Probably the main event of the architectural blogosphere last week was the article by Anna Bronovitskaya, posted on November 20 on the Facebook page of the Project Russia magazine, and the next day in the Arhnadzor blog. This article was a reaction to a press conference recently convened by the new leadership of the All-Russian Exhibition Center to announce plans to revamp the famous Moscow "exhibition of achievements". The article contains an accurate and rather ruthless analysis of these plans, made from the point of view of a professional journalist, historian and defender of architectural monuments of the Soviet period. Anna Bronovitskaya pointed out the intricacies of the planned revision of the protected zone - according to the plan of the management, the All-Russian Exhibition Center will lose the status of a united protected zone and a specially protected natural area, and in return will become an interesting place. The new status will be higher, but the protected area is planned to be reduced, which will allow to demolish part of the buildings that are not monuments at the All-Russian Exhibition Center, as well as allow the development of park areas of the exhibition. A small, four-picture album of photographs of several pavilions of the All-Russian Exhibition Center that have no protection status has also appeared on the Project Russia page. Among them - the charming building of the "Books" pavilion, the "Fish Industry" pavilion, which is spectacularly located above the pond, and the exemplary houses of the "New Village". Anna Bronovitskaya also drew attention to the fact that the new investor of the All-Russian Exhibition Center had previously reconstructed the hotel "Ukraine", which destroyed the historical interiors of the building, and built the shopping center "Evropeyskiy" near the Kievsky railway station, which, to put it mildly, is not perfect in terms of artistic and urban planning. “The main investor of VDNKh's 'revival' are people who have already shown their cynical attitude towards cultural heritage, and their own person is at the head of the administration of the complex, which could, in theory, keep the customer within limits,” writes Bronovitskaya.
Yesterday the topic was continued: the Arkhnadzor website published material that analyzes the stated problems in more detail and signed by several authors (in addition to Anna Bronovitskaya, this list includes the well-known defender of the legacy Natalya Dushkina, Boris Kondakov from the Children of Iofan group, and others). The authors urge the protection authorities "to expand the list of structures to be preserved, to minimize the risks of reduction of protected areas and natural complexes, to identify objects of protection." Repositions of these materials have already begun to circulate on the network, and the discussion (though not very active yet) is filled with sadness.
Talk about the future of the All-Russian Exhibition Center made us recall once again the Veterinary pavilion that burned down in 2011: Boris Bocharnikov posted on the Our Heritage blog a real requiem for the deceased building with an extensive selection of illustrations, including those with lost interior paintings. According to Bocharnikov, there is little hope for a "true reconstruction" of the burnt-out pavilion, "but life will show."
If a detailed plan for the reconstruction of the All-Russian Exhibition Center is created only in March next year, then the fate of the urban landscape of Perm is being decided right now. On the coming Friday, the Commission on Land Use and City Development is to accept or reject the document regulating the high-rise policy of Perm. Denis Galitskiy published a draft of this concept on his blog, said that he plans to vote against, proposed his own, softer version of the altitude regulations, and invited residents of the city to discuss the topic, while strictly warning professionals not to interfere in the discussion. Alas, after the exclusion of professionals, there were not very many participants in the discussion, although one of the questions raised - about the price of new housing, significantly limited in height, and the degree of its elite and inaccessibility - seems important.
On the other hand, it is curious that the dispute between the responsible persons and the social movement may now well unfold right in the blogs. Namely, last week there was a discussion between the defenders of the Circular Depot of the Oktyabrskaya Railway and the President of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin. On November 17, the movement posted on its blog the response of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation to the request of the public movement - the response says that the demolition of the building is not planned in the near future. A few days later, Vladimir Yakunin, in his own blog, argued in favor of demolishing the depot. The President of Russian Railways is convinced that the depot is a remake and is an object of cultural heritage “only formally”, since the outline of the building was dismantled half a century ago, and the building itself was repeatedly redeveloped internally. There, Yakunin said that his company is now negotiating the withdrawal of the Circular Depot from the register of cultural heritage objects. The next day, an article appeared on the Arkhnadzor website with a response to Yakunin's statements. Quoting the words of the official expertise that recognized the historical value of the depot, the authors illustrated their position with a quote from Krylov's fable, hinting at Yakunin's incompetence in this matter: “… will ruin // And glad to quickly become a laughing stock of light, // Than honest and knowledgeable people // Ask or listen to reasonable advice."
In Vladivostok, as the photo album of Anton Beltyukov demonstrates, during the reconstruction under the Sea Facade program, the original bas-reliefs of the retaining wall on Magnitogorskaya Street were destroyed. According to the participants in the discussion, the new reliefs are more reminiscent of granite tombstones.
In addition to sharp and not always correct polemics in blogs, you can traditionally find beautiful pictures that allow you to relax your soul and eye. This time the leitmotif was shooting from high altitudes. Ilya Varlamov, who regularly pleases his visitors with unique architectural photo shoots, this time showed filming from the observation deck of the Shanghai World Financial Center, as well as a selection of photographs taken during a helicopter ride over Moscow. The discussion was divided into two parts: while some admire the angles, others compare the development of Shanghai and Moscow. The comparison is curious, although there are more than opposite opinions.
