The discussion was moderated by Vasily Bychkov, Director of Expo-Park, and Elena Gonzalez, an architectural critic. The topic of the discussion, proposed by the organizers of the "Arch of Moscow", sounded like this: "Urban planning policy of Moscow: new rules of the game", and its obvious leitmotif was the change of the city leadership.
Previous “breakfasts” were also devoted to pressing and painful issues in the life of the community, for example, the relationship between an architect and a developer (in 2009) or the compaction of urban space (in 2010). But this time, there was a certain restrained depression in the discussion. Vasily Bychkov began the conversation with a message that attempts to invite representatives of the Moscow authorities to the "Architect's Breakfast", namely the deputy mayor for urban planning policy Marat Khusnullin, the chief architect of the city Alexander Kuzmin and the head of the Moscow Heritage Committee Alexander Kibovsky, failed. But the discussion was attended by the architect Sergei Tkachenko, who recently left the post of head of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan of the city.
Then Vasily Bychkov reminded the audience about the latest decisions of the new Moscow government: it is planned to revise the general plan; issued a Decree revising all permits issued for the demolition of buildings in the city center. In June 2011, a tender will be held to develop a new strategy for the development of the capital. "Moskomnadzor" was transformed into the Department of Cultural Heritage, "Mosrestavratsia" was created.
On the one hand, all this testifies to the concern of the Moscow government with the issues of preserving the historical appearance of Moscow. On the other hand, the public and specialists have a lot of questions: how will all this affect the current situation in the capital? What will happen to the already adopted laws in the field of cultural heritage? What will happen to investments in projects "frozen" at the moment, due to the fact that the demolition of buildings has been suspended. Will there be any compensation for the losses of companies that legally received a building permit in the historic center, but cannot start work?
So, are there any new rules and what are they?
Sergey Kryuchkov, ABD architects:
“The very formulation of the question suggests that there are no rules. Since you are asking in this form, it means that we are discussing rumors here, which is symptomatic."
Alexander Lozhkin, Project Siberia:
“I talked in Tyumen (Sergei Sobyanin was the governor of Tyumen 2001-2005, ed.) With local architects - everything that was done there was done in manual control. Nobody turned to professionals and didn’t rely on professional opinion”.
Elena Gonzalez, Project Russia:
“It is good that the monuments will not be demolished, but the lawlessness and voluntarism, through which even good deeds are done, are very bad. Investment contracts, previously agreed upon in accordance with all the rules, are now frozen and are being revised; money was spent on approval, customers suffer losses, architects find themselves out of work, no one even promises to compensate for the losses. … The law is not the law, and if the Arkhnadzor stands for observance of the law, then it cannot start with irresponsible decisions."
Sergey Skuratov, Sergey Skuratov architects:
“We were dumbfounded by the cancellation of building permits, as before with the demolition of monuments. Personally, I am now pursued by one thought - where to get the strength to get used to the new order. We have adapted to work with the old ones - now we have to adapt to working with the new ones. In this city there are no and cannot be any rules, there is no law and no one communicates with professionals. So everything, as it was decided, will be decided by personal agreement with those who influence the process, that is, with the authorities."
Maxim Gasiev, Regional Director for Retail Real Estate, Colliers International:
“Now it is impossible for an investor to come to an agreement with the authorities through an architect, as it was before. But this is not for long. Nothing, everything will be straightened out."
Anastasia Podakina, Sistema GALS, Marketing Director; discussion co-organizer:
“Now the moment has come when we, architects and developers, together can change something. You just need to come to a reasonable compromise, act together and, most importantly, rationally. We really miss such a reasonable compromise for Children's World. This is a very complex object with a difficult history. And while we argue and wait, it can simply collapse without waiting for the planned reconstruction."
Andrey Chernikhov, Andrey Chernikhov's architectural and design bureau:
“It's not worth discussing power - are we architects or underground revolutionaries? If we agree to live according to the concepts - then this is Moscow, if not - then we must go to Austria. Or New York. In New York, for example, over the years, he has developed rules that take into account the opinion of the public, townspeople, and professionals - take, for example, the reconstruction of the Lincoln Center … decision making system. Discussing power is useless. What we can do? And is there anything at all that depends on you and me?"
