plan, but believe me, everything is in order there."
Then the press conference simply turned from a monologue to a heated debate. When the coordinator of Arkhnadzor Rustam Rakhmatullin stood up to ask Andrey Bokov and Dmitry Bertman a few questions, most of the invited journalists began to loudly criticize the activities of the Arkhnadzor movement and its representative personally. Not having time to begin, the discussion lost all harmony. At the same time, it turned out that in the hall there are mainly music critics and musicologists - all very titled people who were most interested in two questions: "Why would Arhnadzor destroy the theater?" and "What kind of stone monsters are we protecting here?"
To clarify the subject of protection, an art critic Natalya Datieva, who was studying the history of the Shakhovsky-Glebov-Streshnev estate, was invited to the microphone. The results of her research differ quite significantly from the version of Arkhnadzor. In particular, the destroyed circumference, which city defenders date back to the 18th century, according to Natalia Datneva, was built at the beginning of the 19th, and 80 years later it was significantly reconstructed. Even the German bomb, which hit the estate during the Great Patriotic War and caused serious damage to its architecture, was not forgotten. "But does all this nullify the value of the monument ?!" - Rustam Rakhmatullin jumped up, shouting over the hooting of respected musicologists. “Was there a monument at all? - in turn, asked the vice-president of the SAR Maxim Perov. And he explained his position: - What remains of the monument is preserved by the project in the most careful way and delicately adapted to the activities of the cultural institution. Moscow is not Athens and will never be an "archaeological city".
Of course, in such conflicts, each side is right in some ways, but not in others. The position of the theater, tired of twenty years of tightness, is clear, one can understand the architect, whose project has passed all the necessary examinations, and is now frozen literally in the middle of a word. But the arguments of Arkhnadzor seem to be no less logical. Such disputes, of course, need to be resolved in court, and not at a press conference, where emotions very quickly begin to prevail over facts. The Moscow government will put an end to the history of the reconstruction of the Shakhovskys' estate, but for now, passions continue to heat up.
