On Tuesday, the question of the creation of the so-called. Greater Moscow has entered a new round: the governors of Moscow and the Moscow region have already presented to the President of the Russian Federation a plan - where and how far to grow the capital. As Vedomosti comments, the city will receive almost 1,500 sq. M. km to the south, and its area will grow by almost 2.5 times. But these are only numbers, comments are much more interesting. Expert magazine interviewed Ilya Lezhava, professor at the Moscow Architectural Institute. One of the members of the famous NER group to this day remains faithful to the idea of a linear city, proposed back in the 1960s, Lezhava is confident that the construction of a satellite city near Moscow for officials may not be a town planning mistake, but an expensive and unjustified measure. It is impossible to build a city on your own - you will have to call specialists from abroad; nothing worthwhile can be done from the vacated buildings of the former ministries, not even hotels; and the center is unlikely to become freer as a result of the move of officials - no one will even notice it. It will turn out like under Khrushchev, who tried to distribute all the ministries throughout the country: nothing happened and everyone was returned back, - Lezhava notes.
The best way out for modern Moscow and St. Petersburg would be, according to Ilya Lezhava, to unite them with the regions and create a linear metropolis along the railway: “Within its framework, of course, it is necessary to leave all the ministries and the Kremlin in place, as an ancient symbol. And all the turbulence of life, the entire industry and all creativity "stretch" across the country."
Izvestia, meanwhile, took a blitz interview with architects Mikhail Khazanov and Alexander Asadov about the eviction of government offices in the Moscow region. According to Khazanov, the expansion of the Moscow borders was overdue twenty years ago - in 1986 even a special competition was held for a plan for the development of the Moscow region. Then it was proposed to create on the basis of the existing satellite cities of Moscow several specialized formations: a scientific city, government, recreational, etc. Khazanov still considers this idea the most viable: “As soon as we change the vector, replace the centripetal direction with centrifugal ones, life will change polarity.” Khazanov considers the current proposals to create a separate government center a half-measure: "The global idea is a line with a specialized city between two capitals, in the area of the Bologoye-Ostashkov-Peno triangle …" and high-speed transport, like a monorail.
Alexander Asadov is sure that now is not the best time for such a costly project - "it is difficult to move Moscow simultaneously with the 2014 Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup." It is impossible to accelerate the construction of a satellite city: “At first they will design for a couple of years, then for several years they will pull networks there, develop road infrastructure…. Then it will be necessary to bring housing there - all this will take at least one dozen years. " And Asadov also disagrees with the choice of direction for "expansion". Recall that the press indicates the west, the areas of Rublevo-Arkhangelsk and Zvenigorod - Asadov believes that "it would be more useful to develop more" killed "territories in the eastern and southeastern directions."
Local historians also responded to the transfer of the capital - Rustam Rakhmatullin assessed the prospects from the point of view of the "metaphysics" of Moscow's development over the previous centuries. It turned out that from a historical point of view, the script also looks dramatic: “First, the oprichnina immediately comes to mind. Secondly - Peter with his flight from the Kremlin to the Yauza, to Preobrazhenskoye and the German settlement …”- both events did not bode well for Moscow. "Decentralization" of power and complete deprivation of the Kremlin's functions of power, according to Rakhmatullin, is dangerous. In addition, this may become another urban planning mistake - in any case, the last attempt to create an alternative power center of Moscow - Presnya with the White House and Moscow City - in the opinion of the local historian, clearly failed.
Alexey Shchukin, in an analytical article for the Expert magazine, called the main point of the program to expand the borders of Moscow an international urban planning competition, like the Big Paris project. Without a competition, individual satellite cities do not decide anything: "Today, Greater Moscow critically needs a development strategy that would absorb the achievements of recent world urbanism." While the government is talking about the secondary - about the vacated buildings in the center, which will change the appearance of the city, etc., while the main thing, according to Shchukin, remains in the shadows. For example, "it may turn out that what is needed is not a large city, but a network of settlements connected with the city center and among themselves."
The search for a development strategy is almost the most difficult thing in this whole undertaking: over the past 20 years, the unclaimed Russian urban studies have found themselves in a deep crisis, which is emphasized by almost all experts. An interesting conversation on this topic was published in the magazine "Bolshoi Gorod": Grigory Revzin, Oleg Baevsky, Yuri Grigoryan and Sergei Sitar discussed the peculiarities of Moscow territorial planning and the problems of public spaces there. Oleg Baevsky, deputy director of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan, who represented the position of the authorities, was attacked by interlocutors accusing the city administration of unwillingness to create public spaces for citizens. Grigory Revzin is sure that neither business nor the authorities need them in principle. Even the cost of rent that increases with the appearance of a green zone in the project, according to Yuri Grigoryan, is not capable of prompting an investor to create a park. As a result, the participants in the conversation thought about how to select plots for parks and how to get the owners to "work" for the city at least a little.
