The buildings of the quarter were designed by architects from the team of Ernst May, with the exception of the houses in the central part, built according to the designs of the famous Soviet architect Sergei Chernyshov. … Despite the efforts of specialists who have long sought to put the complex under state protection, the Chelyabinsk heritage protection authorities are slowing down the process. The defenseless monument is degrading and has already undergone a number of reconstructions and losses. But until now, everything, if desired, could be restored. Now the threat of irreparable distortion hangs over the block № 1.
On February 21 this year, a large public building was sold at auction, which plays a key role in the composition of the quarter - the FZS school (factory training system), along with the adjacent territory. Under the terms of the auction, the building can be demolished, and its site can be built up with residential buildings. Thus, a unique monument of urban planning art will irrevocably lose its integrity - and hence the chance of being put under state protection.
The development of the Quarter, consisting of thirty-eight residential and public buildings - a kind of analogue of the workers' settlements of the 1920s - 1930s in Berlin, protected today by UNESCO - is a living witness of the industrialization of the 1930s and the famous Magnitka, which has become a household name. It clearly demonstrates the application of new functional urban planning ideas, a kind of refraction of the concept of a "garden city", organizes life in a single element (quarter) of a socialist city. The FZS school building (the work of Wilhelm Schütte from Ernst May's group), in turn, is in the same typological row with the educational buildings of the early 1930s in Germany.
Since 2007, Russian, German and Dutch specialists have been making tremendous efforts to preserve the monument, but all of them, alas, are blocked by the inaction of officials. Neither conferences, nor appeals to heritage protection authorities, nor scientific publications, nor support for international forums of such a level as the St. Petersburg Dialogue, nor even appeals from residents of the quarter and deputies of the city council of Magnitogorsk in defense of the quarter served as arguments for the official recognition of the development of the quarter as a monument of urban planning art. The block in Magnitogorsk continues to balance on the brink of loss, which is now almost a foregone conclusion.
And this is not the only crumbling object of the common Russian-German cultural heritage. The fate of the "Factory-Kitchen - Trade Building of UZTM" complex in Yekaterinburg (architects V. Paramonov, B. Shefler) is similar. These problems of cultural vandalism are perceived especially acutely today against the background of the “Year of Germany in the regions of Russia”.
Lyudmila Tokmeninova
chairman of the section DOCOMOMO-Ural, Member of the Federal Scientific and Methodological Council for Cultural Heritage
at the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Russian curator of the international program "Bauhaus in the Urals".
Appendix # 1
The Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region M. V. Yurevich
Head of Department
Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for the Ural Federal District
S. I. Isachkin
Minister of Culture of the Chelyabinsk Region
A. V. Betekhtin
Head of the Department of State Protection of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Ministry of Culture of the Chelyabinsk Region
A. A. Balandin
An auction for the sale of the building of the Magnitogorsk Trade and Economic College, located at the address: Magnitogorsk, Pushkin Avenue, 21, is scheduled for February 21. According to the announcement of the auction organized by the Federal Housing Development Fund, "the land plot with an area of 2.17 hectares on which the building is located, according to the auction documentation, can be used for the construction of multi-apartment residential buildings with a maximum of 4-5 storeys."
We draw your attention to the fact that 21 on Pushkin Avenue is not just a "real estate object", but the main public building of Quarter 1, the most integral and preserved fragment of the Social City of Magnitogorsk, a reference example of avant-garde urban planning in the early 1930s, the master plan of which was developed with the participation of the world famous German architect Ernst May.
For several years now, the fate of Quarter No. 1 has been a matter of concern for Russian and international public organizations. In September 2012, the issue of the need to put this complex of buildings under state protection as soon as possible and seek opportunities for its restoration was discussed at a meeting of the 20th century Heritage Group within the Federal Heritage Council under the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, about which an official letter was sent to the relevant organizations.
After the repair and restoration work, Quarter No. 1 can be considered as a candidate for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The demolition of a key public building for the quarter and the construction of something else in its place will inevitably cause an international scandal.
I earnestly ask you to prevent vandalism.
Secretary General DOCOMOMO-Russia
Ph. D. in History of Arts
Anna Bronovitskaya
20.02.2013
Appendix # 2
PETITION:
Yurevich Mikhail Valerievich, Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, Isachkin Sergey Ivanovich, Head of the Department of the Ministry of Culture of Russia for the Ural Federal District, Betekhtin Aleksey Valerievich, Minister of Culture of the Chelyabinsk Region, Aleksandr Alekseevich Balandin, Head of the Department of State Protection of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Ministry of Culture of the Chelyabinsk Region
With great indignation we learned that a potential UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Complex of the Magnitogorsk Trade and Economic College, located at Magnitogorsk, Pushkin Avenue, 21, together with the territory on which it is located, is slated for sale at an auction Federal Housing Development Fund as an immobilizer without much value. At the same time, the potential buyer is recommended to demolish the object and create apartment buildings with 4-5 floors in its place.
