On December 11 and 12, the XX International Zodchestvo 2012 Festival was held in Moscow. According to "Culture", the main theme of the festival was the question "What is Russia doing new for itself?" For the first time, each participating region was assigned a separate pavilion, and the curator Andrei Chernikhov remarked: “We suggested that the regions do not show everything they have done in a year, and not try to report back to the country in the Manezh. And to show the most interesting and new that the region realizes for itself."
On the pages of Kommersant, Grigory Revzin speaks rather critically about the festival: “This is not the Zodchestvo festival as we have known it for 15 years, but rather a competition-review of projects and buildings of the USSR State Construction Committee. Fantasies of architects that will not be embodied in anything … ". Nevertheless, the conclusion of the article is more optimistic: “I’m thinking, maybe it seems to us now that somehow we have architecture … well, like everything else. And in 30 years a young curator will appear, take an interest and we will admire - what a country it was!"
Note that the festival also hosted the Crystal Daedalus award ceremony and the Vladimir Tatlin award ceremony. According to Archi.ru, the first award was given to the building of the Palace of Schoolchildren's Creativity in Astana, designed by Studio 44. The second is the architectural concept of the Russian Center for Science and Culture in Kabul by the A. Len architectural and design bureau.
An equally important event within the framework of Zodchestvo was the discussion of the fate of the crumbling Melnikov House. According to Izvestia, at the round table, the director of the Museum. Shchuseva Irina Korobyina announced the start of a charitable consulting competition for the concept of a state museum in the House. According to RIA Novosti, projects must be submitted by March 1, 2013. Nevertheless, the main stumbling block so far is not the lack of a concept for the development of the Melnikov House or funds from the state for its restoration, but a long-term conflict over property rights between the heirs of the great architect.
This week the focus of the press has once again turned out to be the development of Moscow. Novaya Gazeta published an interview with Sergei Kuznetsov. In the conversation, the chief architect named one of the most acute, in his opinion, problems of the capital - the regular "forced displacement of a large number of people who travel from the outskirts to the center and back every day." And he immediately said that her solution was “in demotivating people to move. That is, we need to make them enjoy living, having fun and working at the closest possible distance. " The conversation also touched upon the problems of the lack of comfortable public spaces, the development of industrial zones, and the preservation of the historical center of the capital. We also talked about the depressing quality of the architecture of the buildings under construction in the city. This, according to Sergei Kuznetsov, is due to the fact that “we have very few qualified architects and builders”, but “we have no other choice but to learn how to build well by ourselves”.
Continuing the theme - RBC daily informs about the upcoming "big construction" in the center of Moscow: by the end of the year new rules for land use and development of the Central Administrative District will be adopted. It is no secret, the newspaper writes, that the chief architect considers it necessary to increase the density of housing and the road network in the central district: "to build up many places correctly, to compact the urban structure." As a result of adjusting the rules, the building density of the Tverskoy District will increase by 26.5%. Experts interviewed by the Kommersant newspaper are wary of the city authorities' initiative. The managing partner of the investment group Sesegar believes that the center may be threatened by infill development "and here it will be necessary for the city to work out how they will force, interest the owners in the fact that it is logical to build housing or mixed-use complexes." Arkhnadzor, in turn, fears the demolition of architectural monuments: “To compact the city center by 30% is either a utopian or vandal task. Every large residential settlement of the epoch of constructivism is under threat,”said coordinator of the movement Rustam Rakhmatullin.
Kommersant also writes about the problems of implementing the Big Moscow project. According to the publication, the deputy director of the State Unitary Enterprise NIIPI of the General Plan of Moscow, Alexander Kolontai, announced the need to create a coordinating council for the agglomeration, which will include representatives of the mayor's office, the Moscow region authorities, the Russian government and the presidential administration. Only such advice, in his opinion, will be able to manage the project and ensure its implementation.
Big City this week published an interview with Danish urbanist Jan Gale, who was commissioned by the Moscow Mayor's Office to study public spaces and traffic flows in the city center. The conversation, in particular, was about how difficult it is to carry out such work and how the data will be analyzed. Ian Gale also spoke about whether it is necessary to introduce paid parking and transfer officials to public transport.
In another interview with the publication, the creator of the Urbanurban blog, Yegor Korobeinikov, spoke with Tim Gill, a specialist in children's urbanism from the UK, about how to make the city friendly for children. One of the main recipes is the manifestation of activity by the residents themselves, as well as the encouragement of such initiatives by the authorities. The specialist also noted that “in the longer term, we need to think about how to make the city more comfortable, how to create a sense of security on the street. When you look at Berlin or Copenhagen, it is immediately clear that the children feel good there - not because they did something special there, but because everyone is good there."
In addition, Big City offers its readers an interview with Mikhail Khazanov. The architect, in particular, shared his opinion on the status of the profession and the state of architecture in Russia: “Unfortunately, architects are not respected here. Compared to the same 1970s, the status of the profession has fallen dramatically. Generally speaking, the situation with architecture in our country today is simply awful. " Solution of the problem Mikhail Khazanov voiced the following: “The society must understand that the main value is professionalism. And then our cities, settlements and villages will have a chance to break out of the depression."
Project Baltia magazine publishes an interview with the heads of the Atrium bureau, Anton Nadtochim and Vera Butko, which they gave in October in St. Petersburg, ahead of their lecture on dynamics in architecture. The conversation was devoted to the activities of the workshop: its ideology, style of work, projects and customers.
This week there was news about the upcoming reconstruction of the Luzhniki stadium. According to the Business FM portal, the Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko said that the question of demolishing the Luzhniki stadium has been practically resolved, and the concept of a new modern arena is close to being approved.
And in conclusion, we will touch upon the publications of this week dedicated to the topic of heritage preservation. Arkhnadzor continues to fight for the Volkonskys' House, in which they plan to build on an additional floor. Having collected more than three thousand signatures under a letter to the president, city rights activists also sent an appeal to the prosecutor's office with a request to stop the illegal reconstruction. Meanwhile, according to Novaya Gazeta, the building has already been surrounded by scaffolding, and work is about to begin. Another object of close attention of "Arkhnadzor" is a monument of federal significance - the Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo estate. According to activists, proper security and emergency measures have not yet been taken, and buildings continue to slowly and surely collapse.
At the same time, according to RIA Novosti, the Moscow City Heritage Committee has prepared a document stipulating a ban on the demolition of buildings on weekends, holidays and at night, as well as an increase in fines for the destruction of capital objects in the historic center of Moscow without permission.
