The new architectural year began in Moscow with the creation of the Institute for Urban Planning. The architects met the innovation ambiguously: for example, Alexander Lozhkin on the Facebook page of the "Association of Developers of Urban Planning Documentation" noted that the main goal of the capital's authorities was to get away from the 94th Federal Law in this way, "to create a spoiler in the form of an autonomous state institution, which can be given orders without competition ". If until now all Moscow competitions for urban design were won by the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan, then now “the same will work,” the critic concludes. Some believe, however, that at least a stable team of professionals involved in the spatial development of the city will not hurt Moscow. And if he also prepares the ground for holding town-planning competitions, then in general it will be great. True, a good initiative may well turn out to be empty, notes Alexander Antonov: “Of course, a large stable institution is more convenient for everyone. And the authorities, and the director of the institute, and employees. The illusion of the importance of “accumulated knowledge and experience base” is very strong…. But in reality it turns out what it turns out,”the architect notes.
Along with city planners, the development of Moscow within the new borders continues to be discussed by the townspeople themselves. In Ilya Varlamov's magazine, bloggers launched a debate around the scheme for expanding the capital's subway and the appearance of new stations. And such, as Varlamov reminds, in 2012 opened three at once - "Alma-Atinskaya", "Novokosino" and "Pyatnitskoe shosse". Bloggers, as always, categorically pronounced the verdict: the first is “a typical designer“slapstick”,“absurd and cheap”, but Pyatnitskoye Shosse is a“traditional”,“familiar”,“quite decent and even beautiful”station, especially with its stone cladding. However, network users are much more concerned about the metro layout itself, which, according to many, lacks chord lines or new rings. “How can you build new stations without dealing with the rings,” says the blogger govorikrasivo. “So far there is no ramified system of connections, and not only on the principle of rings, but as in London, for example, there is nothing to open and lengthen the metro.”
Petersburg bloggers also write about the architecture of modern metro stations. The reason was the opening of the Bukharestskaya station, which, as the user minakovas notes in his magazine, has finally made the Purple branch a full-fledged one - “now it connects two mega-sleeping areas: the Commandant airfield in the north and Kupchino in the south”. It is curious that Petersburgers prefer the design of Moscow stations to their stations, in which, as, for example, the user batonmedved writes, “although there is less noble stone, the design is much more austere and modern”. And residents of the northern capital are jealous of the metropolitan pace of development of the subway - in St. Petersburg in the next two or three years, new stations will not be commissioned, the next one - only Teatralnaya, in 2015-2016, the author of the blog notes.
And Muscovites, meanwhile, are still acutely worried about the campaign to expand pedestrian zones in the city center, accompanied by extensive replacement of asphalt with paving slabs. Most of all, motorists are unhappy, for whom entire streets were blocked. Together with them, local residents panic, who, apparently, will have to get out of the habit of using personal vehicles. The already mentioned Ilya Varlamov, whose blog recently published a detailed map of pedestrian routes for 2013, confirmed that the Department of Transport's plans are quite radical: for example, to completely close traffic on Krymskaya Embankment or Nikolskaya Street. Meanwhile, many Muscovites would agree to see even entire districts as pedestrian, for example, Kitay-Gorod. The user hitrovka proposes to restore the Kitaygorod wall, remove the offices and administration, and use the buildings as hotels with cafes and exhibition halls on the ground floors. Bloggers advise to make both Kadashi and Povarskaya Street pedestrian, the main thing is to approach the issue systematically, writes canaris. - "Pedestrian areas should form a certain system of routes: the route is either looped or ends at the metro."
This, by the way, could be learned from Toronto, where there is the world's largest network of pedestrian tunnels PATH, which is written about in the ru-architect community. This system, 28 kilometers long, connects dozens of business buildings, metro stations, train stations, attractions and parking lots underground, and allows you to buy groceries, drive to work or go to the cinema without leaving the cold and wind. By the way, many of those who come to or live in the center of Moscow every day would prefer just this kind of comfort to the current walking routes, designed, as bloggers think, for tourists, and even then only in the warm season.
Meanwhile, not everyone generally believes that Moscow can be made more attractive to tourists in this way - according to some bloggers, the current arrangement of pedestrian zones is much more likely to redistribute real estate against the backdrop of a massive transfer of administrative and retail space, and contracts for production and laying tiles. By the way, the user chistoprudov devoted a whole study to the latter, comparing how paving machines work in our country and in Germany.
Tiles in Moscow, as it turned out, are being laid at an incredible speed compared to the Germans, though sometimes directly on the ice. Just as rapidly, meanwhile, old buildings are being demolished, especially those around which there are disputes with city defenders. So, the site of "Arkhnadzor" reported on holidays that in the early morning of January 1, two utility buildings of the Novo-Catherine Hospital on Strastnoy Boulevard were unexpectedly demolished. In their place, the city authorities are planning to build a new building for the Moscow City Duma. Some of the bloggers, meanwhile, tried to challenge the value of unsightly buildings. However, the city defenders in this story are not so much worried about the fact that the buildings were demolished unexplored, that instead of reconstruction, something will now be built here that has nothing to do with the historical environment, and, finally, that at the city hall this time they acted no less treacherous than their recent predecessors.
As for the historical value, the concept of it among bloggers who are not part of the ranks of city defenders is very vague. For example, on the blog of the same Ilya Varlamov, the audience recently argued for a long time about whether to demolish or leave the mausoleum on Red Square. As a result, among hundreds of comments, there were a few sane ones who saw A. V. Shchusev is not just a sarcophagus for the deceased leader, but the main tribune of the country's leadership and an architectural monument that has long become an independent cultural value.
And then about the memory of the leaders. Yesterday, Yuri Avvakumov, in his blog on Snob.ru, sadly commented on the fact that the furnishings of David Sargsyan's office had been transferred from the administrative wing to the space of the Ruins wing. The famous architect and curator delicately complains that the new director did not manage to get along with the memorial office, and gives a poetic analogy to the creative chaos of Sargsyan's office - Joaquín Machado de Castro's nativity scene from the Estrela Basilica in Lisbon. It must be admitted that the similarities do show up. But Yuri Avvakumov especially succeeded in the title of the post: "office-nativity scene", there is definitely something in it.
