This week, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation unexpectedly returned to discussing the project of a new building for the National Center for Contemporary Art (NCCA), created back in 2009. The project, we recall, was developed by the workshop of Mikhail Khazanov together with the director of the NCCA Mikhail Mindlin. At first, the 16-storey building was supposed to be erected next to the old one, on Zoological Street, then it was decided to move it to the site of the collapsed Basmanny Market. For several years, the project managed to pass the advice of the chief architect, was repeatedly published in the press, and at the recent celebration of the 20th anniversary of the NCCA, as Anna Tolstova writes in Kommersant, they spoke of it as a settled matter. And suddenly, at a meeting of the working group on contemporary art under the Ministry of Culture, he was subjected to such harsh criticism that his further fate is now in question.
The main critics were Anton Belov, director of CSK Garage, and Alexander Mamut, founder of the Strelka Institute, joined by Sergei Kapkov, head of the Moscow Department of Culture. The assessment of the latter is quoted by Kommersant: "The architecture is so-so, the estimate is overstated, the development concept is not spelled out, and in general, it is not clear why the NCCA is already 16 floors." Kapkov also noted that it is illogical to transfer the project to Baumanskaya without any changes. The experts unanimously decided that an open architectural competition is needed here - but, as you know, in our realities "there is no easier way to bury a project than to hold open competitions and public discussions." The 16-story Khazanov tower with its spectacular staircases on the facades has ceased to correspond to the spirit of the times, RIA Novosti quotes the opinion of Alexander Mamut. However, most likely, the underlying reason for the criticism that has erupted against the project is not a desire to avoid an "architectural catastrophe", Anna Tolstova is convinced, but a new joint initiative of Strelka and Garage to create a network of cultural development centers in other cities, replicating the experience of the capital's institutions … In the near future, the Ministry of Culture promised to hold public hearings with the participation of officials, museum experts, architects and journalists.
And here is another project in the capital, about which the newspaper Izvestia recently wrote, the so-called. "Futuropolis", or, more simply, a modern technopark, fully corresponds to the spirit of the times. Everything will be innovative here - from asphalt pavement, solar-powered traffic lights to high-tech offices and showrooms. Everything would be fine, only a strange place was chosen for the implementation of the ambitious plan - it is planned to build it not in the suburbs, but in Zamoskvorechye, in the block between Pyatnitskaya, Malaya Ordynka, Klimentovsky and Chernigovsky lanes. Experts are perplexed: new jobs and exhibition space will further increase the traffic load on the center. The initiators of the project, in turn, assure that the technopark will be rather indicative and not so large-scale, so that it does not seem to contradict the current urban planning strategy.
This week Nezavisimaya Gazeta's journalists also focused on the Museum of Architecture. Shchusev. Daria Kurdyukova and Grigory Zaslavsky studied what changed in him with the appointment of a new leader. Two years ago, Irina Korobyina came to the museum with her big program to create a museum cluster, “with the intention to bring standards of modern museum life to Vozdvizhenka, to create a new type of museum, functioning at the crossroads of various cultural initiatives,” remind the authors of the article. But, according to critics, the swing was stronger than the blow. It seems that exhibitions in the museum are opening, and even the permanent exhibition has been partially made, and the program of shows for young artists, but "boring", "the plot does not add up", the permanent exhibition with Bazhenov's model is small and does not at all reflect the entire wealth of unique funds. “Under Sargsyan, there was no money in MUAR either - and exhibitions were opened one after another, and most importantly, people fell in love with coming here for a lively, dust-free, informal atmosphere …”, the authors of an article from a two-year-old case recall. There is, however, another opinion: as Natalya Samover notes, “at one time David Sargsyan invested his personal funds in order to save this building from destruction. It was a feat, but, of course, the situation when the director, like an Atlantean, holds the museum on his shoulders, is not normal."
