Once again, the blogs raised the topic of the Moscow program “200 churches”, which had already managed to embroil the “anti-clericals”, in whose ranks were written opponents of the temples themselves, as well as bad architecture, and those who took the side of the Russian Orthodox Church in everything. The first, apparently, should be attributed to the blogger daniil-skitalec, who recently published a thorough study on this topic. In his opinion, there is no good architecture in the already built objects, since the construction began in a hurry, using "outdated approaches". Meanwhile, as daniil-skitalec notes, there was a need for full-fledged public discussions on embedding churches in the context, and competitions for the concept of an integrated approach, and the study of historical experience.
However, supporters of the program accused the professional department of being simply not ready to fulfill the social order. daniil-skitalec partly agrees: the reason, in his opinion, is “the loss of any interest in the topic of church architecture among the country's top architects”: “As a result, churches are mainly occupied by low-skilled outsider architects (with rare exceptions, like Andrei Anisimov) from large design organizations dealing with the type of ear. Competitive projects of the Sretensky Cathedral clearly demonstrate this”.
There is another problem, as avis_avis writes: “There are two well-known truths about a temple: it must be richly decorated and repeat well-known examples of the past. And to be honest, I have no idea how the situation could be reversed. " Architect Andrey Anisimov, in turn, commenting on the post, calls for the development of the "idea of laconicism", following the Pskov and Balkan counterparts. And daniil-skitalec himself sees new opportunities in wooden temple architecture, which, in his opinion, for a modern city among stone high-rise buildings can become "the same organic contrast as the stone temples in Novgorod used to be." But, finally, there is a third problem - the mass scale of construction, for which, according to Andrey Anisimov, all these experiments are not suitable: “We need projects and technologies not simple, but the simplest ones, executed by unprofessional teams, economic methods, by the efforts of parishioners. But at the same time, they should be temples, not sheds. Everyone wants to get the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for three kopecks, no less ?! And this gives rise to sham projects."
Similar problems, meanwhile, are opening up in residential construction, where the faster, easier and cheaper categories still outweigh everything else. The reason for a broad discussion on this topic in the RUPA community was the "successes" of housing construction in the Oryol region, where, with the help of new technologies, they managed to reduce the cost of building 16-storey buildings by 10%. “Not just a 16-storey panel, but a new type of housing,” says architect Alexander Antonov ironically. And most importantly, why build 16 floors each, "the lack of land in the Oryol region, it's not even funny," notes the architect Konstantin Khodnev.
The architect Sergei Nikolaev undertook to support his colleagues from Oryol: “We have no time to believe, we are building, and, unfortunately, even worse than in Orel”, because with a minimum of money it is necessary “to relocate as many people as possible”. “Why does someone need to be relocated? - objects Alexander Antonov. - Who said what is needed? Who said we have no housing? Take any small town in non-black earth Russia, where the provision of housing stock is from 50 meters per person. Relocate, please. And we also have military townships that are empty in bulk, you can move there too. " They continue to build "Khrushchevs" not because of this, the user is sure, but because there is a technology that is beneficial to the builders: "And in 10 years, when only marginals will live in these houses, who will not pay for anything, a song will begin that they need improve living conditions again,”writes Alexander Antonov.
According to Oleg Safonov, designers need to fight for “surplus” and for quality: “First, revive the“technologists”, evaluate the real end result, take the first violin away from economists. Otherwise, windows, sewer pipes, etc. will become excesses behind the balconies. "And Alexander Lozhkin, speaking about panel ghettos, recalled the project of "typical blocks" by the Dutch architect Bart Goldhoorn, which, according to the architectural critic, "could become a worthy alternative to microdistrict construction in the Greenfield territories." Although the question of why the cities, whose population is not increasing, should be developed for construction, remains”.
The architect Mikhail Belov, in turn, has a question for those who build "crookedly", ie in the spirit of deconstructivism, and even somehow in its own way, so that "the language does not turn to be called buildings." If in the 1960s and 70s. this was at least justified by mass construction in the context of the reconstruction of the existing building, writes the architect in his new essay "Crooked architecture", then why out of the blue "make it crooked when you can straight"? However, by now the “curve revolution” has already faded away, “obviously before it falls on the heads of their children, who no longer know what and how else can be twisted,” concludes Mikhail Belov. The author, however, received accusations of oversimplification of history and denial of the trend along which more than one doctoral dissertation was defended and which has a powerful philosophical foundation. However, the architect, according to him, only wanted to remind that “it’s crooked” and “everyone should understand why he does it crookedly, when he could - straight,” especially since “the age of each formal idea is measured…. Ideas get old, decrepit and die, like everything else in this world, "Belov notes.
