And six foreigners, three of them "stars": David Chipperfield, MVRDV and OMA; three more are just relatively well-known bureaus: British Dixon Jones, French Lacaton & Vassal, and WorkAC from the USA.
The closed international competition for the concepts of the master plan for the development of New Holland, as we were told by the representative of the company "Millhouse" John Mann, is the first stage of reconstruction, after which New Holland will turn into a multifunctional cultural and commercial complex. According to the terms of the competition, architects must take into account the interests of city residents, tourists and merchants, think over transport infrastructure, open access to water for visitors and take care of the island's architectural monuments. The competition was organized by New Holland Development (which is part of the Millhouse group of companies owned by Roman Abramovich). The "Creative Operator" of the competition was the Iris Foundation, founded by Daria Zhukova. Which, in turn, signed a contract with the London "Architecture Foundation" (The Architecture Foundation, on its website, in particular, published a press release of the competition and contact information; but all in English).
The work on the architectural concepts began with the visit of all nine participants of the competition to St. Petersburg, arranged a month ago, on January 17, 2011, by the 'Iris' foundation. Now architects work in collaboration with art and technical consultants (who they could choose at their own discretion). They will present the results of their work in March; at the same time, the best will be selected and a short-list of architects admitted to the second stage of the competition will be announced. In early summer, it is planned to name the main winner, who, based on his project, will continue to work on the island's development strategy as the chief consultant of the Iris Foundation.
As a result of the competition, a public exhibition of all nine projects will be held. It is likely to include creative work by other authors as well. Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, in particular, confirmed their readiness. In parallel, the investor is developing a project for the conservation of architectural monuments located on the island together with the St. Petersburg KGIOP.
Recall that the current concept competition is the third attempt to reconstruct New Holland. In 2002, an American architect proposed his project (article in Project Classic magazine; images on the website of the Museum of Architecture). Then, in 2006, a custom-made international competition was held, which was won by Norman Foster (see selection of articles on the 2006 competition). Almost immediately, problems with approval began: the project, which involved the construction of an amphitheater for 3,000 seats under a glass dome in the center of the island, was rejected several times by Glavgosexpertiza, since underground construction at the heritage site came into conflict with the law on the protection of monuments. After leaving Shalva Chigirinsky's project, in February 2010, the St. Petersburg authorities officially abandoned Foster's project. Then, by order of the co-owner of the project, Ilya Kesaev, a new architectural and development concept for the reconstruction of the island was developed at Mosproekt-2. However, in the fall of 2010, a repeated tender was announced for an investment project in New Holland. In November, New Holland Development was announced the winner. The developer undertook to invest in the project at least 12 billion rubles over 7 years of construction.
N. K.
