This synchronicity is by no means a coincidence. The current investor of the island, New Holland Development (a subsidiary of Roman Abramovich's Millhouse), intends to make the revitalization process of this territory as open as possible, if not public. Therefore, Petersburgers can see and evaluate not only all the projects that participated in the competition (even concepts that were not included in the shortlist are exhibited), but also look behind the famous red-brick walls, walk around the triangular island from the inside and mentally “try on” the architects' proposals on site. Moreover, all visitors are given the right to vote: a separate hall at the exhibition, called "The Future", is entirely devoted to the statements of the townspeople - the main and only exhibits here are completed questionnaires hung on the walls with the help of miniature magnets. However, first things first.
New Holland, founded by Peter the Great and for three centuries remained a closed departmental facility, where no non-military man has set foot, is a place for St. Petersburg as characteristic, as iconic. On the one hand, there is a stunning monument of the era of early classicism - which is at least the majestic arch of Vallin-Delamot, impregnable thick-walled buildings, the solemn rhythm of red-brick pylons - and on the other, a piece of urban territory that is completely unsuitable for life. Here, for example, there is no sewage system (shipbuilding does not need it), and until very recently diesel generators provided electricity. In a sense, New Holland is such a gateway to the past, by the will of fate found itself in the middle of a modern city: time on the island seemed to have stopped, although over the past 300 years it itself has managed not only to nobly grow old, but also partially ruined.
Attempts to do something with New Holland have been made more than once: for the first time the idea of transferring this territory to the city was put forward back in 1977. In 1997, Valery Gergiev began to actively lobby for the idea of creating a multifunctional cultural center on the island; in 2002, by order of the maestro, a project for the reconstruction of its territory was developed by the American architect Eric Moss. According to the latter, the image of the island would have been very much refreshed by a large amount of glass and active deconstructivist forms, but the St. Petersburg public, led by the then chief architect of the city, Oleg Kharchenko, unanimously rose to the defense of New Holland. And, in general, their pathos was understandable - the strategy “nothing is better than this” more than once saved Russian monuments from rash interventions. In 2004, the island finally came under the jurisdiction of the administration of St. Petersburg. In 2006, an investment and architectural competition was held, in which "ST Development" won by Shalva Chigirinsky, who hired Norman Foster himself as the general designer. The architectural star project number one, compared to Moss's proposal, was tact itself: Foster did not touch the historical walls, did not demolish buildings, and elegantly planted a small "starship" of the Palais des Festivals in the middle of the pond. This project had many supporters and opponents, but in the end it was not ideological disputes or even the slowness of the negotiating colossus that prevented its implementation, but the economic crisis. The ST Development company was declared bankrupt, and the city wisely decided to refuse the services of one of the most expensive architects in the world.
Last year, a new tender for reconstruction took place - it was won by Roman Abramovich's company, although, strictly speaking, everyone knew in advance that he had no competitors. Including the timing of the project: New Holland Development has committed itself to transforming the island into a dynamic public area in just seven years. In February of this year, the company announced an architectural competition for the development of the concept of reconstruction, and in May, the expert council unveiled a shortlist of the competition.
Even one trip to the island (and the organizers kindly conducted the journalists around New Holland the day before its official opening) is enough to understand: the potential of this territory is huge. Firstly, the area - 7.8 hectares in the very center of the city, secondly, the architecture - near the "fortress" buildings of New Holland is even more impressive with its majesty and authenticity. However, no less huge are the problems that investors have to solve on the way to a cultural future. The ruins need museumification, the existing buildings need restoration, the spaces need thoughtful and varied development. New Holland really turned out to be a place, once in which one does not want to leave for a long time, but it is clear that this desire in visitors needs to be somehow supported commercially. Actually, the new competition was aimed precisely at finding the optimal balance of different functions: its participants so far did not consider either the TEPs or the economics of their projects, they only had to figure out how to use the island's potential to the maximum, focusing on the cultural and social component.
In the meantime, on the territory of the island, the possibilities of using it are only a dotted line: the architect Boris Bernasconi has developed a project for the improvement of its central part for the coming summer. Here a neat lawn is laid out, sun loungers and benches are arranged, walkways with touching inscriptions "Do not swim" and "Do not dive" are built around the pond, which, in my opinion, are somewhat excessive optimism of the organizers about the current state of the island: here's something, but to dive in a pond with muddy brown water, covered with an iridescent gasoline film, well, I absolutely do not want to. As summer pavilions, there are sea containers painted in bright colors, picturesquely scattered by Bernasconi on the green grass. In one case it is a cafe, in another a shop, in a third an exhibition hall, in a fourth a shop for selling natural products - vegetables grown here, in an improvised vegetable garden.
The exhibition itself was conceived and brought to life by the English architect David Kohn Architects. And it turned out to be a very stylish in form and deep in content exposition, in which information about the project and its participants becomes the same spectacular and full-fledged exhibit, like the reconstruction projects themselves. White was chosen as the main and only color of the halls' decoration, which perfectly symbolizes the stage "from scratch", and they themselves vary greatly in their dimensions, which excludes the feeling of uniformity of the premises, even though the exposition is looped. It is also amazing how diverse the projects of the participants are: you can read the text description and study the drawings and diagrams, you can watch videos, you can flip through albums. The scale of the work to be done is set by the gigantic model of the existing development of New Holland, made of plywood: it looks like a huge snake curled up in a ball, and occupies an entire hall. You can also look at the heroine of the competition: another hall is filled with benches set up opposite a large window overlooking the island.
But, of course, layouts are the main attraction of the audience. They are very different: there is a completely glass one, there is an island under a hood (a kind of dish from the chef), and there is also a reconstruction project shown on the scale of the entire Admiralty district. The architects meticulously fulfilled the investor's wish to turn New Holland into the center of cultural and social life, but each did it in his own way. For Yuri Avvakumov, for example, the most important thing turned out to be art workshops - he even comes up with a new brand for them “Island Workshops of New Holland”, and Dixon Jones followed a similar scenario. David Chipperfield, on the other hand, suggests building new pavilions for all activities - glass parallelepipeds that would contrast with the main buildings, and Rem Koolhaas cuts the island into four separate segments for different functional purposes. MVRDV interpret New Holland as an organism capable of independent progressive development, and WORKac turn the island into a landscape park. Only two participants seriously concerned themselves with the parking problem on the island: Lakaton & Vassal offered to place 600 parking spaces in a deep cylinder, and Studio 44 ventured to “bury” an ordinary rectangular, but not very deep garage in the soil of New Holland. The same workshop figured out how to make the island's inland body of water suitable for swimming: a system of sluices will allow you to purify the water and, if necessary, completely drain the pool, transforming it into a stage area. Archi.ru will publish a more detailed analysis of each of the projects presented at the New Ideas for New Holland exhibition next week.
