On January 14, an international competition for the development of a draft concept for the development of the Moscow agglomeration started in the capital: by February 24, an expert commission must select from among those who submitted applications 10 authors' teams, who will be entrusted with this work. Before it even started, the competition had already attracted the attention of the press and online authors. In particular, the so-called. an amendment to the terms of reference, which appeared on the website of the Moscow government two days after the announcement of the competition: "the determination of the boundaries of the agglomeration and its components is the task of the authors' teams." This reservation looks more than strange against the background of the fact that the official borders of Greater Moscow have long been known and even approved by the Federation Council. “In theory, other development scenarios can be proposed, besides the approved prominence,” writes Marina Khrustaleva, chair of the Moscow Society for the Protection of Architectural Heritage, in her blog on the Snob portal. According to Khrustaleva, the choice of the developer of the competition (Research and Development Institute of the General Plan) was carried out with violations, and the technical task itself looks so ill-considered that it is now not only difficult, but also risky to predict what the results of the competition will be.
Alexander Lozhkin, who, as you know, moved to Perm last fall, published in his blog a comparative analysis of the urban concepts of Perm and Novosibirsk and their prospects for further development. According to the critic, the most global differences lie in the fact that in Novosibirsk the city infrastructure is located on both sides of the river dividing the city, and in Perm the development of the city on the right bank is "rather insignificant" and therefore the problem of road communication between the districts is not so priority, and money is spent “For less expensive infrastructure projects”.
In the Shu Archiblog, the St. Petersburg architect Maxim Bataev discusses the specifics of organizing urban architectural competitions and compares them with international and all-Russian competitions. "In St. Petersburg, they are simply afraid of creativity, everyone is too keen on politicking and networking." In particular, Batayev is not satisfied with the results of the competition for the design of a floating fort hotel for the Kronstadt forts and the competition for the development of a design solution for an information installation at the entrance to the city, in which he himself took part. Bataev writes about the violations and overlaps that took place: in particular, in his opinion, in both cases the victory was awarded to deliberately unrealizable projects.
The Central Children's World and the Bykov House are two cultural heritage sites that repeatedly attracted the attention of the press and bloggers in 2011 and are now again in the center of public attention. A special “round table” dedicated to the fate of Detsky Mir, which was attended by both city rights activists from the Arkhnadzor public movement and representatives of the developer company, was held on January 16 at the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation. The results of the "round table" were published in the blog of the movement. Unfortunately, the parties could not come to a compromise: city rights activists argued that the current version of the reconstruction is disastrous for the historical interiors of the country's main children's department store, the developers justified the need for a global restructuring by the emergency state of the building. “Developing companies cannot come to terms with the fact that urban planning policy has changed in Moscow. They still think that it is possible to destroy the historical heritage in the city,”Natalya Samover summed up this discussion.
During a speech in the Public Chamber, city rights activists also raised the question of the fate of the house of the merchant Bykov, which had been badly damaged by the fire and has been waiting for reconstruction for several years. Back in 2008, this monument received the status of an “identified object of cultural heritage”, but at the end of last year this did not save it from attempts to dismantle the building by the user of the building. And although there is no talk of initiating a criminal case against the unscrupulous tenant yet, justice, fortunately, has partially triumphed: on January 17, the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage awarded Bykov's house the status of a cultural heritage site.
St. Petersburg city protection movement "Living City" summed up the disappointing results of the past year, publishing in its blog "List of architectural losses-2011". This list includes the house of Lopatin on Nevsky, the building of the cinema "Assembly", the buildings of the Preobrazhensky regiment barracks in Vilensky lane, Chopin's mansion on the 25th line of Vasilyevsky Island and ten more buildings.
But the new year has already been marked by a victory for the "Living City". City defenders managed to stop the destruction of Shagin's house on the Fontanka embankment, which began during the holidays. The owner of the building, who was planning to build a hotel on the site of a historical building, motivated the illegal dismantling by the fact that the house was in a deplorable state. The Living City activists, in turn, examined the building and found out that the claims about the accident rate of the facility were greatly exaggerated. A photo report from the scene was also published on the movement's blog. By the way, KGIOP, which received information about the illegal demolition of the building from city rights activists, ordered to suspend its dismantling. According to IA Karpovka. Net, on January 17, the Construction Supervision Service issued a fine of 500 thousand rubles to the developer.
However, the activities of city protection organizations in the coming year were not limited to protest actions and public discussions. Thus, on New Year's holidays, Arkhnadzor activists conducted a traditional tour of the historical center of the capital for everyone. This time lovers of Moscow architecture studied one of the few active Catholic churches in the capital - the Cathedral of St. Louis of France. A photo report from this walk was published by one of its participants.
Another photo reportage, which collected a lot of comments, was published on Dmitry Kolezev's blog and is dedicated to the architecture of New York. Along with the most famous buildings, the author shows at first glance inconspicuous and very interesting corners of this American metropolis.
