The architectural biennale ended in St. Petersburg on Monday. Summing up its results, "Expert" concluded that modern St. Petersburg architecture can hardly boast of fresh and interesting ideas. According to the publication, the architects have clearly taken a course towards traditionalism, and their attention to religious buildings has noticeably increased, which is a kind of response to public demand, on the one hand, and Smolny's policy, on the other.
Meanwhile, Karpovka summed up the results of the competition organized by it for the best and worst projects implemented in 2012 in the historical center of St. Petersburg. About half a thousand people took part in the voting. The publication published the comments of the authors of the winning projects, as well as the opinion of the architectural critic Alexei Khval, who sadly stated that “urban new buildings of the last two decades - for the first time, probably, in the history of the city - have no face. in architecture, it became very noticeable that the artist, who had fought in recent years for freedom of expression, had nothing to say."
A similar statement, probably, can be true in relation to the recently opened second stage of the Mariinsky Theater. By the way, the Art1 portal published the impressions of the St. Petersburg designer Anatoly Snop about the interior decoration of the Mariinsky-2, which, in his opinion, is even worse than the exterior view of the building: “Everything is scattered and not connected either in architecture or in space. This self-footedness smacks of the Soviet "House of Life".
Also during the week, the St. Petersburg press paid a lot of attention to the opening of the new stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. Nevskoe Vremya compared the building with Mariinsky-2, which was clearly not in favor of the latter. The main epithets encountered in the media regarding the Alexandrinka: quiet, fast, high-tech and cheap. The stage was erected in 3 years, while preserving the historical building of the decoration workshops, as well as saving and returning 18 million rubles to the budget. The latter, by the way, became possible thanks to the so-called "recoilless technologies", - reported "St. Petersburg Vedomosti".
And in Moscow, hot on the heels of the competition for the project of the Museum and Educational Center of the Polytech, Sergei Tchoban in an interview with Colta.ru told why he does not ask the question about the appropriateness of the building of the center on Vorobyovy Gory and that it is high time for Russia to move from talking to the implementation of projects that win competitions … He also shared his opinion on why modern architecture is not liked in Russia, and whether something can be done about it.
Meanwhile, in our country, not only architecture is criticized, but also the city-planning initiatives of the authorities. On April 11, in six Moscow districts, public hearings were held on the project for the reconstruction of Leninsky Prospekt. As reported by "Vesti", the debate turned out to be heated, and largely due to the fact that the exact reconstruction project has not yet been presented to the public.
Afisha, meanwhile, recalled that the reconstruction of Leninsky Prospekt is not the only large-scale initiative of the authorities in an effort to influence the transport situation in the city: the reconstruction of Mozhaisk highway, according to the publication, could bring the city much more problems.
And Novosibirskie Novosti reported that at a meeting of the city's architectural and urban planning council, the concept of the development of the alley in the center of Novosibirsk was discussed. The project of arranging the alley as a public space for the townspeople was not supported by everyone: critics suggested creating an additional lane for cars in its place. Experts were skeptical about the idea, citing the example of the Garden Ring in Moscow, where all green spaces were cut down, and traffic jams did not decrease.
During the week, several interesting news related to the topic of heritage preservation. Kommersant reported that the Moscow government has approved a unilateral procedure for registering security obligations: the registration of monuments will now be compulsory, without the owner submitting a corresponding application.
In continuation of the discussions that flared up again last week around the protected zones of the Arkhangelskoye estate, Izvestia talked with the director of the museum. Andrey Busygin shared his plans for the revival of the estate and said that the security zones will be adopted approximately in 1.5 months.
And in conclusion, a few words about the Moscow exhibition that has opened at the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center. The exposition is dedicated to Le Corbusier's book The Poem of a Right Angle, written in 1955 in the livre d'artiste genre. The book was illustrated by the architect with 127 lithographs, and was released in a limited edition of only 270 copies. Report from the exhibition - in the materials of "Izvestia" and RBC daily.
