In June, the magazine "Kommersant Dengi" published a sharp article by Grigory Revzin entitled "Moscow has already been built", dedicated to the urban planning policy of Sergei Sobyanin. Why did the mayor decide to ban building in the center? And why is “any new building perceived as evil” today? Revzin considers this to be “a payment for Luzhkov's 20 years,” during which a business has emerged on the Moscow construction market that is not profitable to restore the old and then sell it. On such unhealthy soil, urban protection movements flourished, like Arhnadzor with slogans “to preserve all that is left” - criticism seems to be a rather political measure, but urban planning is wrong: “Paris, Rome, Florence, Munich, Lausanne, London, Vienna and etc. - cities built. And Moscow is not."
Andrey Barkhin's blog agreed with this conclusion. Sergeykostikov comments: “After returning from these cities, well, from those where I was, I had a similar feeling. Walking through them, I thought like an architect: what would I do here, in this particular place, to make it better. And I realized that I was not capable of anything at all. But in Moscow, even if there are such places, then two or three steps away from them something needs to be done. Many architects of the older generation believe that Moscow is an “unassembled” city, and in order for it to become better, it only needs to be “assembled” with ensembles of squares. But, I understand that the facades are just decoration, the backdrop of the stage. We do not have a more important and essential, around which the city is being built”. According to shurikbarne, the problem lies in the alienation of the residents themselves: “It's not the ensembles who said that the city should freeze - it's boring! The locals hate him, that's the whole difference. A whole subculture of hatred of Muscovites towards Moscow. In my opinion, twenty percent are not Moscow's own shortcomings, but attributed to it, a mythology to which people are practically forced to subordinate their lives."
City rights activist Sergei Ageev criticized the Revzin article on the Kommersant website itself: “Moscow has not yet been built, we can agree with that. All the rest is jerking. Just over 3% of all buildings in the city are monuments, and few would agree that it is because of them that Moscow does not have Roman completeness. Yes, there are torn pieces in the center. But they need to be carefully darned, not demolished by neighborhoods,”the activist said. - "The new administration has not yet introduced any draconian rules, but simply decided to check how the existing ones are being observed." Ageev, unlike Revzin, does not consider his love for the old barracks unnatural: “Nobody says that 'our everything' is the barrack where Erofeev drank. But, probably, many will agree that the folk museum of the dacha Tsaritsyno and Erofeev is better than a parking lot for harvesting equipment."
In the context of the above discussion, we note another interesting post on the blog of Andrey Zhvirblis. The author decided to check whether the demolition of the "dilapidated" fund of historical buildings is really necessary in order to develop modern infrastructure. During a short walk in the center of Moscow, it turned out that they prefer to demolish what could stand, while vacant lots and abandoned construction sites are still of no interest to anyone. For example, behind the new building of the Tsvetnoy shopping center, which was built on the site of the Central Market, there is still a littered wasteland. The city is being built up clearly not for urban planning reasons, so is it worth continuing, the author of the blog asks.
Meanwhile, the problems of the modern development of the historic city have become the subject of heated discussion among St. Petersburg bloggers. The reason was the rating of new buildings, the authors of which, according to the holicin blogger, “proved to be true artists and, unlike countless mediocrities and megalomania sufferers (like M. Reinberg or Y. Zemtsov), did not oppose themselves to the historic city, but managed to tactfully incorporate their buildings into the unique environment of Old Petersburg”. This rating includes mainly residential buildings stylized as Northern Art Nouveau and Neoclassicism. Numbers 6, 7 and 8, which aroused the least public sympathy, were two residential buildings on Znamenskaya Street, imitating Art Nouveau and a neoclassical hotel on Ligovsky, 61. The list also includes the well-known hotel on Ostrovsky Square by Evgeny Gerasimov.
Katkout writes: “Number 6 is a rare filth. As well as 7 and 8. About 6: I do not like these bas-reliefs, I saw how this house was built, there everything is crooked-obliquely under them, but they were stuck on and everything was covered. " Pomortzeff agrees: “There was no smell of 'architectural art' and 'real artists' here. The authors of the buildings have demonstrated only their ability to imitate (sometimes skillfully, sometimes not so) the styles of bygone eras. To build such houses at the beginning of the 21st century, especially in a city like St. Petersburg, is simply indecent … Although, perhaps, it is better than other buildings in recent years. " An obvious traditionalist, Holicin does not give up his positions and his only drawback, for example, in No. 7 sees “a hypertrophied lower part, made in the form of a gallery with a height of 2 floors, which strongly resembles Corbusian perversions with“houses on legs”. As for the latter, m_mbembe is sure that this is a forced, "in accordance with modern requirements, under every modern decent house there should be an underground garage." He criticized the stylization of av_otus to smithereens: the stuck decor, in his opinion, does not correlate in any way with the front axes, the quotes are poorly "ripped off" from historic apartment buildings, "the high level of detail is not conditioned by anything, this is some kind of application superimposed on a standard postmodern blank" … Shurikbarne also spoke out against the pseudo-styles: “I just do not believe that our people will be able to live in large historical cities as Europeans in theirs, and the maximum that can be done without slipping into hypocrisy is to preserve the originals and not add new meanings … Then, someday - maybe. The Egyptians are not building new pyramids now. " But il_ducess has a different opinion: “If they are building this way in St. Petersburg now, then you, people from St. Petersburg, are very lucky. In Moscow, what is being built now cannot be called architecture at all”. Holicin himself adds that one of the main selection criteria for his review was that all, with the exception of No. 7, were built without demolishing the historic buildings. Like, thanks to them at least for this.
