The famous house of the architect Melnikov in Krivoarbatsky lane is again tested by circumstances. The Arhnadzor blog reports that due to the destruction of the heating main, the unique monument was left without heat for the winter. Litigations between his heirs have prevented the start of restoration for many years, so no one is going to repair the current "ownerless" pipe at the state expense. Bloggers are already ready to collect the necessary 100 thousand rubles and help the architect's granddaughter Ekaterina Karinskaya, who lives in the house, to save the house and its exhibits from dampness and fungus. However, a number of experts believe that it is not normal to save a world-class monument by volunteers. As Natalya Dushkina notes in the Opinion.ru blog, it is probably really easier to raise money, but the fate of the house, according to her, needs to be decided systematically. On the contrary, Alexander Arkhangelsky and Natalya Samover in the same blog believe that civil society has no choice but to raise a scandal again and "lie down on the embrasure." And Anna Bronovitskaya is sure that it is time to finally get out of the vicious circle of lawsuits and yield to Ekaterina Karinskaya, agreeing to organize a "double" museum - Konstantin and Viktor Melnikov. Only in this case, the heiress is ready to give her share to the state.
New losses of the architectural appearance, meanwhile, were revealed in the metro: as Artemy Lebedev writes in his blog, historical chandeliers have disappeared from the Teatralnaya station. The "Stalinist" lamps swinging from the wind of the arriving train were replaced with modern energy-saving lamps. As the user vik_kis, Teatralnaya, (formerly Sverdlov Square, built in 1938), notes in the comments, even the fact that the station is registered in the register of heritage sites as many as three times did not help - the ground lobby and the platform hall are separate monuments. However, why be surprised, continues vik_kis, “during the“reconstruction”of boulevards on Tverskoy alone, almost a hundred historical lanterns were stolen, replaced by something unknown, and here, in full view of everyone,“they are in charge!”
An interesting post about Copenhagen has appeared on the a4archnews.com blog, where, unlike Moscow, they know how to properly embed modern space into the historical fabric of the city. The Danish bureau BIG has designed a new urban park called Superklin, as if “ruthlessly hammered” into the old buildings. However, if it descends from heaven to earth, the author of the post notes, the park turns out to be a much more complex and well-thought-out "intervention" in the conservative environment. This project, by the way, is interesting not only for its geometry, but also for the concept of multiculturalism - for example, it mixes elements of small architectural forms from all over the world. In Russia, however, many more years will pass, the author believes, before such an approach to design will replace the norms of fifty years ago.
And in support of these words, let us cite the discussion around the recently appeared in the network of the project of the park on the site of the demolished hotel "Russia". The concept called "White Stone Square", as the site of the same name indicates, was created by Vladimir Abramov in cooperation with the "Argumenty Nedeli" holding. By the way, this project is called a park rather conditionally: there is practically no greenery there. But there is a pseudo-classical square with a round fountain and wide promenades, a modern pier, numerous cafes and restaurants under beach umbrellas, and even an imitation of the Kremlin towers. Readers of the Architects and Architecture group on VKontakte called the project an unsuccessful freshman clause. An attempt neither to maintain the architecture in the style of the Kremlin, nor to make it commensurate with a person failed here: “This is not the main square of the country, but so much paving, as if they were going to hold marches there,” notes Polina Tretyakova. Some users even suspected information "stuffing" behind the project in order to probe public opinion on the eve of the competition.
Meanwhile, competitions are by no means a panacea for bad projects, says architect Mikhail Belov. The reason for the discussion on the architect's Facebook page was a new competition for the Polytechnic Museum in the Moscow State University area, which is part of a large program for the reconstruction of the old museum building on Lubyanka. Mikhail Belov is outraged that nominally declaring the competition open, its organizers tried to "tightly" close the entrance to Russian participants, setting the condition for the presence of a completed museum project in the portfolio, while only a few of the Russian architects can boast of such projects. “Either once again they want to get a“stale remnant”of Zaha Hadid, which they failed to attach in Vilnius or Baku, or stuck into the ground at an angle“Hyper-piece of cheese”of“Rem Omnipresent”, which was not useful in the Emirates or Skolkovo.” In the meantime, our compatriots are ready for much less money or even free of charge to design no worse than foreigners, - Mikhail Belov is sure, - not to mention the students of the Moscow Architectural Institute, among whom a fruitful competition could be held. Nothing will come of it - Grigory Revzin answers, because, firstly, there are hardly any idealists who are ready to “paint for free,” while Zaha Hadid will do it for 100 thousand euros. And even more so, the customer is unlikely to agree to this, the critic is convinced, because customers in Russia simply do not respect Russian architects. To this we can add that even the site dedicated to the competition starts with a page in English.
Another "Russia" - this time not a hotel, but a cinema - became the topic of a new article by Denis Romodin in the blog "My Moscow". The author describes the history of the cinema from the post-war projects of Georgy Golts, who designed the Mossovet Theater on this site. In the project of the authors of the current building, Yuri Sheverdyaev and Dmitry Solopov, Denis Romodin finds something in common with the Dorkhimzavod club of Konstantin Melnikov: a glazed foyer and a vestibule under the upper tiers of the auditorium. And the famous bridge-stairs connecting the cinema with the square was subsequently replicated in typical projects of cinemas throughout the Union, the author writes.
In the "Architecture of the Future" group on VKontakte, network users discussed an interesting project of a parametric hotel created by community members. Reminiscent of a sponge, the object hangs directly above a city street, clinging to two neighboring houses and, as the authors note, without claiming free territory on earth. The hotel-"parasite" the audience met quite warmly. Nikolay Parfilov writes that such buildings will be in demand when the land for housing rises sharply in price. But Alexander Tules is sure that for “parasites” the parametric form is completely inappropriate: from the point of view of urban planning, such complex forms cannot be ordinary buildings; their difficulty makes them unique, which is more suitable for individual public buildings like Calatrava, Libeskind, Gehry or Hadid.
However, none of the architects is immune from mistakes, you just need to focus on the search, and not on the result, - advises the Englishwoman Linda Bennett, whose 10 tips for architects in Russian translation was published by the site archipeople.ru. In order to become a successful architect, she recommends improving mainly the skills of presenting ideas and the ability to persuade, as, for example, BIG bureau chief Bjarke Ingels does. It is also a good idea to have long-term friends as partners, as in Asymptote or Herzog & de Meuron.
In an unusual role, the architects were introduced by the blogger n_go, who published a post in the ru_architect community about the fight against crime by means of urban planning. The special science of environmental criminology asserts that high number of storeys and, accordingly, high population density are proportional to the increase in the number of crimes in entrances and courtyards. In this logic, a typical Soviet microdistrict could become a breeding ground for crime, but for some reason the fate of Pruit-Igou did not repeat. The point is, writes n_go, that "committing crimes when someone's eyes are looking at you is much more difficult." It was the people's control and the eternal grandmothers on the bench at the entrances that helped maintain order. In the book of the architect A. V. Krasheninnikov's "Residential Quarters" quoted by n_go, this idea has received a scientific basis: the microdistrict is divided into zones controlled by different groups of people - walking in the yard, going in transit to their area or from home to a store. In general, in order to secure the next dark area, you can simply equip a dog walking area there instead of expensive video cameras.
