This week in Moscow was presented a modified concept of reconstruction of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, developed by British architect Norman Foster together with Russian architects Sergei Tkachenko. The model of the museum town, which should appear in the Volkhonka area, is exhibited in the museum itself, and the photographs can be viewed on its website on the Internet. More details about this are told by "Vesti-Moscow". The new concept presupposes the preservation of historical buildings, which at first they wanted to demolish, in addition, the dimensions of the depository, which previously blocked the view of the Kremlin, have been reduced in it, and the five-leafed exhibition hall has completely disappeared. In total, the museum will include 15 buildings, two of which - the depository-restoration and exhibition centers - will be built, the rest will be reconstructed and redesigned. In particular, the art of the twentieth century will move to the building currently occupied by the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The total area of the Pushkin Museum will increase from 50 thousand square meters. m up to 111 thousand, write "RIA Novosti". An article by Valentin Dyakonov in the Kommersant newspaper talks about plans for reconstruction and their discussion at a press conference on March 19. "Wouldn't the very discussion of this project be a violation of the law?" - said the coordinator of Arkhnadzor Rustam Rakhmatullin at this press conference.
The discussion has been going on all week, and quite stormy. Arkhnadzor temporarily stopped actively arguing and became carried away by historical memories of the Volkhonka region, and the arch-critic Sergei Khachaturov, on the contrary, named five reasons why he was against even the adjusted project.
Meanwhile, it is planned to create a new museum of contemporary art in Moscow. Mikhail Mindlin, director of the National Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA), told the Kommersant newspaper about it. He calls the future museum an analogue of the Pompidou Center in Paris: "This is a new type of contemporary art museum that combines museum activities and exhibitions, exists as an experimental testing ground and at the same time an information center." This requires a large multifunctional technically equipped complex, which is supposed to be built on Baumanskaya Street according to the project of the studio of the architect Mikhail Khazanov.
Events continue to develop around the Shukhov Tower in Moscow, which celebrated its 90th anniversary on March 19. On March 22, experts from the Shukhov Tower Foundation announced their disagreement with “many proposals from the developers” of the tower reconstruction project. The developer, Quality and Reliability LLC, as it became known recently, is going to dismantle the two upper sections of the tower and replace Shukhov's rivets with bolts. Experts consider this approach completely unacceptable. The tower can simply collapse in the process of work, if all the loads are not correctly calculated. In addition, it does not need reconstruction, but restoration, and, most importantly, the money allocated for the work - 135 million rubles, is not enough for half of the normal restoration work. Experts propose to spend the allocated 135 million for the conservation of the monument: removal of rust and excess concrete in the basement, coating with an anti-corrosion compound and replacing a small part of the emergency rivets with bolts. Then - the statement says - it is necessary to seek additional, more funding (another 210-230 million) and with this money to completely sort out the tower on rivets, using Shukhov's technology. Amazingly, there are specialists in Russia who are able to do this: using this technology, horse riding halls and greenhouses have recently been built on Rublevka - such designs have become fashionable at the suggestion of Philippe Starck. This, frankly, is the most poignant detail of the statement. There is money for the greenhouse, but there is no money for the restoration of the unique monument.
Out of vexation, the great-grandson of the great engineer Vladimir Shukhov said that if the tower is not brought to its proper form, then it would be better to demolish it so as not to disgrace. Soon, however, he corrected his position, saying, in particular, in an interview with Gazeta.ru that it cannot be demolished - it is a monument, and at the same time urging the Ministry of Culture to apply for the tower to be included in the UNESCO heritage list. One of the important problems, according to Vladimir Shukhov, is that if now during the reconstruction more than 15% of the tower's parts are replaced with new ones, it will actually become a remake.
Vladimir Shukhov also said that Swiss specialists are going to scan the tower using an unmanned helicopter in the near future (for 2 million euros, allocated by the European Union). However, scanning attempts have been made before. The other day, on the occasion of the anniversary of the monument, Andrei Leonov showed his 3D design of the tower, made at the Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novaya Gazeta reports. The Academy specialists scanned from the ground, being under the tower and lifting the scanner several levels; however, they were unable to scan all the parts and the model is planned to be finalized using the old measurements. The article also discusses two earlier attempts at rendering and scanning. The Steklov Mathematical Institute made a model for an educational film based on measurements. Reconstruction contractors (already mentioned LLC "Quality and Reliability") scanned from the roofs of adjacent buildings, from a distance of 100-200 meters. The accuracy of such scanning is 5-10 mm, and experts of the Shukhov Tower Foundation consider it insufficient for calculations. The Swiss model, if it can be made, should be the most accurate of all available. However, approvals for the helicopter's access to the airspace of the tower "have been received by 70%," said the vice-president of the fund, Sergei Arenyev, to the Moscow perspective. It also tells about several projects to create a park around the Shukhov Tower, which appeared in the 2000s and then abandoned due to lack of funding.
