Despite the fact that, due to the vagaries of nature, the onset of winter is still felt only when looking at the calendar, the beginning of the coldest and darkest season was solemnly and cheerfully celebrated in Moscow. The opening of the largest ice skating rink in Europe took place in the capital's Gorky Park of Culture and Leisure. The architectural bureau Wowhaus, which developed this project, faced a very non-trivial task: on the one hand, the skating rink had to be modern and convenient for visitors, on the other hand, it had to embody the best traditions of building the Central Park of Culture and Leisure. Judging by the bloggers' reviews, Wowhaus did a great job with it.
But in Perm, the beginning of winter was celebrated in a completely different way. No sooner had the Permians expressed their joy at the return to their rightful place of the "red men" dismantled from the main square of the city on the eve of the elections, when another blow was dealt to the image of the "cultural capital of the world". The building of the City Art Gallery, which was damaged by a fire two weeks ago, will soon change its owner. By decision of the government of the Perm Territory, the building of the Transfiguration Cathedral, where the gallery is located, will be transferred to the local diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church. In principle, such a possibility has been discussed for a long time: it was previously believed that the monument would be handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church by 2015, when a new building would be built for the gallery, but now the sequence of these events has been changed. The building will be transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church in the near future, and representatives of the diocese are recommended to conclude an agreement on the free joint use of the object with the Perm State Art Gallery within a month, until the new museum is nevertheless built. At the same time, according to representatives of the regional Ministry of Culture, the project of the building of the architect Peter Zumthor, selected based on the results of a previously held competition, is unlikely to be implemented in the next ten years …
Denis Galitsky, a human rights activist and member of the city planning council under the head of Perm, has already expressed his strong discontent with the current situation in his blog, writing a post entitled "This is a disaster for the Gallery." Galitsky, fearing that “the diocese will give instructions to remove from its territory works that are not pleasing to God in a couple of months,” intends to defend the rights of the art museum in court. Meanwhile, according to media reports, "if in five years the gallery does not have its own home, its collections may temporarily move to the restored Museum of Modern Art."
On the same days, the name of another, much more famous domestic church, was repeatedly mentioned. December 5 marks 80 years since the explosion of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ, more known as the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The blog "Arkhnadzor" published a photo report and memoirs of the famous cameraman Vladislav Mikosha (1909-2004), who not only witnessed the destruction of the temple, but filmed the process of destruction at the request of Newsreel. During the discussion, the readers were divided into two camps: some call the demolition of the temple barbarism, others are more worried about the fact that it was not possible to build the pompous Palace of the Soviets on this site.
However, the unrealized project of Iofan, Shuko and Gelfreich became the reason for a separate discussion in livejournal.com. Photo chronicle from the construction site of this monumental building caused a ramified discussion, in which there was a place for discussions about the role of high-rise dominants in the urban landscape, and disputes about a more successful location for such an architectural giant.
In the meantime, the blog of the movement "Our Heritage" has published information about another dying monument of architecture. The wooden building of the Vinogradov manor house, designed by the architect I. V. Rylsky, next year should celebrate the centenary. However, the current state of this house inspires confidence that the building of the anniversary will not last until the century. According to Mikhail Korobko, over the past six years, the building has fallen into complete decay and partially collapsed. The published photos speak for themselves.
One of the coordinators of the Arkhnadzor movement, local historian and architectural historian Alexander Mozhaev published on the Strana. Ru portal educational material about the five most ancient civil buildings in Moscow that have survived to this day. This list includes three Kremlin monuments: the well-known Faceted Chamber, the Kremlin Palace of Ivan III, explored in the 1990s, and the Kazenny Dvor chamber, the underground part of which has been preserved near the Archangel Cathedral. Outside the Kremlin, Mozhaev named the chambers of the Old English Court and the chambers of the Romanov boyars on Varvarka, and finally, the remains of the chambers of the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, found in the buildings of the Printing House on Nikolskaya and almost unexplored.
At the end of our review - a photo report from the metropolitan subway, where recently three new stations were opened at once: Borisovo, Shipilovskaya and Zyablikovo. It cannot be said that this event caused unequivocal delight among network authors: some considered that this was not a reason for publication at all, others noted the obvious similarity of the new stations with some of their predecessors.