However, even Le Corbusier's exhibition, which has been triumphantly held at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts for the second week, has had its own critics. Last time we wrote about several reviews, the authors of which were delighted with the exposition. This week, Kommersant published an article by Nikolai Malinin, in which the critic compared the exhibition to a "supermarket": individually, all its exhibits are interesting, but on the whole they do not at all clarify what exactly Corbusier's genius is. “The feeling of tightness and stuffiness surprisingly accurately underlines the absurdity of pushing Corbusier into the Pushkin Museum. Everything that he fought for - space, breadth, height, cleanliness - is cluttered and crowded,”the critic writes. The content also turned out, according to Malinin, clumsy: the curators wanted to oppose "the quivering poet and artist Charles Edouard Jeanneret (his real name) and Le Corbusier, an uncompromising dogmatist who dreams of wiping out the historical centers of Paris and Moscow from the face of the Earth." The first is "protruding", the second is "muted and hidden", as a result - "a titan, a radical, a subverter turned into a neat bourgeois, who indulges in his spare time with everything that a multifaceted personality relies on."
Afisha and Vedomosti announce the approaching Days of Architecture - this year, several modern buildings and their creators will once again become the heroes of the festival. So, the tour will go to the multi-colored Center for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology together with Andrey Asadov, Totan Kuzembaev invites you to visit his workshop, and Anna Bronovitskaya will talk about modern urbanism on the example of the architecture of the 1920s in the legendary recreation center ZIL. This year, the program of the Days of Architecture includes events for children and a new curious genre - stories of architects about the work of colleagues. For example, architect Boris Stuchebryukov from ABD Architects will talk about the modernist research institute quarter, built at the intersection of Profsoyuznaya Street and Nakhimovsky Prospekt.
Moskomarkhitektura, meanwhile, ordered two new gigantic architectural models of the capital at once - one large, with annexed territories on a scale of 1: 4000 and an area of 278 square meters, the other even larger - 925 square meters, on which Moscow will be shown within the Third Ring, reports Afisha . It is assumed that the new models will make the process of changing urban development more visual and understandable for the townspeople. Recall that so far such a model of the city center exists only in the version of the 1980s. - it is exhibited in the “House on Brestskaya”.
Perhaps it would be useful for St. Petersburg to have a similar layout: new high-rise dominants, like the Lakhta Center, would look much more obvious on it than on 3D visualizations. Meanwhile, around the Gazprom skyscraper again argued: now the debate has moved to the Union of Architects. This week, some of its members, according to the ASN Info portal, sharply opposed the project. According to the architects, the Lakhta Center was made for a completely different location, economically inexpedient, "not St. Petersburg", was not submitted to the competition, was not presented to the City Council. However, the architects are not going to fight it, in contrast to the city protection activists, realizing its great social and economic importance, ASN reports.
The architectural and urban planning dispute unfolded in Pskov as well. According to the Pskov Newsletter, the reason for the indignation of city defenders was the recently built church of the holy martyrs Vera, Nadezhda, Lyubov and Sophia in Kresty - in the regional branch of VOOPIIK they are outraged that federal money is spent on the construction of remakes, while dozens of genuine monuments of church and civil architecture in the city itself and its environs perish from ownerlessness. According to heritage defenders, the Russian Orthodox Church receives "eight times more" budgetary funds for the restoration of churches than the regional authorities for the protection of monuments, and, nevertheless, it still cannot put in order the most valuable monuments - the Church of Sergius of Zaluzhia, the Church of Cosmas and Damiana on Gremyachaya Mountain and others.
And in New Jerusalem near Moscow, members of the VOOPIiK are sounding the alarm about how exactly the ROC is carrying out restoration work. Guided by a project to restore the monastery buildings, workers have recently begun dismantling the tent of the famous Resurrection Cathedral, Radio Liberty reports. The fact is that the current tent on the basis of metal structures was erected by Soviet restorers after the war: they wanted to preserve the surviving walls of the rotunda. The authors of the current project have calculated that this reconstruction has an error of 80 cm, and besides, it does not reproduce the gallery with the choir, which was originally located at the base of the tent. In addition, the new tent is supposed to be made in "genuine material" - wood. The VOOPIiK experts, for their part, are convinced that when replacing the structure, the risk of losing the white stone base of the times of Patriarch Nikon is extremely high.
