On Saturday, July 7, the Pro Arte Foundation hosted the third 'Arch-Meeting' dedicated to the 'Sky-Line' theme. It was attended by young talents from Yekaterinburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Minsk, Omsk, Vitebsk, Cheboksary, Arzamas and many other cities in Russia and the CIS. The event brought together about a hundred architects, art historians, developers and specialists of other professions who are not indifferent to the problems of the architecture of the future. The projects of Kirill Pernatkin and Vyacheslav Kochkin from Nizhny Novgorod were presented to their attention; young architects of the ALKUTA firm from Yekaterinburg: Natalia Yalandina, Alexander Demyanov, Stepan Konyaev, Alexander Serkov, Ksenia Charushnikova. The team from Minsk: Anastasia Anufrieva, Victoria Vasilevskaya, Nikita Domrachev, Olga Kavalevskaya, Vladimir Matyushonok and Alexey Polishchuk spoke about the large international festival "Leonardo" in Belarus.
Petersburg architect Sergei Bukin showed his colleagues his project "Summer in New Holland", dedicated to the reorganization of the interior space of the famous island. The project has recently been implemented, and, according to Sergey, the main events of New Holland will continue to take place in the space of sea containers, but the center of the island's life will now move to the Market Square to the forge building, from where a wonderful view of the pond opens. It will house outdoor cafés and a concert venue, while outdoor enthusiasts will find table tennis and bicycle space.
Another St. Petersburg architect, Ilya Yusupov, spoke about the competition of ideas for construction in the Petersburg center “Petersburg of the Future”, of which he is the organizer and inspiration. The competition is planned to be held this fall, and young architects are to take part in it. The message of Muscovites Vlad Kunin and Oleg Raspopov was dedicated to the educational program “School. The foundation of the architecture of the future”, which took place in St. Petersburg in early July. One of the School's lecturers, Mikhail Kakushkin, gave a short report on the topic “Horizons”.
The main topic of the past 'Arch-meeting', 'sky-line', is, as you know, very important for St. Petersburg: Dmitry Likhachev spoke about its importance for the city. Subsequently, not so long ago, the "skyline" of the northern capital became the subject of many controversies, especially those related to the canceled, albeit not completely, project of the Gazprom tower. The skyline in our understanding is the silhouette of the city: from the side of the bay, from embankments and high-altitude points at the entrance to the city, such as Pulkovo Heights.
The organizers of the Arch-meeting considered it important to find out the opinion of young architects about whether, from their point of view, the existing skyline should be preserved or it is permissible to transform it with new buildings. Each of the meeting participants was asked a question: is it necessary to develop or, conversely, leave the skyline of St. Petersburg unchanged? The result was the following: the 'sky line' will and should change, but without negatively affecting the historical center of the city.
Then all the participants, as well as the audience, were offered to express their position regarding the "skyline" of St. Petersburg graphically. The organizers drew four embankments by hand in advance. Everyone could depict their vision of the city silhouette on a separate section of the embankment. After that, the sketches were combined into a general panorama - and a rather unusual 'sky line' was obtained. The results of this clause will be posted on the pages of the 'Arch-Meeting' group (in particular, in
Facebook), as well as published in the form of a brochure, which is planned to be printed for the next meeting.
On the day of the meeting, July 7, the weather was excellent in St. Petersburg, and the participants continued their communication in the open air. Thanks to Vladimir Dikarev from the 'Milliken' company that sponsored the meeting, everyone could go by minibuses to the New Holland Island, get acquainted with the buffet table and the architecture. Then, also spontaneously, a group of people wishing to ride bicycles in the night Petersburg arose. As a result, the meeting, which began at 11:30 am on Saturday, ended at 6:00 am the next day, on Sunday, with another buffet table and tennis tournament on the courts of Krestovsky Island.
The next 'Arch-Meeting' is scheduled to take place at the end of the year with the participation of major architects and young teams, which should serve to intensify intergenerational dialogue. The organizers promise to take into account the positive experience of joint recreation after the presentations and to think over its program in advance.
