The city authorities have approved the development of the territory of "Red October" with elite housing. The land plot plan will be issued to investors in February 2012, and the actual construction should begin in 2013, the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper reported. The Slon.ru portal was the first to raise the question of what fate awaits the conglomerate of art galleries, design bureaus, exhibition halls, television studios, educational and discussion rooms, which now successfully exist on the territory of the former factory, in the light of this decision. Later, Nikolai Pereslegin, advisor to the head of the Moscow Department of Cultural Heritage, actually denied the information of MK, stating that there were no documents for total reconstruction, and even more so for the demolition of buildings, and that the creative cluster would be preserved. The general director of the Guta Development company, Artem Kuznetsov, also reassured the public: “If they do, it will be only where there are cabins, garages, parking lots and other buildings that have nothing to do with history or the pastry business”. The head of the Moscow Heritage Committee, Alexander Kibovsky, also denied the rumors: "All cultural heritage sites, including red brick buildings, remain, they cannot be demolished, and this is reflected in the regulations."
The head of the Moscow Heritage Committee this week also spoke about the long-suffering Children's World: “The building needs to be urgently saved, which is what the developer is doing now. He has come a long way, new people have come. It has now been decided to return to the historic rectangular shape of the atrium. "Mosproekt-2" is preparing a new project, which will be presented in April ". Arkhnadzor is convinced that replacing even the emergency structures of Detsky Mir with a remake is not obligatory - they only need safety measures and reinforcement. The public organization came to such conclusions on the basis of the text of the 2011 research report, executed by Triada-Holding CJSC at the request of the developer - Hals-Development company. Also, "Arhnadzor" published messages in defense of "Children's World" from international professional communities - specialists in the field of preservation of cultural heritage. Meanwhile, the company "Hals-Development" announced an architectural competition for the interiors of the department store. President of the company Sergei Kalinin said that the interiors "will be made using the method of scientific reconstruction," RIA Novosti reported.
The Kommersant newspaper writes that the All-Russian Exhibition Center (VVC) may soon lose its status of a security zone. According to the publication, this is beneficial to the co-investors of reconstruction, who are going to build a leisure center with an area of 300 thousand square meters in the south-western part of the exhibition. However, while the new concept for the development of the All-Russian Exhibition Center has not been submitted for approval by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, says Alexander Rabotkevich, deputy director of the department for state control and supervision in the field of cultural heritage. Moscow local historians are sure that it is possible to fill the VVTs with new content without touching historical buildings, for example, by freeing the exhibition from illegal buildings in the 1990s. Meanwhile, according to Aleksey Mikushko, General Director of GAO VVTs, restoration of 45 monuments located on the territory of the All-Russian Exhibition Center will require about $ 500 million in investments, and reconstruction of the entire VVTs territory - about $ 2 billion more.
Petersburgers are also concerned about the destruction of the historical heritage - in particular, the demolition of Shagin's house on the embankment of the Fontanka River. The house has been empty for 20 years, and now the investor CJSC "Non-Residential Fund Consult" is interested in it, which he wants to redesign the monument into a hotel. At the same time, the investor claims that the condition of the house does not allow preserving and strengthening the old walls - allegedly, three expert organizations came to this conclusion at once. According to Aleksey Yarema, head of the Ecology of Ordinary Architecture group, the historic building can be preserved, but this will lead to a rise in the project's cost. Meanwhile, the reconstruction contractor said that garbage is now being removed from the non-residential building, after which it will be demolished. In turn, the prosecutor's office of the Admiralteisky district of St. Petersburg reacted to this statement by announcing a warning to the general director of ZAO Non-Residential Fund Consult about the inadmissibility of dismantling the house.
At the end of the review - about a new portal, an updated magazine, books and an exhibition. At the end of January, it is planned to launch the gzk.mos.ru portal created by the Moscow IT department, which demonstrates all investment projects suspended by the mayor's office. In total, the site will feature 344 frozen projects involving the construction of 560 buildings. Books Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space; New City Spaces and Cities for People by Danish architect and urbanist Jan Gale will be translated into Russian for the first time and published in Russia, Interfax reports. And the already mentioned Nikolai Pereslegin told Lenta.ru about the updated Moscow Heritage magazine, which is now published in a completely different format and has the subtitle “Journal of Urban Cultural Studies”. In the meantime, an exhibition dedicated to the 140th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding architect Ivan Fomin has opened in St. Petersburg. In the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, you can get acquainted with both embodied and unrealized projects of the master, including "New Petersburg" on Golodai Island, Field of Mars, Tuchkov Buyan, the continuation of Bolshoy Prospekt on Vasilyevsky Island and others.
