The chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, who has been in charge of the Moscow Architecture Committee since 1996, is retiring. This became known on Thursday. His first deputy, Oleg Rybin, has been appointed acting chief architect. Architects call Kuzmin a professional in his field, and supporters of heritage preservation admit that although the city suffered many losses under him, this is not entirely his fault. Natalya Samover, coordinator of the Arkhnadzor social movement, says: “Kuzmin is certainly a competent specialist … He was not a monster or an evil genius of the city. I believe that he had good will, he was just an official of the Moscow mayor's office. " She notes that under Kuzmin, the transport situation in the city deteriorated sharply, and connects this with urban planning errors. Samover considers the construction of the Moscow City business center to be a mistake of the former chief architect of the city. Architectural critic Grigory Revzin emphasizes that under Kuzmin, "fashionable neo-modernists" came to Moscow design, to which he refers to Andrei Bokov, Yuri Grigoryan, Alexander Asadov and other architects. The critic also credits the former chief architect with an attempt to introduce a system of competitions and hold competitions for the Government Square and City. RIA Novosti publishes ten of the most significant, according to the agency, accomplishments of Kuzmin. Among them: the development of the General Plan of Moscow until 2025, the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the demolition of the hotels "Russia", "Moscow" and "Intourist", restoration of the complex in Tsaritsyno, reconstruction of the Moscow Ring Road and others.
The newspaper "Moscow News" writes about the lease of the famous "house with caryatids" in Pechatnikov Lane. The realtor, who rented the house, is ready to restore it in just a year, but he is afraid that in the course of the work he will have to face difficulties - the house is in the middle of a destroyed block where new buildings will be erected. The lease price was just over 10 million rubles per year, which is an order of magnitude higher than the original price of the lot - 1 million rubles. Preferential rent (1 ruble per 1 sq. Meter) will come into effect after the restoration of the house.
The Village magazine publishes the concept of the Muzeon reconstruction, developed by the architect Eugene Ass. He proposes to build a single route that will connect all parts of the park, and in the future will be extended to Krasny Oktyabr. The route will be formed by a wooden decking road that will pass through the central part of the park. All monuments will be grouped along it. There will also be other areas for temporary exhibitions, concerts, lectures and meetings. A new pavilion "Infobox" should appear in front of the building of the Central House of Artists, where it will be possible to get information about all the events in the "Muzeon", as well as order a tour or buy souvenirs.
This week, almost all media summarize the results of the 36th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee held in St. Petersburg. For Petersburgers, the main event took place at the very beginning of the session, when it was decided not to consider the issues of the city on the Neva. Alexander Margolis, chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of VOOPIIK, believes that the "effective sabotage campaign" of the St. Petersburg issue is linked to plans for the reconstruction of the historical center of St. Petersburg. He says that, apparently, this program was created at a very high level and agreed in advance. The Kommersant newspaper writes that traditionally the World Heritage Committee satisfied the host country's requests to expand the list of its sites protected by UNESCO. But this time the list of UNESCO sites has not increased. Russia proposed recognizing the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was reconstructed at the end of the 20th century, as well as the railway bridge across the Yenisei, which was recently demolished, as world heritage. And the Russian authorities wanted to include the Kremlins of Pskov, Uglich and Astrakhan in the new nomination "Kremlin of Russia", contrary to the opinion of experts. Experts warned that the Uglich Kremlin was almost completely burned down in the 17th century, the Astrakhan Kremlin was damaged by remakes, and the state of Pskov did not meet the UNESCO criteria. Participants in the session rejected Russia's application. Another result of the session's work can be considered that the experts did not approve the construction of the Lakhta Center skyscraper. The fact that experts do not see any threat to the St. Petersburg heritage in the skyscraper was disseminated by some media outlets. In fact, these words do not belong to the experts of the committee, but to the permanent representative of Russia to UNESCO, Eleonora Mitrofanova. And the world committee, even before the start of the session, asked St. Petersburg to assess the impact of the facility not only on the historical center of the city, but also on the palace in Peterhof and Kronstadt.
Clementine Cecil, an active defender of Russian heritage, who recently became director of SAVE Europe's Heritage, told Russia Today about the problem of preserving heritage (the Russian text of the interview was published in the blog of AD magazine). According to her, about 150 historical buildings have been demolished in St. Petersburg over the past 12 years. One of the main problems of the city, Clementine Cecil considers the distortion of the historical skyline of the city. This issue has become especially acute in the last decade, when a number of buildings have appeared that grossly violate the harmony of the sky, buildings and the Neva River, Cecil emphasizes. Petersburg city defenders are also counting losses. They note that if under Valentin Matvienko about 21 houses were demolished a year, then during the nine months of Governor Georgy Poltavchenko's rule, St. Petersburg lost 16 historical buildings. That is, despite the change of power, the pace of demolition does not subside, the defenders of the heritage say.
Another building that St. Petersburg may lose is the Rogov House. It was removed from the list of identified cultural heritage sites. The corresponding order was issued by the Committee for the Protection of Monuments (KGIOP) on the basis of a new examination of the house carried out by ARS LLC, the Izvestia newspaper reports. The Research Institute "Spetsproektrestavratsiya" under the leadership of the Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage Mikhail Milchik conducted an alternative examination of the house, in which it refuted the arguments of ARS LLC and emphasized the need to include the object in the list of cultural heritage sites. Mikhail Milchik says that Rogov's house and the neighboring Delvig's house preserve the ensemble of Vladimirskaya Square, on which the Church of the Vladimir Mother of God is located. The house of the merchant Rogov was built in 1833; it is one of the few surviving examples of buildings in St. Petersburg of the Pushkin era. Experts have already twice recognized its historical value and twice doomed it to demolition, handed it over to investors who were only destroying the building.
Last weekend, Nikolai Polissky presented his new project in the vicinity of the village of Nikola-Lenivets, Kaluga Region, the largest of all wooden installations “Universal Mind” he has ever created. The installation, which occupies about a hectare, consists of a huge openwork "monument to the brain" and a double colonnade of missiles leading to it. Polissky is already hatching the idea of creating a new installation: by next May in Nikola-Lenivets, he plans to reproduce a piece of the Georges Pompidou Center for the Arts, RIA Novosti reports. And the "Universal Reason" may "move" to Sochi.
Kultura TV channel tells about the exhibition of the architect, photographer and musician Vladimir Antoshchenkov “Petersburg. Urban Classic”, which takes place in the parallel program of the Moscow International Biennale for Young Art at the Center for Photography named after. brothers Lumiere. The Expert magazine writes about the monograph written by Grigory Revzin and dedicated to the modern classic architect Mikhail Filippov. And "Novaya Gazeta" devoted an article to the published collection "Verbal Constructions. 35 great architects of the world ". It includes conversations between Vladimir Paperny, Grigory Revzin, Alexei Tarkhanov and famous architects such as Oscar Niemeyer, Santiago Calatrava, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Daniel Libeskind and others. Normal 0 false false false RU X-NONE X-NONE
