Few architectural bloggers have not touched on the topic of heritage conservation, which remains the most widely discussed on the web. Moreover, blogs constantly emphasize that the protection and restoration of monuments is still something unnatural for the Russian state. The author of the blog az-mnogogreshny.livejournal.com is also sure of this, where a few days ago there was a discussion around the Russian part of the UNESCO World Heritage List. The last object was brought into it already 8 years ago and, as az-mnogogreshny notes, “there is a suspicion that nobody in our country really needs it”. In addition, at the last session of the committee, our nomination "Kremlin of Russia" was rejected - according to the blogger, the few Russian applications are often illiterately drawn up; just look at the “preliminary list”, where, for example, there was a bridge across the Yenisei, “which was scrapped in 2007”.
As a result, az-mnogogreshny drew up its own list of candidates, in which the wooden heritage of Russia is not limited to the Kizhi churchyard, but is a serial nomination, where there are also nominations "Tent Churches of the XVI-XVII centuries" and "Temples of Pskov" cultural and historical landscape of Suzdal, etc. To this list, blogger varandej added centers of "industrial heritage", and ffeztromop advised to localize serial nominations, for example, monuments of constructivism or Naryshkin Baroque by region.
Meanwhile, the famous critic Alexander Lozhkin found the original reason for all the failures with the protection of monuments in Russia, which, in his opinion, is a kind of religion, not a science. Public figures and government officials simply "believe" in the value of certain monuments, writes the author of the blog, but do not know how to prove it to others. To make the preservation of history "necessary for the citizens themselves", as the user Igor Popovsky advises, according to Lozhkin, a utopia is like turning blind faith into a universal one. On the contrary, this does not need to be imposed, but developed by the urban community itself on the basis of urban culture, the critic is sure.
And here is how this peculiar religion turns out in practice: the architect Mikhail Belov wrote in his blog the other day how constructivism is “revered” in Moscow. Hardly any cultured person has not heard that the avant-garde is good; however, faith does not prevent “creeping designers” from transforming monuments, as Belov writes, “into an endless ribbon of plowed, glamorous abomination, into which practically all the facade sweeps of the central streets have already been turned”. So there is another house in a new guise: it seems to be intact, but in fact it is an aesthetic catastrophe, the architect concludes.
Well, where the designer's hand has not yet reached, constructivism is dying from banal desolation. In the community
MODERNISM. SU on Facebook, for example, is collecting signatures in defense of the unique building of the architect Alexander Nikolsky in Tyumen - a round bathhouse on Lenin Street. The only monument of Tyumen constructivism, brought to an emergency state, is threatened with reconstruction into an office center.
In the urbanist community
RUPA, meanwhile, recently discussed a more global problem - the lack of urbanism in Russian cities, one of the consequences of which, by the way, is the disappearance of the architectural heritage. In the article of the Expert magazine, which is quoted in the blog, they write that it will be possible to turn the tide only by preparing the “city planners of the new school”. But the RUPA participants considered that the deficit is manifested not in specialists, but in the initiatives of the local authorities and the residents themselves, which, in principle, do not generate any projects. Here is what, for example, Alexander Antonov writes: "Neither the government, nor society form any goals for the development of cities, nor any local tasks, but simply weave in the wake of the landowners, trying to somehow limit their crazy imagination according to their own understanding" public interest ".
As a result, it remains to generate urban projects for the urbanists themselves - about one of them, for the reconstruction of the private sector of Novosibirsk, Alexander Lozhkin told in his blog. Its essence is not to completely demolish the slums of private wooden houses, erecting microdistricts in their place, but to improve the existing quarterly buildings, while maintaining the existing structure of land use. However, as Alexander Antonov notes at RUPA, the private sector is fraught with a much more dubious version of the so-called. mixed development, when multi-storey and apartment buildings are erected on separate sites without disturbing land use.
Meanwhile, Peter's blogs are making noise about the Alla Pugacheva Theater project at the mouth of the Smolenka River. After a long lull, the project surfaced thanks to the well-known city rights activist and deputy of the Legislative Assembly Alexei Kovalev, who challenged the permits issued for him in court. According to the deputy, the building - "diamond" will cut the projected Morskaya embankment in half, which contradicts the general plan. Most bloggers agreed with this: “The Novosmolenskaya Embankment ensemble will be plugged with this center plug,” a user Zdobsi notes on the Fontanka blog. - That is, the gaze rests on the concert and office complex, which resembles the construction of a stock exchange and two residential high-rise buildings near the DK im. S. M. Kirov ". - "A hole in the bruilik" plus observance of high-altitude regulations is the only right decision for the embankment, concludes blogger Mickye.
And on the Belarusian portal
onliner.by recently recalled the Minsk National Library, which they decided to build exactly 11 years ago. As a result, for some, the library has become the best modern building, and for others - a "design nightmare". As the author of the post notes, "since its construction, the Minsk rhombicuboctahedron has regularly been included in all sorts of ratings of the strangest buildings in the world." "In the list of the ugliest buildings, compiled by the British edition of The Daily Telegraph, from the hot 20 it takes the" honorable "14th place", - specifies the user E. S. G. 1992. In the meantime, the network does not run out of proposals on how to improve the appearance of the building: bloggers advise to do tint, revet it with mirrored glass and porcelain stoneware.
Meanwhile, blogger Darriuss, a regular onliner.by contributor, recently wrote about the Soviet architectural aesthetics of Minsk with its solemn ensembles, which, according to the author, have significantly spoiled the alterations of the last 10-15 years. Together with them, the audience of the portal discussed another curious artifact of Soviet architecture: houses in the form of either 666, or the unfinished abbreviation of the USSR, which were found in several cities of the former union, for example, Brest, Obninsk, Kharkov, etc.
One can argue for a long time about whether or not the Minsk library has become a new symbol of the city, but in German Dusseldorf, such a symbol is definitely the three buildings of the famous deconstructivist Frank Gehry, which are constantly depicted on postcards. Blogger Ilya Varlamov dedicated his new post from a series of "good architecture" to them. Most of his readers, meanwhile, liked Gehry, however, some were alarmed by the steel-clad facades, which, as they write in the comments, will be overgrown with moss.
The most diverse deconstruction, meanwhile, can be found in a recent post by Artemy Lebedev, who decided to hold a kind of anti-competition for the most uncomfortable bench. The designers had fun from the bottom of their hearts, coming up with so many "incredibly inconvenient and funny works" that the author of the blog, according to him, did not dare to choose the winners and gave this right to users.
Well, in the most overpopulated city in the world - Shanghai, no one would have thought of joking with the improvement: and the unusual round pedestrian bridge that appeared here over the intersection in the spirit of the avant-garde 1920s is not an attraction, but a forced necessity, they write in the computerra.ru blog. However, according to users, multi-level overpass interchanges rather than pedestrian bridges helped to cope with traffic jams in Shanghai, although it is beautiful and original and it is high time to use it on Russian roads, write in the comments.