And blogger Ilya Varlamov, meanwhile, is outraged by the “crooked” activity of regional mayors. The hero of the critical note was the mayor of Omsk Vyacheslav Dvorakovsky, under whom, according to the author, the number of normal ground crossings in the city decreased and new obstacles arose for pensioners, mothers with wheelchairs and the disabled. Well, the Omsk mayor deserved the special dislike of Varlamov, a famous fighter for pedestrian rights, by calling tram transport in the city irrelevant.
Architects and public figures of Perm these days gathered at a round table to discuss the reconstruction of the esplanade. Many copies around the project were broken, but a huge space in the city center continues to exist, having lost, by the way, its only decoration in the form of a fountain. Blogger Denis Galitsky notes that the most famous project of the "Ass Architects" is one of dozens that have been considered in recent decades, starting, for example, with the sketches of the esplanade of the early 1970s. from the archives of the architect M. I. Futlik, where the square, according to Galitsky, resembles Astana.
There was a dispute between bloggers - whether to keep the esplanade without any development at all, limiting itself to landscaping, or to allow, for example, to build an underground shopping center, leaving the surface unchanged. For example, the user Ivan Pomnyashchy believes that reconstruction is the same as mending old clothes; it is more efficient, in his opinion, to build something new around the historic center, "with a beautiful layout and infrastructure." - "Any capital development, above ground, underground on the esplanade is due to the feebleness of our individual officials and businesses, and the latter have only shopping centers in their minds," the blogger komisar is convinced, according to whom only fountains and recreation areas should be on the square … But the user b_m_s sees nothing wrong with underground construction and suggests “settling in the existing space” of the city instead of growing in breadth, thanks to which the city was overgrown with “square meters of uninhabited territory comparable in size to Moscow”. And while the general concept of reconstruction of the square is being discussed, the blogger is urging to “improve the space with paths, lawns, benches, flower beds, litter bins and other elements of the park environment”.
The crime story happened, meanwhile, from the historic embankment of Stepan Razin in Tver. For several weeks in a row, the original cast-iron fences of the 1920s methodically disappeared from the embankment, as reported by the chief architect of the city, Alexei Zhogolev. Meanwhile, bloggers remind that the embankment has been under reconstruction since 2011, which, although interrupted due to lack of funding, has not ended, “which means,” writes the user lesorub, “that this area is a construction site and for everything, what happens on it is the responsibility of the contractor under the control of the developer, from them and the demand. But I think that there was no inventory of architectural historical values (lattices and pillars), and it should be, moreover, it was necessary to dismantle everything and take it for restoration. Some, by the way, blame the contractor for this dark story. to accelerate funding for new gratings, and the blogger Pandora advises looking for the lost in the same place where the stolen balcony from the Traveling Palace lies - “someone is recreating the ancient Tver at their summer cottage.”
Another, larger-scale reconstruction - with the transfer of the famous monument to A. S. Pushkin in Moscow - managed to avoid, or at least postpone. The Opinion.ru blog discussed the decision of the Commission on Monumental Art of the Moscow City Duma, which refused to build a memorial chapel to the Passion Monastery on the site of the monument. By the way, it was proposed to move Pushkin himself to his historical place - to the beginning of Tverskoy Boulevard, where it was installed in 1880.
Arkhnadzor coordinator Konstantin Mikhailov, in his comments, suggests that the issue be resolved at a citywide referendum. True, in the conditions of the urban planning situation that has greatly changed over half a century, the transfer of the monument seems to him less logical than, for example, the museumification of underground archaeological finds - the walls of the same Passion Monastery or the fortress of the White City. Galina Malanicheva, chairman of VOOPIiK, who, by the way, is in favor of the transfer, believes that Pushkin Square can be returned to its original appearance and the Passion Monastery can be recreated. But, for example, the organizer of the picket against the relocation of the monument, Alexander Mashkov, comments that the monastery has a bad reputation and there is no need to restore it, since it was from its bell tower in December 1905 that “a machine gun was fired at the protesters”.
