Archi.ru:
The development project of the Kadashevskaya Sloboda is known for a long and scandalous history of public confrontation with the developer. Will this conflict be resolved? Tell us about your project and how it all started
Ilya Utkin:
- In this place in Soviet times there were factories that produce food products, there was also a particle board shop and other industries. The entire area around the Church of the Resurrection was a continuous zone of enterprises and warehouses. Even earlier, before the revolution, Grigoriev's sausage factory operated in this place, which consisted of brick buildings with expressive factory architecture, semi-arches, ornaments and cornices.
In the post-perestroika years, this entire area was designated for residential development. The Five Capitals project was developed, a six-storey office and residential complex that would surround the temple ensemble with its massif on three sides. In 2009 this project was approved. The territory has already begun to be cleared for construction. But at that moment, the parish of the church and personally Father Alexander Saltykov became interested in the project, and when they saw it, they decided to fight to the death, but not to allow construction. They did not want their temple to be surrounded by huge buildings of luxury housing. The activists called on the public and "Arhnadzor" to help themselves. It turned out that, in spite of the fact that the developer already had a state building permit, not all approvals had been passed, and an examination had not been carried out. The activists stood up as a wall to protect the Kadash, they literally lived on the ruins, risking their lives, did not allow excavators to approach the site. After all this was widely publicized, the construction was stopped. In my opinion, this was the first time that, thanks to the public, the construction was frozen. The customer decided to redo the project, changed the designer, several options were made, but they did not suit the city and the public either.
What specifically did not suit the public? What are their main complaints about the project?
- You see, historically there was a parish church on a small site, and a little to the side is the deacon's house, over which the most heated property disputes have recently flared up.
The territory around the temple was a village-industrial suburb: here both pigs were slaughtered and sausage was cooked. Next to the sausage factory, its owner, Grigoriev, built a large manor house, and a sausage shop opened on Kadashevsky Lane. The factory workers lived in the attics of numerous and very densely built factory buildings. This place has a special spirit. And the authors of the new project somewhat reduced the scale of development in comparison with the previous proposal, changed the architecture, but in general they made something like Rublevka - very dense buildings, expensive "Rublev" manor houses with columns that do not at all correlate with the context of Kadash and the territory of the temple …
How did it happen that you got involved in the development of the Kadash development project?
The development of town planning regulations for this site was carried out by NPO-38 NIiPI of the General Plan under the leadership of Elena Solovieva. It was she who invited the customer to contact me for help. This was in 2011. At first, the client asked me to rework only the facades of the buildings of the existing project. But I am deeply convinced that this should not be done. The new designer must develop the project from start to finish. On that we agreed, and I began to develop a new concept.
You had a very difficult task. What did you suggest?
In this situation, I proposed a concept based on history. I thought that only low-rise buildings with their own streets, with their own urban environment could appear in such a place. The main building is blocking residential buildings, townhouses. One three-storey block with a basement and a garage is intended for one family. As for the style solution, I thought that it should be the brick-factory style of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, close to the one in which the Grigoriev factory was built. In my decision, I turned to traditional architecture with cornices, plinths, metal balconies, which simultaneously serve as a visor over the entrance to the staircase. It is proposed to use brick as the main finishing material. The motives of the ornament are borrowed from the sausage factory. All roofs are pitched, metal. The only deviation is the pipes above the roofs, in which the air conditioners and the ventilation system are hidden.
And the direction of these houses, and the distance between them, and the height characteristics do not exceed the historically existing ones. There is no fear that the underground part of the new construction will affect the historical foundations of the surrounding buildings. The section shows that the underground part of the garage is located in the elevations of the existing basements.
What historical buildings have survived on the site to this day?
Little has survived to this day: one wall of the sausage shop, a fragment of the entrance gate and the remains of a sausage shop. Everything else was destroyed in Soviet times. The factory buildings simply grew together - they were covered with a single roof, because they were quite close to each other. Everything was destroyed and rebuilt many times.
Does your project involve the restoration of surviving fragments of historical buildings?
If we were doing a restoration, we would have to exactly reproduce the factory buildings. But today it is impossible to do this. In the new project, it is impossible to recreate the labyrinths of narrow passages between the buildings from the 19th century. According to the current standards, the distance between houses cannot be equal to six meters, at least ten or twelve meters, in order to simply ensure the passage of a fire engine.
As for the surviving fragments of the building, we have made a very detailed project for the restoration of the entrance part, the gates are completely recreated. The street facade of the store and the wall of the sausage factory will be restored. I intentionally made flat roofs on the side volumes of the former Grigoriev factory to accentuate this wall. A mansard roof will be recreated above it. And the two volumes, which flank the wall on both sides, are covered with flat roofs in order to defiantly draw the border between the historical buildings and the new.
How did the protesters take your project proposal?
"Arhnadzor" and the city authorities studied my project for a long time, carried out landscape-visual analysis and expertise, carefully checked that new buildings were not visible from the city streets, that they did not obstruct the domes of the temple, so that all regulations were observed. As a result, my project suited all the experts. I also showed my proposal to Father Alexander, who also treated my work favorably. True, he immediately said that he would oppose any construction in this place. This is his principled position, which I understand. But I had to fulfill the order, and I tried to do it as delicately as possible. I must say that in this I was supported by both the city and the representatives of Arkhnadzor. But the excitement around the project did not subside. After a while, it was decided to entrust the development of the project to another young architect, who created another alternative option, involving the restoration of the historical environment not at the end of the 19th century, as in my project, but at its beginning. However, this option was not developed either.
How did your project develop further? What problems are you facing?
The story does not end today, as if it were a cursed place.
At present, although the building regulations have already been approved and a project has been made, which is undergoing expert examination, the customer and the developer cannot obtain permits in any way, activists continue to strike, organize public discussions, put forward alternative projects, and raise the public to fight. But the most important thing is that our project is more and more overgrown with speculation and rumors.
At the same time, the territory is privately owned and now it is an abandoned garbage dump in the center of Moscow, overgrown with grass and moss. It hardly needs to be left as it is …
