The project of the Okhta skyscraper of Gazprom still cannot be forgotten in St. Petersburg - the skyscraper has been “moved” to Lakhta for six months, but discussions on this topic continue. A provocative post appeared on the chern-molnija blog the other day, the author of which expressed regret about the failed project. The founder of the city Peter the Great himself, eager for everything innovative, according to chern-molnija, “would have demolished all these monuments and built the most modern buildings that he could. I would arrange a residence for myself on the top floor of the Okhta Center and look from there at the Gulf of Finland and the Neva. " The Okhta Center was buried in vain - now Peter's idea is "mummified alive and doomed forever to remain locked in the stones of the city, which in 300 years has managed to grow old more than millennial Shanghai."
“From this violently insane Petrukha, as Stalin called him, it would be. He wouldn't have taken it down with all the foolishness! " - agrees escapistus. “Cities would be compared without pity to the earth, provided that the triumph of engineering thought grew in their place,” adds irous. igor_schwab recalled that the tsar, by the way, “did what was fashionable to do in Europe. And in Europe it is now fashionable to defend antiquity, even if it is nothing at all years old”. “I have been to Shanghai and I got the impression that the Chinese have preserved the ancient quarters of some architectural value, but have mercilessly demolished all kinds of slums,” obyvatel_59 notes. - But it is one thing to stick glass in the middle of a stylish building, and even of limited height, and another thing to build new quarters, and at least new architectural dominants of the city. There is no need for any restrictions. " “Peter built a NEW city. The Kremlin in Moscow remained in place. Is the difference clear? " - asks the author vromanov. “Some Chinese would try to build a skyscraper next to the Forbidden City in Beijing. They would have been executed right there,”adds leshij_frir. But chern-molnija is sure that "skyscrapers are needed only in the city center: the land there is very expensive and there are a lot of mental workers who need to be placed somewhere." It is another matter that Gazprom apparently did not really need its skyscraper - “this is just the dominant feature of a whole new district (which will no longer exist). Apparently, I wanted to do something beautiful for St. Petersburg …”.
The discussion continued in the blog anti_pov, which considered the current controversy around the "gas scraper" to be a very convincing proof of the non-viability of the so-called. brand architecture. His opponent under the nickname govorilknin recalled the positive experience of Baron Haussmann in Paris. "Osman demolished gadyushniks, not objects of cultural heritage," - retorts the author of the blog. But the project of Le Corbusier, who built the “branded” city of Chandigarh from scratch, is considered by anti_pov to be a good example of architecture that is not suitable for life. Something similar is being done today, in his opinion, by Zaha Hadid. In the CityLife project, for example, she drew a skyscraper “creatively curved like a weeping willow”. “Yes, it is so curved that at the level of the 80th floor the elevator for 36 million dollars should be transformed into an electric car and the last 15 floors should go on horizontal rails. I would not advise Peter the Great to look from the window of the top floor, not only because he will not see any horizon: at best, he will only be able to look down, and at worst, he will fall out into the courtyard altogether. " Govorilknin considers the interlocutor an incurable retrograde and reminds that inclined elevators will soon appear even in the Moscow complex "Federation".
Tsar Peter unexpectedly turned out to be the hero of yet another architectural discussion on the pisma_sebe blog. The author publishes some materials of the competition of "paper" projects "Five facades of architecture" in order to "reflect on what Moscow will be like in the middle of the XXI century." The participants in the discussion felt that these projects somehow did not pull at the architecture of the future. “Another evidence of the poor state of Russian architecture. Really boring, for Moscow, where it is too late to worry about preserving the historical fabric, you can think of something more exciting,”writes umnyaf. The only thing that aroused curiosity was the ironic project of a "house for Peter", which floats on pontoons to the Tseretel monument and allows the community to hide inside itself. _anick_ adds: “The carved ace of spades on the house for Peter evokes thoughts of a country toilet with a figured hole in the door…. The main thing is that these roof tiles, under whose advertisement this entire competition was started, should not take everything too seriously, otherwise, it’s not even an hour, and really decide that they are the rulers of architectural thoughts”. And in general, according to _anick_, the desire to “utilize and develop some available resources,” in this case, shingles, is a ubiquitous feature of today's architecture. Instead of urban planning concepts and prospects for the development of the city, the developers have something completely different in their heads: "My son MARCHI has finished - it is necessary to attach it to business, the warehouse is overstocked with balusters, the casting machine is idle, there are more kickbacks from the supplier of beige pseudo-marble than from plasters, etc." - the blogger regrets.
Meanwhile, in Denis Romodin's blog, a lively discussion of the article by Yulia Tarabarina on the state of modern temple architecture, which was recently published in the Agency for Architectural News, developed. The informational reason for the article was an exhibition in the Union of Architects, which demonstrated the results of temple building in the post-Soviet period. According to Yulia Tarabarina, all these years, hypereclecticism remained the mainstream in temple building - that is, the combinatorics of historical elements brought to the point of absurdity, resulting in a monster - a chimera "with the lips of Nikanor Ivanovich and the nose of Ivan Kuzmich." Bloggers fully shared this idea and gladly joined in criticizing projects. For example, john5r found that something similar had already taken place at the beginning of the 20th century and cited a quote with criticism from one of the contemporaries of the era, the architect S. Krichinsky, about "a sluggish combination of" quotes "from various schools of Russian architecture." “Tin as it is. The entire 20th century has passed by,”sighs pulman. Epliss finds the comparison with the chimera quite apt: "Now I will use the wonderful definition of" chimerical eclecticism "instead of" imbecile postmodernism "and mate."
mick_grabanuk makes his diagnosis: "clinical conservatism", especially noticeable against the background of Western churches - the Kneiphof invites you to familiarize yourself with examples of the latter, citing links to the website of the American Orthodox Church.
The experience of the Belgorod region, described by Albokarev, looks like the apotheosis of chimerical construction: churches there are assembled from concrete blocks produced by Belgorod ZhBK-1. Almost the only successful achievement of our time, according to Yulia Tarabarina, turned out to be the so-called. temples of "one zakomara", developing finds of Art Nouveau. Kunstliebhaber suggests, in turn, looking for a way out in the "neo-Russian style", which is basically the same thing. However, even here, in the opinion of the author of the article, it is necessary to act with a reservation, since “in some of his works the Black Hundreds now settle” and always copy the style “with some mistake,” not to mention the achievement of a synthesis of arts, which was the main goal of modernity. …
We will conclude our today's review with an interesting post from the blog of Strelka student Efim Freidin, who published his research entitled “Who is in control of our heritage?” By the rally held on October 1 by Arkhnadzor. Not so long ago, the Kolbe house on Yakimanka was destroyed, and the reaction of officials, according to Freidin, is very indicative.“I fell myself,” writes the developer's press service; "Demolished" - the video is shown by the defenders of the historical appearance of the city; "I don't give a damn about the law!" - considers the adviser to the head of the Moscow Heritage Committee; "Suspend and restore," says the city mayor. Tracing the history of the relationship between the bodies interested in this area, the author of the post comes to the conclusion that now the state has clearly lost interest in it, "at least - as an expense item." Unfortunately, this is where the conclusions end. It seems that the author himself does not know a way out of the situation, in any case, in replies to the comments, the post ends with a completely strange phrase that the whole process of preserving heritage is driven by the collective unconscious: “None of the participants in the process, except those who carry out deliberate action in relation to the heritage, not overbearing."
