As Interfax reported today, more than ten Moscow architects, including Alexander Asadov, Pavel Andreev, Nikita Biryukov, Sergei Tchoban and Mikhail Khazanov, sent an open letter to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin today. In the letter, they called on the mayor "to avoid a formal approach" in deciding the fate of the upper floors of the "House on Mosfilmovskaya", built by the "DON Stroy" company according to the project of Sergei Skuratov. Famous architects ask the mayor "to pay special attention to the current situation and not to allow the iconic object of the author's architecture and the image of Moscow as a modern civilized metropolis to suffer due to political or bureaucratic decisions."
Recall that last summer, the city authorities unexpectedly recognized the residential skyscraper on Mosfilmovskaya as an unauthorized building and decided that it should be partially dismantled. Officials argued that the developer, DON Stroy, had increased the height of the facility without agreeing on changes in the project with the city. At first, it was about dismantling 22 floors (that is, almost half of the building), then this figure was reduced to 7 floors. Then the entire professional community stood up to defend the already almost built house and its author, the famous Moscow architect Sergei Skuratov.
Unlike his predecessor, Sergei Sobyanin has not yet made any statements regarding the fate of the House on Mosfilmovskaya. However, Deputy Mayor for Urban Development Policy and Construction Marat Khusnullin told the press last week that he had a preliminary conclusion: "… demolition of the upper floors of a building is extremely dangerous, and technically it is very difficult to demolish the floors." In more detail the technical aspect of the problem in an interview with RIA Novosti was highlighted by the author of the project, Sergey Skuratov. According to the architect, in order to disassemble the upper floors, builders will first have to "cut off" a part of the building, the supporting frame of which was erected by continuous casting, and then "pour" it again, which will almost inevitably lead to the appearance of so-called cold joints that threaten strength building structures.
Commenting on the situation to our portal today, Sergei Skuratov said that he himself learned about the open letter to the mayor from the news. “At the moment I am actively working on other projects, but my heart still hurts for the“House on Mosfilmovskaya”, - the architect admits. “I understand that I, like all the other participants in this project, in this situation can only wait for the mayor's decision, but the wait drags on too long…”. In the press service of the company "DON Stroy" we were informed that at the moment all work at the facility has been stopped and "the necessary measures have been taken to maintain the structures in proper condition."
Alexander Asadov, one of the architects who signed the appeal to the mayor, reminded us that today's open letter is not the first speech of architects in defense of the House on Mosfilmovskaya: “In the summer of 2010, when the scandal was in full swing, I signed a similar letter, addressed to the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev. And putting my signature under the current appeal, I recommended that its initiators attach that letter as well. It seems to me very important that the mayor of Moscow sees how important the House on Mosfilmovskaya is for the city and how unacceptable it is to disfigure an already constructed building. This opinion is shared by the architect Pavel Andreev: “You can treat the object itself in different ways, but you cannot allow the settlement of legal disputes to be transferred to the sphere of architecture”.
Archi.ru will continue to follow the development of events around the "House on Mosfilmovskaya".
