The first and certainly the most interesting was a fresh version of the project of the NCCA Museum of Contemporary Art, now placed instead of a plot on Zoological Street next to Polenov's house, which caused a lot of controversy a few years ago (see, for example, here) - on the site of the Basmanny market that collapsed in 2006 (in Soviet times known as Baumansky, on Baumanskaya street). It will be far from the main building of the NCCA (in the first version, the museum was going to be built nearby), but nothing will close the museum tower on Baumanskaya, and besides, there is a fairly high-rise neighbor nearby, so the new building will not intrude too radically into the urban fabric.
The building is planned to be 16-storey; on the roof of the 3-storey stylobate, a city park will be arranged, which will descend to the ground as a gentle stepped amphitheater. The stylobate will house exhibition halls with temporary storage facilities. There is also a performing arts hall for 532 seats, a cinema-video hall for 144 seats and a press center for 90 seats with a three-level foyer. The entrance area for visitors is located on the 2nd floor, here are information counters, ticket offices, a book and souvenir shop on the topic of contemporary art. The museum itself will occupy from the 4th to the 16th floor, excluding the technical 15th. The main areas on these floors are reserved for the permanent exhibition halls of the museum. There are also halls for organizing temporary exhibitions, storage facilities, laboratories, creative workshops. On the -1 and -2 floors of the center, it is planned to place parking lots for visitors to the center and residents of nearby houses.
The architects hope that the center of contemporary art will become a kind of "anchor", a symbol of this district of Moscow. The area is called "German settlement", foreigners, Catholics and Protestants settled here. A symbolic link with the past should be provided by the Goethe center, for which the project has a whitewashed triangular body in the depths of the site.
According to one of the project referents, architect E. A. Lyubimov (State Unitary Enterprise "GlavAPU"), the architecture of the building is quite eccentric, which, however, is justified by the idea of contemporary art. It would be difficult to fit it into the site initially selected for the project - it would be clearly cramped for the Museum of Contemporary Art on Krasnaya Presnya, but the building looks quite organic on Baumanskaya.
As a result, the project attracted positive feedback and reviews from the members of the Architectural Council, but it was not without critical remarks: the project turned out to be very energy-consuming and therefore requires improvement. The architects were recommended to make the space more permeable and open from all sides (thus reflecting its typology of a public building), the council also invited the authors to think about landscaping not only the stylobate, but also the rest of the floors. The meeting was attended (which usually does not happen), Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev, who supported the project and thanked the architects for their interest in contemporary culture.
The second project that was discussed at the architectural council was the project of a 5-star hotel on Prechistenskaya embankment, developed by the workshop of Sergei Tkachenko. The site on which the construction of a hotel managed by the "Hilton" chain is planned is located within the boundaries of the Reserve Zone No. 1 ("The Moscow Kremlin Ensemble") next to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, at the intersection of Prechistenskaya embankment and Vsesvyatsky lane. Once there was a 17th century Church of the Praise of the Virgin, which was demolished in preparation for the construction of the Palace of Soviets. However, as it turned out during the discussion of the project, no archaeological examination of this site was done, which is a significant drawback in the design of any objects in such historical zones of Moscow. And even despite the fact that the project has retained the classical style, which, according to the referent of the project Mikhail Filippov, is in harmony with the surrounding buildings in the classical style, and the height characteristics are observed, also linked to the level of the surrounding buildings (no more than 19.1 m in height), advice considered that this project requires serious revision and, to some extent, even rethinking in some constructive moments. The experts of the architectural council were especially disappointed by the hotel's closed atrium.
However, this project, with competent revision, still has a chance for implementation, which, probably, cannot be said about the third project, which was discussed at the council.
The project for the reconstruction of the main building of the Lukoil company on Sretensky Boulevard was the least fortunate this time. Initially, this monumental structure was built by the architect Felix Novikov in the 70s-80s of the last century. Architects from the "AG" company "Octagon" proposed to build on domed endings on three towers. Which, according to the architects, will make the appearance of the building more expressive and complete. Three hollow domes crowned the roofs of the towers; the client approved the project, but the members of the architectural council did not find it possible to approve it. First of all, according to the conviction of the council's experts, the original style of the building does not fit in any way with the “domes”. Perhaps - it sounded at the council - the flying forms of Zaha Hadid, which softened the "swan neck" of the central tower, would be suitable here. In addition, the domes are completely non-functional, their only role is to serve as an object for night illumination. The project was rejected and sent back for revision.
We asked the author of the initial project, architect Felix Novikov, what he thinks about the next reconstruction of the building: “What I wanted to build was crippled beyond recognition at first by Luzhkov, who with the words“Moscow brightens”ordered to paint the facade panels with the exposed texture of red granite rubble and they were plastered. Then Dmitry Solopov added the entrance portals to the cantilevered tower and added to the corners of the two buildings. He also decorated the tower with an Islamic "garnet" motif, "leaned" on the rear side of the building on the site of the courtyard lowered by two floors and, in addition, changed the building of the conference hall outside and inside, which is in the background. All this monstrous rudeness forced me to renounce the authorship and my letter of renunciation was published in the magazine "Project Russia" №11 for 1998. Since then, the fate of this object does not interest me. However, I would like to note that if it had been completed according to my plans, the current superstructure would have caused me much more pain."
