The marathon of the participants was continued by the team of the Moscow Architectural Institute, working on the project in collaboration with the Irish architectural bureau Devereux Architects. The speakers proudly noted that the professors of the Moscow Architectural Institute took part in the development of several master plans for the development of the capital and now intend to use the accumulated colossal experience. When developing a concept for the development of the Moscow agglomeration, experts intend to pay special attention to its integration into the system of similar world urban planning systems. In particular, according to the team, Greater Moscow is quite comparable to the New York metropolitan area, where the city and its suburbs have long been inseparable from each other. At the same time, the architects are sure that there is no need to lock ourselves in the already marked boundaries of the Moscow agglomeration - this will only consolidate the already existing imbalance in relations between the capital and the region. In other words, the Moscow Architectural Institute stands for the equal merging of the two subjects of the federation and for embedding a new city-region in the global (and not just Russian) context.
The united team of urbanists from Canada, Great Britain and the United States led by Urban Design Associates in their speech focused on the need for a radical solution to the transport problems of today's Moscow. The company, which has more than 30 years of experience in the field of urban planning, is confident that neither the expansion of roads, nor even a manifold increase in their number will improve the situation: the wider the carriageway, the more cars, and the situation remains unchanged. That is why Urban Design Associates see the key to its solution in the creation of a polycentric urban planning structure - the center of the capital must be functionally fragmented and spread to different ends of the formed region. Another most important task of this team is the issues of sustainable development and the "green" future of Moscow - in the opinion of Urban Design Associates, today the Russian capital has an enviable potential in the form of climate, landscape, the number of rivers and forests. irrational.
Ostozhenka, one of the most famous Russian architectural bureaus, is working on a concept for the development of the Moscow agglomeration in cooperation with the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the authors of the Greater Paris Ateliers Lion Associes. The head of the bureau, Alexander Skokan, noted that for him this work is a happy opportunity to return to the 70-80s, when he worked at the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan of Moscow and when the city had not yet been considered by architects in isolation from its immediate environment, that is, the region. It is this approach that seems to Skokan the most correct today: in the opinion of the architect, the "prominence" added to the capital today is only the first step towards the necessary reunification of the two subjects of the federation, without which the harmonious and thoughtful development of each of them is impossible. The head of Ostozhenka also said that the joint work with Ateliers Lion Associes on the project began with a detour of the territory of the future new Moscow. Both Russian architects and their French colleagues were equally shaken by the contrast between the way of life within and outside the Moscow Ring Road. On the one hand, many landscapes near Moscow are hopelessly spoiled by ill-conceived construction, on the other, when you return to Moscow, you instantly find yourself in an extremely aggressive and unhealthy environment in all respects. “The question arises: are we doing the right thing when, not having dealt with this, we take up the development of new territories? In my opinion, you cannot leave and abandon this city without putting things in order,”Alexander Skokan is convinced. The architects also see a big problem in the fact that the supposedly gigantic annexed territory turns out to be not so large-scale: in fact, almost all the new "Moscow" lands are owned, and vacant places suitable for implementing projects of a bright future, can be counted on one hand. Even fewer of them will remain if we subtract from their number the existing cattle burial grounds, landfills for solid domestic waste and garbage dumps, which everyone somehow forgot and whose reclamation requires huge investments. The indicator by which Moscow is able to adequately compete with other world capitals is culture. "Ostozhenka" sees in the historical and cultural heritage the tool that should be used to the maximum when developing a strategy for the development of Greater Moscow.
French urbanists L'AUC, in tandem with whom, in particular, Russian architect Boris Bernasconi will work, consider the reurbanization of Moscow to be their main task. By this term they mean a radical rethinking of the existing structure of the city and the territories annexed to it - the main emphasis is planned on free and comfortable spaces for pedestrians. By the way, L'AUC has a huge positive experience in the reorganization of cities such as Paris, Valencia, Copenhagen, Zurich
The famous Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill sees Moscow's main problem as being an "over-planned city." In other words, an extremely rigid urban planning structure prevents the metropolis from realizing different development scenarios. Bofill even compared the Moscow plan with a five-pointed star: "Interesting from the point of view of ideology, but very inconvenient from the point of view of life." According to the architect, who intends to use the experience of Barcelona's development in developing a project for the Moscow metropolitan area, the Russian capital, first of all, needs "capillaries" - a system of transport and pedestrian routes that will connect the main arteries. A huge potential for the development of the Bofillou agglomeration also appears to be the green belt of Moscow, which today is already quite depleted, but still continues to surround the metropolis with saving forests. Also, Moscow, according to the Spaniard, is a city of knowledge, financial activity and creative inspiration, and he intends to develop all these areas on an equally large scale within the framework of expanding its borders.
The results of the two-day seminar were summed up by the Deputy Mayor of Moscow for Urban Development Policy and Construction Marat Khusnullin, Professor of Moscow Architectural Institute Vyacheslav Glazychev and Scientific Director of the Research Institute of Transport and Road Facilities Mikhail Blinkin. The latter, in particular, drew the attention of the audience to the fact that in the preliminary developments of the participants of the competition there is still no unity of understanding of the task set before them: "Some teams play football, others - tennis." However, the expert admits, the point here, most likely, is that the task itself has not yet been formulated clearly enough. Mikhail Blinkin was also supported by Marat Khusnullin: “It is obvious that the participants need more specific information, including of an economic nature. Teams need to better understand the nature and potential of the annexed territories, as well as their real value. Naturally, they are hindered by today's urban planning code, which has huge restrictions. I think that the implementation of the project will require changes to the city code, and we are ready to go for it."
“I really liked the presented presentations, and the variety of views on Moscow and its problems that the participants of the competition suggested,” said Vyacheslav Glazychev. - In particular, the idea of active use of the blue frame of the future agglomeration, the system of rivers, which today, to put it mildly, are used completely mediocre, seemed extremely interesting to me two or three times. But, oddly enough, all the participants missed one circumstance - the actual absence of a full-fledged center in modern Moscow. But the issue of the urban core is infinitely important - without it, it is only an urbanized area, but not a city. I hope the teams will pay more attention to this issue in the future."