On March 15, the first stage of the competition for the concept of a park on the site of the Rossiya hotel was completed. The jury will work until March 26, but so far the discussion of the Moscow Zaryadye theme in the press has intensified again. Architect Sergei Tchoban published his article in the Izvestia newspaper, in which, speaking about possible ways to return the city to a human scale, he criticized the idea of recreating historical quarters as artificial. And, having approved the idea of the park as a whole, nevertheless urged to implement it "necessarily at the world level." Conduct a "proper competition" and implement "its result in the smallest detail."
Meanwhile, the competition is held differently: the concept competition was given a month and a half, and anyone (not only professional architects) could participate in it. Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports that an exhibition of projects will open at the House on Brestskaya on March 26, where everyone can vote for their favorite project. So far, no one has seen the competition projects, but descriptions of some of them are gradually appearing in the press. So, the State Historical Museum proposes to give Zaryadye to the museum center. The press also leaked information about the projects of the device in the park on the site of the notorious hotel: pools with sea water, a miniature copy of Russia or a park of miniature copies of Moscow monuments. The director of the State Unitary Enterprise "Mospromproekt" Sergei Sokolov told about the project of his institute to "Moscow News". There is planned a construction, which the authors call nothing but a "cover", under which ponds will not freeze in winter, fountains will beat and heat-loving plants will thrive; the place of the “artistic component” in this project is occupied by “images of the greatest people in history” placed in the park, and the place of boutiques is the “fair component”. In a word, the exhibition of projects of the future park promises to be at least not boring.
This week, building.ua published an article by the President of the Union of Architects Andrei Bokov, dedicated to the problems of modern development of Russian cities. The article lists, and in some places even touches on, many painful problems, for example, "a complete fiasco of the modernist concept of the city", reform of the regulatory framework and bringing it in line with the Eurocodes (here the President of the CAP rightly noted that "people who are responsible in our country for the formation of this base, I’m afraid they don’t really know what Eurocodes are”), problems of transport and a new understanding of the quality of the urban environment. “The task of the professional community is to convey these ideas to decision-makers,” concludes Andrey Bokov. The article is similar to the program one; however, Facebook readers immediately noticed that the president of the CAP had confused sensibility and sustainability in it.
The Moscow Mayor's Office has identified the first architectural monuments that investors, after restoration, will be able to lease for 49 years for a symbolic fee of 1 ruble per 1 sq. m per year, writes the newspaper "Kommersant". These are two mansions on Nikoloyamskaya Street (the Morozovs' estate and the residential house of the merchant Baulin) and the estate on Podsosensky Lane. The mayor's office gives for the restoration a period of up to five years, during which the rental rate will be commercial. In addition, the Moscow administration, on behalf of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, announced an international competition for the development of the integrated development of the Mnevnikovskaya floodplain, which is part of the Moskvoretsky natural-historical park. It is planned to build no more than 30% of this territory: there will be a museum, an eco-hotel and special places for picnics. It is assumed that the results of the competition will be announced at the end of the summer of 2012, and the improvement work may begin as early as 2013.
And in St. Petersburg, Gazprom has come close to its goal - the construction of a public and business district on the shores of the Gulf of Finland. The Committee for State Use and Protection of Monuments (KGIOP) recognized the Okhtinsky Cape as a "noteworthy place", which means the possibility of building this territory. Nevertheless, it was possible to include a clause in the text of the order that the archaeological objects located there should be taken into account when developing the regimes for keeping this landmark, Oleg Ioannisyan, head of the Hermitage's archaeological architecture sector, told Izvestia. Now it is necessary to establish the boundaries of each of them and enter them in the federal register of archaeological objects - until this is done, construction on Okhta will not begin.
In Yekaterinburg, the reconstruction of the architectural monument "Passage" became the reason for two public actions at once. A rally in support of the reconstruction took place on March 21, and a rally of defenders of the monument is scheduled for March 24. However, it is difficult to say how effective the efforts of the latter will be: as it became known this week, the prosecutor's office did not reveal any violations of the law in the actions of the developer, who had already begun to demolish the building.
