This week the topic of heritage preservation has been repeatedly raised in blogs. “Living City”, admitting that it was late with the report, tells what goals were set and what tasks were solved within the framework of the forum “Non-Governmental Organizations for the Protection of World Heritage Sites”, which took place on the eve of the 36th session of UNESCO. The main problem of protecting World Heritage sites in Russia is seen by city rights activists in the following: “In some countries, the prestige and condition of the sites are one and the same, and in some they are different things. For the latter, to maintain prestige means not washing dirty linen in public, keeping silent about threats to the object, pretending that everything is fine with us”. Such diplomacy leads to the fact that activists are forced to look for ways to reach out to UNESCO. The St. Petersburg Forum was the first attempt to establish communication between non-governmental organizations and the Committee.
Efim Freidin publishes an essay on his blog that concludes a series of articles on heritage preservation that he wrote as part of his research at the Strelka Institute. In this work, Freudin examines in some detail several tactics for preserving cultural heritage, outlines the process of working with historical monuments step by step and, of course, analyzes the situation with the financing of such projects. The summary of the article sounds very encouraging: "The implementation of this or any other conservation strategy that takes into account the interaction of the old and the new, … the creation of a fund for funding provides the chance that authentic historical spaces will return to cities."
Speaking about the topic of heritage preservation, unfortunately, we also have to write about losses. This week, the blog Tverskiye Vovody brought another sad news: last weekend in Tver, they calmly got rid of another architectural monument - an old mansion of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. And in Nizhny Novgorod, activists warn about a "impending crime" - there they are about to start demolishing a stone two-story mansion, which was excluded from the register of monuments last year on the basis of a dubious examination.
Bloggers paid a lot of attention to urban planning issues during the week. Alexander Lozhkin posted in his LiveJournal a video interview “Why does the city need a master plan?”, Which he gave in Nizhny Novgorod. He also published an excerpt from an Internet discussion in the RUPA Facebook group, which began with the question of Efim Freidin: “Who do you think is the best chief architect of the city?”, Inspired by the recent resignation of Alexander Kuzmin. The participants in the conversation reflected, in particular, about whether this position is needed at all and, if so, what its functions should be. As a result, Alexander Lozhkin summed up quite harshly: "If everything in your city / region … works in manual mode, the task of executive structures (including the chief architect) is to salute and, sticking out his tongue, run to follow the guidelines." …
The urbanurban blog has published an article on urban transformation budget projects in Chile, Colombia and Peru. Thus, in Santiago, on the initiative of the local municipality, on a section of the river, the Museum of Light Art was created, which is the light projection of paintings and drawings by artists on the opposite side of the river. The blog also posted a study on the topic "Where is the best place to live in Germany", in which the author assesses the quality of living in small and large German cities by a number of parameters: the range of services provided, real estate prices, the development of transport infrastructure, etc.
In addition, in the blog "Living Streets" Vladimir Zlokazov continued a detailed story about his brainchild - an alternative project for the construction of a road junction in Yekaterinburg. Alexander Minakov published a video interview with the representative of the Committee on Transport and Transit Policy of St. Petersburg Alexei Lvov - the conversation was about the implementation of the city's transport strategy. And The-village has posted another graduation project of Strelka alumni "How the city is heading towards housing collapse."
The third article in the series on the avant-garde architecture of Eastern Belarus, dedicated to industrial buildings, has appeared in the blog "Soviet Architecture". Pavel Khorenyan organized a virtual tour of the Museum of Siberian Wooden Architecture in Taltsy, and the blog “Architectural Heritage” organized a virtual tour of Lubyanskaya Square 200 years ago. In addition, the community has published the latest news from the fields of restoration of the forest tower in Astashovo.
Arkhnadzor posted on the blog a video presentation of the unique "House with a Lion" conducted by the founder of the museum, Yulia Terekhova, who, by the way, recently won a grant from the "Changing Museum in a Changing World" competition. By the way, now there is a great opportunity to visit the House - for the coming weekend, the organizers invite everyone who is thirsty and not indifferent to visit.