These words of Andrey Chernikhov became the leitmotif of the discussion. Should professionals try to influence the decisions of the authorities, and if so, who exactly - the architects or journalists themselves.
Sergey Skuratov:
“I totally disagree that we cannot influence anything. We must try to influence. For example, I went to rallies on the 31st - there were not enough people there, I'll tell you."
Elena Gonzalez:
“It's funny to hear that the authorities need to be taught. They will teach us themselves."
Yuri Avvakumov, architect, curator:
“Everyone has adapted to cooperate with the authorities. It is necessary to make efforts - here, the Arkhnadzor accepted, and something worked out. And the voice of reason must be listened to not once a year at Arch Moscow, but constantly”.
Alexander Lozhkin:
“Architects are a tool. In fact, the processes taking place in the city are influenced by two main forces: business and the community of citizens. There are only two forces in the city; their interests are often opposed. It all depends on who the architect works for. The government, on the other hand, should act as an impartial judge in this process, but it often judges, that is, it stands not on the side of society, but on the side of the interests of big business. She must stop doing this.
Why was Arhnadzor called? - Because there was a political goal. If there were no goal, then Arkhnadzor would remain a marginal movement."
Natalia Zolotova, art critic:
“I observe here a high concentration of both mind and utopian beauty. Waiting for Sobyanin to come here is ridiculous. However, the authorities can and should be approached. The Russian authorities have a much better hearing than the authorities in other countries, where the authorities are more strongly protected by law. We have good hearing in our power, we just need to get through to her. And this should be done by journalists - why, for example, the Financial Times can afford to print an interview with Rem Koolhaas on a whole page, while our federal publications never do such interviews? Why doesn't Grigory Revzin do such interviews?"
Elena Gonzalez:
“Grigory Revzin deals with these problems a lot. He is a member of the Skolkovo town planning council, convincing them to involve Russian architects in the design. But architects don't even try to participate in the process. When there was a discussion at Strelka, there were only one or two architects. Where is everyone else?
We don't have the opinion of architects. A union that could theoretically express it is a dead organization. It is necessary to develop a program, and “we were not called” is not a position, an opinion, if any, should be heard from the very beginning. And if it is not there, then it is not."
Anton Nadtochy, "Atrium":
“Architects who are engaged in the construction of buildings in the city cannot influence city politics. The press, public organizations can influence. Everyone must do their job. The authorities should strive to improve the situation in the city by attracting well-known specialists. Architects must build beautiful homes. The press should follow the process and influence if something goes wrong."
Quite quickly, as it always happens at such meetings, it became noticeable that the positions (and interests) of different parts of the professional community: architects, developers, journalists, are somewhat different, but somewhat opposite.
Maxim Gasiev:
“I would not blame the authorities for everything. The professional community is to blame. Too many ugly buildings have been built.”
Grigory Poltorak, President of the Russian Guild of Realtors:
“In France, you can buy a castle for 30 thousand euros. But how much money will have to be invested in its restoration? In our country, they strive to sell the ruin as expensive as possible, and then oblige to restore it. It is possible to forbid to build more than two floors in the center, but then the land here should be cheap, so that it would be profitable to build a low house on it. Only then will the situation begin to change for the better."
Alexey Belousov, Commercial Director of Capital Group:
“In my opinion, the height of the building, two floors or more - it should be written down somewhere. This should not be decided by the architect. … If we take the population of Moscow, it is somewhere around 12-12.5 million people, and divide by the total number of square meters, we get 18 meters per person. And the quality of this housing stock does not meet the standards."
Vladimir Kuzmin, architect, POLEDESIGN:
“If we talk about the architectural solutions of the new Moscow government, then this is the design of the stalls three years ago, which was taken out from under the cloth, given to someone without hands to correct and is now being implemented. And the journalists do not trumpet, they are not outraged, they do not say anything about it (Archi.ru wrote about these projects as soon as they were made public - ed.).
The micro-scale is very important for the city, otherwise everything around it will be yellow-green. But if I come to you, Capital Group, with a proposal to make an improvement - you don't need that, you have already decided everything!"
Then it turned out that, as is usually the case among smart and talented people, there is no unity not only between different parts of the professional community, but also among architects.