This is the second attempt to get rid of Quarter no. 1, an educational building built in the 1930s according to the plans of international stars of modern construction, including Ernst May, Mart Stam, Fred Forbat, Greta Schütte-Lichotsky and Wilhelm Schütte in a constructivist-functional style and won international recognition. Therefore, we come to the following conclusions, which clearly do not coincide with the promises from the departments:
1.) There is no interest in preserving this chapter of German-Russian history as a legacy of shared culture and urban planning from the early 20th century, creating a foundation for identity.
2.) All efforts of the German, Dutch and Russian specialists for the coordinated solution of the issue of conservation and urgently needed repairs, measures that in no case should be an obstacle to a new cost-effective use, were rejected.
Auction and demolition is a form of opposition to knowledge and real alternatives and also recommendations for the conservation of Quarter no. 1 in the city of Magnitogorsk.
Since 2007, an international network of specialists in the protection of monuments, architects, restorers, representatives of the public represented by local politicians, journalists and historians once again spoke together with the residents of Quarter no.1 for the preservation of a landmark treasure of the former Soviet Union by explaining the historical values of the complex and through professional architecture and construction documentation and proposals for restoration. With the help of archival documents on the history of the ensemble, seriously substantiated recommendations were made for the future fate of the complex of the entire Quarter no. 1 and proposed to the responsible persons, not least those that were accepted at the joint seminar of experts and students of the faculties of the Bauhaus University in Weimar.
“The loss of an educational building would be especially difficult: it is not only a part of the whole and the town-planning principle in the development of apartments, but at the same time a significant unique piece (a unique monument of its kind). Essentially pure in style, the origin of the German new arachitecture of the 1920s, for example, the development of stairwells (the so-called Schuster principle) instead of passageways to classrooms, which allow transverse ventilation of group rooms and small school groups in this case 4 classes within the whole school organism. Even a quick change of classrooms to "open-air classrooms" on the lawns in front of the building seemed possible to German architects, as the exits to the east facade and plans to use the free space of the garden planner Ulrich Wolf prove. (Dr. Mark Escherich, Bauhaus University Weimar)
Kvaral nr. 1 Sotsgorod of Magnitogorsk is a brother of five residential workers' settlements in Berlin, which were built in the same period, which for several years have been recognized as a living UNESCO World Heritage Site. The same assessment was given by a group of parliamentarians from the urban district of the Left Bank, which in the summer of 2011, on a scientific trip, studied German buildings in their current image and use, as well as regarding their protection, preservation and organization within the framework of modern standards of comfortable housing.
We ask you to show attention and appeal to your authority in order to save this potential legacy of the world culture of the early European avant-garde, which is threatened with destruction.
We are ready to assist in the role of intermediaries, together with internationally recognized experts and specialists who can accompany you along the way as competent consultants.
EXPRESS THEIR CONSENT WITH THE PETITION:
Dr. Sigrid Brandt, Secretary General of ICOMOS Germany; Winfried Brenne, engineer, architect, Union of German Architects, German Werkbund, Brenne Architekten Berlin; Dr. Mark Escherich, Bauhaus University Weimar; Dr. Thomas Flierl, retired senator for culture and science of Berlin, partner of NIITIAG RAASN Moscow, publicist, Berlin; prof. Dr. Jörg Haspel, Commissioner for the Protection of Monuments of the Federal State of Berlin, President of ICOMOS Germany; Dr. Annemarie Jäggi, Director of the Bauhaus Archives Berlin - Museum for Shaping; prof. Dr. Barbara Kreis, City Architect / Planner, Nuremberg and Munich; Dr. Christoph Mahat, Member of the Executive Committee of the ICOMOS International Office, Cologne; Dr. Monica Margrave, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, do_co.mo.mo Germany; Prof. Dr. Hans-Rudolf Mayer, Head of the Department of Monument Protection and History of Architecture, Bauhaus Weimar University; Dr. Elke Pistorius, architectural historian / city planner, Berlin; Prof. Dr. Christiane Post, art critic, Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg; Dr. Wolfgang Voigt, Deputy. Director of the German Museum of Architecture, Frankfurt am Main; Astrid Volpert, Berlin, German curator of the Bauhaus network in the Urals; Dr. Anke Zalivako, Architect, do_co.mo.mo Germany, ICOMOS Berlin.
20 February 2013
Netzwerk BAUHAUS im Ural
c / o Astrid Volpert, deutsche Kuratorin
D-10117 Berlin, Reinhardtstr. 10, [email protected]
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