Let us remind you that at the beginning of last week the results of the selection round of the competition for the development of the Big Moscow project were summed up. Architectural critic Grigory Revzin called this competition strange "not in content, but in terms of participation." In particular, the critic was puzzled by the fact that each of the ten selected teams will receive 250 thousand euros, while the Skolkovo urban planning concept cost about a million euros, although the scale of the agglomeration and the village for 20 thousand inhabitants is incomparable. Grigory Revzin admits that often money does not fully cover the costs of work, and architects participate in the competition primarily because they hope to win. But here no winnings are assumed: all ideas expressed by the participants can be used without concluding contracts with them. However, the critic generally doubts the further development of the agglomeration project: “Vladimir Putin has never said anything about this project. Neither good nor bad - just nothing. It seems to me that this case is very indicative in order to understand what will generally happen with the projects initiated by Dmitry Medvedev. " The chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, in turn, confirmed to the Kommersant newspaper that the participants in the competition for the development of the Moscow agglomeration project are driven by the desire to become famous and solve a large-scale task, and not the intention to make money. Alexander Kuzmin once again emphasized the main objectives of the competition: to improve the quality of life, to abandon the policy of sleeping areas, to solve the problem of congestion in the central core, and to create self-sufficient cities. The magazine "Russian Reporter", which interviewed a number of experts, names other tasks: rejection of monocentricity, "humanization" of industrial zones, the withdrawal of transit from Moscow, the creation of international-class business centers with a link to the airport, and others. Doubt that the federal authorities will leave the city center, expressed the professor of Moscow Architectural Institute Vyacheslav Glazychev. The problem, in his opinion, is, first of all, in the buildings themselves, in which power is now located. “These buildings are uncomfortable, nasty, and not suitable for hotels. It will not work to stuff a business there - rent is too expensive, and there is no gain in terms of transport load,”Glazychev said.
In another article, entitled "Back to Luzhkov," Grigory Revzin reflects on the return of Moscow to the era of the previous mayor's rule, which today is manifested in the growth of traffic jams, the demolition of the Moskva Hotel and the creation of a remake in its place, the reconstruction of the Detsky Mir department store and stadium "Dynamo". I agree with the critic and "Rossiyskaya Gazeta", as well as Professor of the Moscow Architectural Institute Natalya Dushkina, who gave an interview to Gazeta.ru. Natalya Dushkina stressed that the argument that most of the walls of Dynamo are of no historical value, used by the mayor and investor to justify the dismantling of the stadium, has no basis. “Even if we assume that the walls were rebuilt with new material, this is a normal restoration practice,” the expert says. Meanwhile, Andrei Peregudov, chairman of the board of directors of the VTB-Arena reconstruction developer, insists on the “newness” of the walls: “The wall that makes up about 30% of the perimeter - two more sections from the portico - is truly historical. We will strengthen it, prop it up, but not demolish it. The rest of the wall is actually a remake, and we, having received irrefutable evidence of this, decided to reconstruct it by disassembling it. " The representative of VTB-Arena assures of the company's sincerity: “If we just wanted to break something, we would have done it two years ago - in a pirate way”. In turn, Sergei Sobyanin promised that the famous bas-reliefs of the sculptor Merkurov's stadium would be restored and returned to the porticoes of Dynamo, and the restoration itself would be supervised by Merkurov's great-grandson.
While in Moscow some houses are losing their protection status, others are getting them. So, the commission for consideration of issues of implementation of urban planning activities within the boundaries of places of interest and protection zones of cultural heritage objects included in the unified state register of cultural heritage objects "Shooting House", in which the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR worked, "Profitable House" of the merchant Bykov and several others buildings, according to RIA Novosti. Let us remind you that earlier the owner of the “Shooting House” stated that he was ready to renovate it at his own expense and place offices and a shop in it.
In the coming years, the Udarnik cinema will house a museum of contemporary Russian art. The idea of its creation belongs to the ArtChronica cultural foundation under the leadership of the creator of the Kandinsky Prize, Shalva Breus. During this year, it is planned to appoint a director of the new museum, form a board of trustees and, on a competitive basis, select a company that will restore this sample of the constructivist era. “In our view, all that is needed is to remove what our predecessors put on, all this tinsel, and pull out a stunning original,” says Shalva Breus.
At the forum "Future Petersburg" they discussed the urban planning policy of the city on the Neva. In particular, the experts raised the issues of the development of the historical center, the overconsolidation of the city, the lack of parking spaces, the shortage of green spaces, the poor state of engineering networks, and others. To solve the problems, some experts suggested holding an open competition for the preparation of a concept for the development of St. Petersburg, others - to create a passport for the city center, to which the architect Yevgeny Gerasimov said that no matter how good the laws are, they will not help if they are not followed. He called on all those present to "start with themselves" and with the reorganization of the moral values of society. Cycling is also planned to be developed in St. Petersburg. So, by 2015, there will be 16 bike paths in park areas and 30 for movement around the city with a total length of 257 km. Write about this "St. Petersburg Vedomosti". And in the capital of the future Russian Olympics, the town planning council considered proposals for adjusting the "Planning project for the central part of Sochi", the main emphasis of which was placed on solving transport and pedestrian problems of the city.
On February 27, a new winner of the world's most prestigious architectural award, the Pritzker Prize, was announced in Los Angeles. It was the Chinese architect Wang Shu, according to RIA Novosti. But, according to Grigory Revzin, "it was not so much Wang Shu who received it as China." According to the critic, China has become the main employer for Western architects in the past decade, so it should have been encouraged. “And this is the only basis on which Wang Shu could be awarded,” Revzin is convinced. The official verdict of the award jury reads: “The architecture of Wang Shu opens up new horizons and at the same time responds to a specific place with its specific memories. Its buildings are surprisingly able to remind of the past without directly referring to history."
At the end of the review - about new books and the exhibition. A guidebook "Architecture of the Avant-garde", which tells about Moscow buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, and a book by Alexander Zinoviev "Stalin's Metro" were published. And in the city on the Neva was opened the exhibition "Ideas for St. Petersburg", demonstrating the unrealized architectural projects of the 2000s. Among them are the concept of the development of the underground space of Vosstaniya Square, Sennaya and Teatralnaya squares, a project for the reconstruction of the university courtyard, a center of modern sculpture in Alexander Park and others.