Yuliy Borisov, UNK project:
“Most of the architects who are present here work in the field of private and corporate orders. They do better, faster, cheaper than their Western counterparts. But when we try to "go out into the city," we are beaten on the hands, making it clear that this is a closed market. I am sure that if we could participate in the process, the image of the city would be better. So it turns out that it is easier to self-actualize where there are no such restrictions - outside the city. And we could come to the city and, for example, build small objects”.
Evgeny Ass, professor of Moscow Architectural Institute:
“I am scared when architects talk about self-realization. All the outrages in Moscow have been committed by professionals. Our architects remind me of surgeons who, after graduating from the institute, run out into the street with scalpels and look for someone to operate on."
Sergey Skuratov:
“I would like to correct Evgeny Viktorovich. You have to say either "we" or, like Boris Nikolayevich, put down your ticket and quit the party. The most dangerous people in general are those who do something: they make mistakes. It's always easier to distance yourself and condemn people who do something. But what really scares me now is the new generation of young architects who have come to power …”.
Evgeny Ass:
“I am skeptical about both the shop and myself, and I have the right to do so. You need to be critical of yourself. Not to say that, they say, we are architects and that is the only reason why we are good."
Further, when it came to the reconstruction of Gorky Park, Evgeny Ass, who participates in its preparation as an expert, shared his opinion on the current situation:
“Today the main consultant for this project is the Strelka Institute, whose specialists have prepared a historical background. The program of the architectural competition is currently being prepared. The competition will be attended by 14 teams, among which only one is Russian. Three projects will have to enter the second round. I proposed a more open competition, but all such proposals are dismissed. Many specialists, architects, restorers of architecture, do not even know about its implementation. There is a real danger that the public will hear about the results of this competition late, when nothing can be changed."
As a summary, the speech of the architect Konstantin Khodnev from the DNK architectural group was sounded: “Let's work with the help of competitions!”. Most of those present agreed with his opinion - projects in Moscow, especially important, city-forming, should be distributed only through a system of competitions.
So, it is obvious that there is no dialogue with the (city) government, which means that the government is something like a higher power. As you know, the higher powers can be treated in different ways.
We can assume that our power is like the fate of the ancient Greeks: omniscient, insidious and can cause cataclysms. Moira tied a knot - and revised investment contracts. Fate, however, can be propitiated by making sacrifices to the gods. The gods among the Greeks acted as mediators, although they were also quite insidious, they never firmly promised anything, but if they were not angered and sacrifices were made correctly, then everything or almost everything with mortals usually went well. Such communication with the higher powers and we were well debugged.
Worse, when the pantheon changes or, for example, there is a transition to Christianity - the ancient people at first could not understand how to understand these books, to whom to make sacrifices and how in this way, but in a hundred years (or even less) they figured out, learned, and everything worked out no worse than before. The new faith, as you know, opened up new ways of communicating with the deity - for example, the mystics believed that if you train for a long time and diligently, you can talk to him directly in ecstasy mode. But this is more to be heard than to be heard. You can also appeal to higher powers, this is usually called a prayer, sometimes people think that their prayers have been answered, but you can never be fully sure that this is really so, and not just that they were accidentally lucky.
There is one more way, the most archaic of all, this is shamanic rituals. The shaman, as you know, believes that he not only asks for higher powers, but can force them, for example, to send rain or a herd of deer in the right direction. People believed in this for a very long time, when Homer and the cunning Olympian gods did not yet exist.
In fact, these three approaches describe all known types of communication with higher powers: they can be bribed, they can be prayed for, and you can try to force them. With the first two, it is clear, but for this latter it is necessary either that the higher forces cease to be higher, that is, they condescend and become as mortal as the others (this happens in democratic forms of government). Or you need to find a suitable shaman, and help him communicate with higher powers using his magic.
But there is a problem: everyone is so used to bribing and crying out for mercy one by one that they can not either nominate a candidate or unite. So - and this is quite obvious from the conversation that took place, the professional community first of all needs to come to an agreement within itself, come to a "reasonable compromise", which was discussed by the co-organizer of the discussion, the representative of Hals Anastasia Podakina, and to decide on a position, which the presenter called for Elena Gonzalez. It is necessary to agree and then either reconsider the picture of the universe (which is more difficult), or look for a shaman (which is easier). But they will never agree.