Meanwhile, in early July, Strelka, the first private institution of additional architectural education in the country, finished its first academic year, which promises to provide its graduates with the broadest interdisciplinary knowledge. Perhaps it was the profession's crisis, recognized by everyone, especially in terms of urbanism, that attracted such close attention to Strelka. The aforementioned Alexey Shchukin presented the final article about the results of the 1st year of study at the Expert. In the author's opinion, over the past year, Strelka has become a popular public space of a new type for Moscow; But Shchukin is skeptical about the quality of theses. However, after the arrival of the famous Rem Koolhaas, they were probably expecting too much from the students, Shchukin concludes. Some of the theses of the first issue of Strelka can be found on the Theory and Practice portal, as well as in the Big City magazine.
Architect Yuri Grigoryan, who promised to head the entire educational program of the institute next season, is, on the contrary, pleased with the work of Strelka's students. However, in an interview with "Expert" he also noted that some of the major problems selected for research, especially those concerning Russia, turned out to be "not always tough for students." But the main thing is that, according to Grigoryan, at Strelka “… there is no such thing that someone teaches someone. There is a collective of people who are trying to understand something. "Graduates will be able to test their knowledge in practice as early as next year - a unit will be created from them, which will be engaged in professional research - “these will be commercial and own projects, publications and books. We will explore the topic of education."
Returning to the main topic of the review - "uncentering" of the authorities and the creation of the so-called. Let us recall that one of the results of the new policy was the transfer of the Parliamentary Center, which was going to be built in Zaryadye just a couple of months ago. What will happen now with one of the most expensive construction sites in the capital? On this topic, an article by Pyotr Miroshnik appeared on the Arkhnadzor website, in which the author expressed the hope of many local historians of the capital to make Zaryadye a "zone of stabilization", a city for people, and not a closed city for the country's leadership. " That is, to make a square on the site of the Rossiya hotel: "a green slope along the lower edge of the canvas, descending to the river to the Church of Anna's conception …", a beautiful terraced park with churches and chambers along the edge. The author believes that one of the main reasons for the delay in the reconstruction of the district is the high (the highest in Europe) prices for advertising on the fence surrounding Zaryadye.
While Moscow is solving global urban planning problems, in St. Petersburg architectural minds have focused on a local problem - the reconstruction of the most important transport hub, Vosstaniya Square. A scientific and practical conference was recently held on this topic, the report of which with detailed illustrations was published by the Delovoy Peterburg portal. Four groups of architects, sociologists, transport specialists and students analyzed the problem. The results are very interesting - the groups simulated almost all possible ways of transforming the area - with going underground, adding additional levels or even moving the transport hub to another place. For example, a group led by Professor of the Irkutsk State Technical University Alexander Mikhailov proposed to build two more levels over the railway tracks of the Moscow railway station, and Yuri Zemtsov's bureau - to organize underground pedestrian zones, public spaces and parking lots.
Alarming reports about the problems of heritage protection are a topic that, alas, has become traditional for journalists. This time, the cause for concern was the final abolition of the only body exercising federal control over cultural heritage - Rosokhrankultura. And although two new departments with similar functions are to appear in the Ministry of Culture soon, the negative consequences of the elimination of the federal department are already evident. According to Kommersant, Rosokhrankultura has sent to the Ministry of Culture about a hundred applications for renewal of licenses for restoration activities. The ministry cannot answer yet - and work on many monuments will have to be stopped. Also, the certification of experts and the approval of urban planning documentation have been suspended. So far, the ministry has instructed the territorial departments of the former department to monitor the most important objects: in fact, the latter, along with their federal monuments, were actually "left alone with the local authorities and investors," the newspaper notes.
The still undecided fate of the two largest monuments of the Soviet avant-garde - the house of the architect Melnikov and the Shukhov radio tower - speaks of the crisis in the security system. The Melnikov House has been waiting for the fulfillment of the will of its owner for many years - the creation of a state museum within its walls. In the spring, ex-senator Sergei Gordeyev donated the half he bought to the Museum of Architecture, but the matter is again hampered by a property dispute, now between the two daughters of Viktor Melnikov, writes Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Ekaterina Karinskaya is against numerous visitors in the Melnikov house: for the museum, she proposes to build an additional exhibition hall in a small area adjacent to the monument. But you can't build in the security zone, what should you do? The dispute between the relatives of the great architect seems endless, and the building, meanwhile, needs an early restoration.
The Shukhov Tower has also been awaiting its restoration for more than one decade. A few days ago, the commission of the Russian TV and Radio Broadcasting Network declared the competition for the development of design documentation for the reconstruction of the monument invalid: the contestants did not have a license for restoration. And this is a complicated matter: the tower needs a modern system of anti-corrosion protection. Recent attempts to strengthen it with the help of special elements fixed to the corners of the load-bearing mesh with bolts failed: they deprived the tower of the main design principle - mobility. Now the monument will have a second competition, scheduled for early 2012, reports TASS-Telecom.
