The results of the competition for the development of the Moscow agglomeration were announced on September 5. The works were evaluated in three nominations: the development of the agglomeration, Moscow and the creation of a government center. According to the jury, the French team Antoine Grumbach et Associes won the first two, and the American team Urban design associates proposed the best concept for the creation of the federal center. The French drew attention to the transport problems of "big Moscow", they proposed to build a metro, a high-speed tram in the new territories, to create a new railway ring that would connect the airports with four new railway stations near Moscow. The Americans are proposing to build an underground railway station on the annexed territories, next to which the Federal, financial and logistics centers, as well as a university and a hospital could be located. Meanwhile, not everyone agrees with the results of the competition. Thus, a source in the Moskomarkhitektura told the Izvestia newspaper that the opinion of an international jury, which consisted of seven specialists, was presented to the public, but the opinion of the expert community, consisting of 40 experts, was not made public. “The game here is very clear: the Russian part of the jury was virtually absent, with the exception of Khusnullin. The jury was foreign, the outcome was predetermined,”the source said. At the same time, the results of the two commissions completely diverge: by the decision of the expert council, the first place was taken by the workshop of Andrey Chernikhov, the second - by Ostozhenka, the Grumbach bureau and the UDA, the third - by Studio Associato Secchi-Vigano. In any case, the Moscow mayor's office is not going to implement the ideas of the architects who won the competition, they will only be "taken into account" when adjusting the general plan of Moscow.
This week the results of another competition were announced - for the interior design of the Central Children's Store, the former Children's World. The winner of the creative competition was the Teremok project of Elizaveta Fakirova and Ekaterina Pryima, RIA Novosti reports. They proposed creating an accessible space for all children, including those with disabilities, by dividing it into different zones. They divided the store into modules, one of which should become a music hall for visually impaired children, the other - a hall for tactile games. In the center of the store, according to their project, a multifunctional stage should appear. The second and third places were shared by four teams, who offered to install a Ferris wheel, a huge interactive tree and a twisted spiral made of multicolored pipes. At the announcement of the results, the organizers of the competition announced that perhaps all these projects will be implemented in Detsky Mir one by one, and such contests will be held a couple of times a year.
And the implementation of the project of the Museum of the National Center for Contemporary Art has been suspended. The working group of the public council under the Ministry of Culture called for a revision of the project of the new complex, the newspaper Kommersant writes. Experts considered it unacceptable to create a huge museum complex without an open competition. They believe that the project is too expensive (5 billion rubles were allocated for construction), does not correspond to modern ideas about architecture, and despite the fact that it was moved to a new location (on Baumanskaya Street), it has not changed at all. The meeting noted the lack of elaboration of the concept of the further existence of the NCCA in the new building. The project belongs to architects Anton Nagavitsyn and Mikhail Khazanov, it provides for the construction of a stylobate and a vertical tower. Director of the NCCA Mikhail Mindlin told Gazeta. Ru that the project was twice considered at an expanded meeting of the Council for Architecture at the Moscow City Hall and twice received approval. In addition, he was highly praised by Zaha Hadid, Yannis Kounellis and Robert Storr.
The Perm authorities decided to revise the project for the reconstruction of the square in front of the academic theater due to its high cost. In particular, the wooden sculpture "The Wall" by the architect Yevgeny Ass, which is an information and stage complex, will disappear from the project. Yevgeny Ass, in turn, said that he was categorically against moving it to another place and considers it unethical that the discussion of a new location for the "Wall" began without the participation of the authors. “This project was conceived not just as some kind of abstract wall that can be placed anywhere. This wall is conceptually, spatially and sculpturally connected with this place and with this theater,”says the architect. Meanwhile, the "Wall" has already been made. Its length is 100 meters, and its height is from 9 to 12 meters.
Architectural critic Grigory Revzin discusses Russian expositions at international exhibitions and the sale of ideals in the pages of the Kommersant newspaper. He writes about the claims made against the Russian Skolkovo pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The first concerns the science city itself as a senseless undertaking that takes money away from science, the second concerns the high cost of the exposition. The critic quotes the words of the architect Sergei Skuratov: “We are, as always, away from the global trend. While the world is moving towards restraint and simplicity, we do incredibly expensive exhibits with technological gadgets. It's wildly embarrassing and provincial. " Revzin associates the creation of expensive expositions with the sale of ideals: “We sell ideals constantly and on a grand scale. And in this case, it seems natural to us, as it were, to return them a part of the price we received for them. How to create some added value for them in the hope that then they, perhaps, will be more convincing."
Moskovsky Komsomolets writes that the reconstruction of Komsomolsky Prospekt does not provide for an increase in the number of highway lanes. The chief engineer of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan, Mikhail Krestmein, told the newspaper about this. The work will create pockets for public transport, parking and three underground pedestrian crossings. Meanwhile, activists of the “Angry Citizens” movement emphasize that residents are protesting not against the expansion of the road, but in general against any work on Komsomolsky Prospekt. They believe that parking pockets will be built in place of lawns, and the creation of crossings will entail the felling of trees. The reconstruction of the avenue is opposed not only by activists and residents of Khamovniki, but also by the local authorities, who believe that the project needs improvement.
“There is no need to encourage the use of cars. We need to encourage people to switch to public transport. To make people want to walk, and for this it is necessary to organize good footpaths, paths for children,”says American specialist in the design of transport systems Vukan Vuchik. He believes that in Moscow it is necessary to limit the number of parking lots and raise the price for them, create a good public transit, develop a network of trams and trolley buses. In particular, he proposes to lay a tram route on Tverskaya Street.
In St. Petersburg, public hearings were held on the project for the planning of the territory on which it is planned to build the 465-meter skyscraper "Lakhta Center", according to "St. Petersburg Vedomosti". Opponents of its construction said that the construction of transport and engineering infrastructure would cost the city too much, that the creation of such a pretentious structure was inappropriate against the background of unresolved social problems, and that work was planned to begin in a geological risk zone. The height of the skyscraper still raises many questions. In addition, there were demands to improve the villages adjacent to the Lakhta Center, as well as the coast of the Gulf of Finland.
The Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg sent a request to the governor of the city, Georgy Poltavchenko, with a request to investigate the reasons for the demolition of Rogov's house on Zagorodny Prospekt. And members of the St. Petersburg branch of VOOPIK insist on conducting a thorough and impartial official investigation, designed to identify all persons involved in the demolition and punish those responsible. They called the demolition of the house a pre-planned action carried out by the owner with the connivance and complicity of the authorities. VOOPIK proposes to withdraw from the owner (Vector LLC) the land plot on which the house was located, and bring him to responsibility for deliberately bringing the cultural heritage site to an emergency state, and restore Rogov's house in exact accordance with its previous appearance.
On September 4, the Triumphal Arch was opened in Moscow to mark the bicentennial of the Battle of Borodino. An exhibition has been prepared for this event at the Shchusev Museum of Architecture - “Triumph of the Arch. History of the Arc de Triomphe by architect Osip Bove in documents and photographs”. The exposition includes design materials, measurements, unique photographs and plaster copies of decorative fragments from the museum's collection, as well as original fragments of the Arc de Triomphe.
And in the "Gallery Belyaevo" opened the exhibition "Mosaic of the urban environment", according to the TV channel "Culture". The exhibition demonstrates the synthesis of architecture and mosaics. It features works by authors from Russia, Italy, Greece, Poland and Japan. On behalf of Russia, architects Sergei Tchoban, Yuri Grigoryan, Yuri Avvakumov, Ilya Utkin and many others are participating in the exhibition.
