Yekaterinburg activists continue to fight for the preservation of the partially destroyed architectural monument - the building of the former commodity exchange, better known as the Passage. The blog "Soviet Architecture" with reference to abannyh publishes letters from citizens to the Government of Russia and the Sverdlovsk region. They demand to stop all work until the prosecutor's office checks their legality, and if the demolition is found illegal, identify the perpetrators and get them punished. If the work continues, hold a repeated open tender for the reconstruction project. Ar-chitect writes that the existing project is replete with elementary architectural mistakes. It is proposed to build its "half-copy" next to the building of the city hall, looking at which in ten to fifteen years it will be difficult for people far from architecture to understand how "the shameful foam plastic parody differs from the magnificent original", since the architect repeats a new "Passage" is not only a symmetrical composition of the city hall, but also its decor. Alex-kofman posts diagrams on his blog that clearly demonstrate the dimensions of the existing and new "Passage". The map shows that the new building will occupy not only half of the square, but will also narrow the pedestrian zones of the adjacent streets.
The main architectural symbol of Murmansk - the Arktika hotel - is also awaiting reconstruction. Journalist Oleg Sobolev suggests simply demolishing the hotel. He believes that the 18-storey "Arctic" has become a city landmark only because of its height. Overhaul, according to the author, will not improve it, but will only provide the attributes of Luzhkov's architecture. In addition, the project involves the development of free space in front of the "Arctic": a new building is to grow there.
The public movement "Arhnadzor" writes about the already accomplished demolition of the Feoktistovs' house at 42 Bolshaya Ordynka Street in Moscow. Now the building of the future restaurant has appeared in its place, significantly exceeding the volume and height of the wooden wing that was demolished in the "Night of Long Buckets" (from June 18 to June 19, 2011). Arkhnadzor calls this restaurant the firstborn of the “new urban planning policy” of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Just before the demolition of the historic building, the mayor said that in its place the investor would be able to build a building of the same dimensions. That is, in theory, the demolition should have become unprofitable, but when the huge frame of the restaurant appeared, it became clear what the “Sobyaninskaya thaw” really was, says Arhnadzor.
Another post of the social movement is dedicated to the exhibition by Diana Machulina "Praise of Stupidity, or the Architecture of Russian Capitalism." "Arkhnadzor" publishes the full material of the exhibition - graphic works and accompanying texts devoted to the study of "extreme manifestations of the stupidity of the newest Russian architecture" and aspects of the "formation of an ugly mentality" of users of this very architecture.
Slon1slon talks about the opening of a new Cornell University building in Ithaca, upstate New York. The OMA workshop under the direction of Rem Koolhaas worked on the reconstruction of the university. She designed the new Millstein Hall, which merged the two old ones, Rand Hall and Sibley Hall. And Ilya Varlamov writes in his blog about the modern architecture of Copenhagen, paying particular attention to social housing.
Architect Anatoly Tishchenko invites you to take a walk along Yekaterinburg's central streets, filled with monuments of constructivism. The author focuses on the favorite form of the architects who designed in this city - the cylinder and its derivatives. The most notable "cylinders" in Yekaterinburg are the White Water Tower, the Iset Hotel, the DK im. Dzerzhinsky, DOSAAF building, Dynamo sports club. It is noteworthy that the cylindrical shapes of buildings are found not only on the central streets of the city, but also in the courtyards of constructivist complexes. And The Village publishes a long interview with the famous Dutch urbanist Evert Verhagen, who, in particular, discusses the renovation of industrial buildings and various ways to breathe life into them.
You can read about the Zhivopisny bridge in Serebryany Bor in the My Moscow blog. The bridge is an arched structure with a fan-shaped arrangement of cables. An observation deck was built in the upper part of the arch - a restaurant, which, however, never started working. It is curious that the bridge crosses the Moskva River at an acute angle. Architect Dmitry Novikov writes on his website about the wooden and stone architecture of Kashin, a small ancient town in the Tver region. And the blog zamki_kreposti tells about the monument of defensive architecture of Ukraine - the Mezhirichsky monastery.