In terms of urban planning disputes, Perm does not lag behind the capitals: discussions are still ongoing between supporters and opponents of the principles of the new masterplan, which the governor lobbies. Blogger Denis Galitsky recently criticized KCAP's city development strategy. Galitsky is outraged that the governor is “pushing through” the construction of the “ideal quarters” of low-rise housing laid down in the masterplan, which are absolutely not suitable for local conditions: “The very idea of squeezing the entire spectrum of housing preferences of Perm residents into one type of urban housing is absurd. If the emergence of "Khrushchevs" was justified economically and socially - after the war, then such standardization, and in the central regions of Perm, is already quite a clinical sign. " “Such“ideal quarters”, - continues Galitsky, - are quite typical buildings in the south of Europe”. They are characterized by all the disadvantages of the St. Petersburg "courtyards-wells", the entrances are made not to the courtyard, but directly to the sidewalk of the street, and its internal space is divided among all the owners of apartments on the 1st floor.
Architect Alexander Lozhkin stands up for the master plan: “Denis, why are you writing nonsense? Take a look at the master plan and you will see that it is about increasing the diversity of housing types, and restoring the typological imbalance in the city, where at least two types of residential buildings have disappeared from construction practice in the last two decades: M and L. If you look that post-crisis developers offer for sale, Khrushchev will seem like a chic home to you. The 6-storey building has a height of about 20 meters, so the yard of 30x30 meters will be insolated in any case. " And sinkey consoles Galitsky: “Denis, don’t worry, not a single more or less sane developer, if he is not a“supplier of loans from the bank for a roll-back with a hatcher,”will not undertake such a project and will think a hundred times about the prospect of selling the so-called. chirkunovok … All the shoals in the master plan will turn into unbuilt holes. No more".
The architect Alexander Rogozhnikov also responded to the post of Galitsky. The blogger is outraged by the persistent rejection of the civilized principles of residential development among the Permians as an alternative to residential areas: “As a result, we have the same Soviet approach to development, which continues to agonize in suburban settlements, burdened by today's economic conditions: infrastructures, commuting…. So - a sleeping area on the outskirts of the city - a depressing environment. There is nothing to do, there is crime, there is a garbage dump."
Along with urban planning, the architectural community is still discussing politics - recall that this topic captured the professional workshop a couple of weeks ago after the news of the entry of the Union of Architects of Russia into the Popular Front party without the consent of its members. Alexander Lozhkin left an interesting comment on his blog. The reason was the official statement of the President of the SA Andrei Bokov, in which he explained this decision by the need to influence the laws in force. Lozhkin disagrees: “Are you 100% sure that this whole set of acts is destructive for the profession? Was it the subject of discussions, round tables, conferences? Not discussions at the Bureau of the Presidium, or conferences with an extremely strange and limited in world outlook and age composition of participants, but a really broad discussion - on the Internet, in the professional press? " Dmitrij_sergeev agrees with Lozhkin: "I got the impression that Bokov's letter is a feverish attempt to come up with an explanation for the puncture." Continues padunskiy: “I doubt that having entered, the Union will be able to reach out. This organization was not created for that. And Bokov cannot fail to understand this. " Lozhkin himself is sure: "the interaction of the SA and the authorities can only be in the form of full approval by the first of all the activities of the second." The idea of somehow influencing the laws seems to the architect far-fetched: “The authorities do not need urban planning regulation at all, they already know very well what, where and how much to build; designers draw what they can. These two reached an excellent agreement with each other, and we end up with planning documents of very dubious practical value. And the city code, yes, has just been corrected in order to simplify manual control."
At the end of our review, let us turn to an acute, but little-covered topic in the press - the problems of restoration of wooden architectural monuments. Among architects-restorers, there is often no agreement on the methodology for carrying out such work, as a result, some accuse others of experimenting on living buildings and even destroying them. The most striking example of recent years has been the Transfiguration Church in Kizhi. Now blogs are actively discussing the restoration of the oldest wooden monument in Russia - the Church of the Deposition of the Robe from the village of Borodava. It is headed by the architect-restorer Alexander Popov. According to the blog of Arkhnadzor, “Popov restored the original architecture of the church. That is, instead of a completely traditional image, which is familiar to several generations, the world was presented with a structure that in general has little resemblance to a church - without a head and a cross. " Some accused the architect of "unbridled creative ambition." Popov responds patiently to criticism. In addition to questions about the bulkhead and alteration of the monument, experts were concerned about the idea of hiding it for preservation in a temporary pavilion. According to Natalia Samover, this will be an invasion of the ensemble of the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery: “In domestic practice, the whole church has never been hidden under glass. In my opinion, it would be better to remove the future pavilion from the territory of the monastery. On this one can build a luxurious modern museum, and the pavilion with the oldest church in Russia will be its pearl. By the way, the pavilion will be safer on the territory of such a park under the protection”.
Another ancient monument, the Church of Elijah the Prophet built in 1696 in Belozersk, is also called a victim of irrepressible restoration. A disturbing statement has surfaced in the Architectural Heritage community. This story again features the famous restorer Alexander Popov: it was his team who dismantled the church last summer. As grus57 writes, “no one in the world will assemble it better than those who disassembled it,” which is logical. However, it will be assembled by another construction company that won the relevant competition in May. Moreover, they promised to collect it in just 4.5 months, “so there is a very high probability that this company will leave the church unfinished. Or he will not give up, but he will twist this in the allotted time at a completely unfamiliar object … At anton_p_maltsev you can read a chronicle of events, and in the blog seredina77 - a discussion about this.
