Since 1996, the Foundation, with the support of American Express, has allocated funds for the restoration of selected structures. The list, compiled every two years, taking into account the opinions of experts from around the world, includes not the most important objects in terms of history and architecture, but those most in need of help.
Obviously, the WMF leadership also began to take into account the chances of a possible improvement in the situation, and excluded from the list, in their opinion, hopeless cases, so this year there are no “candidates” of previous years, for example, the Narkomfin House. Of all the republics of the former USSR, only two objects were selected - the necropolises of the nomads of the Mangystau region of Kazakhstan, consisting of richly decorated mausoleums (8th - early 20th centuries), and the Ulug-Depe settlement (4th - early 1st millennium BC).) in Turkmenistan.
The most famous monument on the list is the giant drawings in the Peruvian Nazca desert, threatened by crowds of tourists and the danger of flooding posed by El Niño. A special section was made up of structures damaged by recent devastating earthquakes: in Japan, New Zealand, Haiti. In addition, experts focused on little-known monuments or from countries where heritage protection is extremely poorly developed. The list includes many African sites, such as the Stobi settlement in Macedonia (1,000 AD), and the Vandichkhoding palace in the Bhutanese city of Jakar (19th century). Also highlighted are "unexpected" monuments - for example, the Royal Opera House in Mumbai (1915), the last surviving opera house in India: a large-scale and richly decorated building was turned into a cinema already in 1935, and abandoned in recent decades.
The WMF list includes buildings that are at risk of destruction due to climate change, uncontrolled new development or normal environmental impacts. But there are also monuments there that the authorities do not want to recognize as valuable in principle, depriving them of protection from any encroachments. So, the list includes four buildings in the style of brutalism, three in England, one in the United States.
The Southbank Cultural Center in London (which includes the Hayward Gallery (1968) and the Queen Elizabeth Concert Hall (1967)) the authorities refused to recognize as valuable in general, so the two buildings could be demolished at any time; it also includes the Royal Festival Hall (1951), but it is protected by the status of a 1st row monument.
Preston Bus Station (1969), the largest in the world at the time of its opening, may be demolished to make way for a shopping center.
The Birmingham Library (1970s) will be demolished as soon as the new Mecanoo building opens.
In the United States, the building of the Orange County Administration of New York State, built by the largest master of brutalism Paul Rudolph in 1970, was under threat: officials did not want to repair the dilapidated structure, and in September 2011 the situation was aggravated by a devastating hurricane. The buildings of brutalism often fall into the "popular" ratings of the ugliest buildings, at the same time, this architecture is often very expressive, which compares favorably with the faceless mass development.
Rem Koolhaas, whose retrospective is now taking place in London's Barbican Center, also a model of brutalism, stood up to defend the British objects. He stated that British brutalism is "one of the most creative and imaginative architectural periods," and its destruction today is part of the global process of getting rid of buildings from the 1960s and 80s, which the authorities dislike for their alleged socialist overtones. In his opinion, such buildings, on the contrary, should be appreciated as a memory of the period when architecture was consciously aimed at changing the world for the better.
N. F.
