We continue the project "column of the chief architect", which began a month ago by talking about the competition "Tsarev's Garden". This time, the chief architect answered the questions asked not only by the editors, but also by our readers: when preparing the interview, we turned to the topics proposed by Vitaly FVV, Oleg Kruchinin, Dmitry Protasevich, Jhon Moore. We intend to continue the practice of collecting questions and look forward to your participation. So, the answers of the chief architect:
Archi.ru:
You have been the chief architect of Moscow since August 2012: how do you assess the results of the past year?
Sergey Kuznetsov:
- I can say this: all the plans that were outlined for this year - one way or another, at different speeds - are being implemented. We were going to launch a competition program - we launched it, there are a lot of competitions now, it seems to me that they are very good, with a large coverage of participants and an excellent jury. The Arch Council was also assembled - from interesting independent experts, and the quality of the decisions they made is very high: I personally have not raised any doubts yet, I would like to believe that this will continue. The mode of communication with architects is also debugged, and I can compare, since I was a practicing architect and dealt with the Moscow building complex before. This is also confirmed by statistics: we have a 5-fold increase in the consideration of applications from architects practicing in Moscow, as well as investors and developers.
We have made progress on all strategic - and very large - projects that we were assigned to tackle: there are more than 20 of them, including Zaryadye, Luzhniki, Mnevnikovskaya Poima, Tushino, ZIL.
We passed the law on the AGR: now in Moscow the very procedure for considering architectural projects will be legalized - something that is not provided for by the federal city code, but we have made Moscow an exception to the rule. Regarding the work with the urban environment, the regulation of the placement of signs has been formalized, a lot of work has been launched on the design standards of the pedestrian part of city streets and highways.
We also had a rich program of events - as participants and organizers of round tables, exhibitions, etc. - from MIPIM in March 2013 to our August seminar on basic building principles. We have a publishing project: we are translating actual texts, and soon the first of these books will be published.
And what will be the further fate of the project for the reconstruction of the Pushkin Museum?
- We are now reaching an algorithm for cooperation with the administration of the museum: the recommendations that we gave at the Arch Council, they are fulfilling. At the moment, negotiations are underway on the participation of Norman Foster in the project, but the likelihood that he will continue to work is not high.. However, neither the city nor the museum have any complaints against him: in the existing conditions, he did what he could.
But life goes on: most likely, we will form a new team. How this will be done - through a competition or otherwise - we are now discussing with the museum. I think that within a month it will be clear how the project will develop further, but it will be implemented, no doubt. At least - the first stage, the site on Kolymazhny lane from the corner with Volkhonka: a lot has already been done there, and we have issued the GPZU. Now, together with the museum, we will brainstorm how to design it further, and by the end of the year, I believe, design will begin.
What new competitions have appeared in the plans of the Moscow Architecture Committee over the summer?
- I hope that in the fall we will be able to announce tenders for the first two metro stations, which we, unfortunately, could not launch for a very long time. For sure, in the near future we will launch a competition for the site of the Hammer and Sickle plant. We will definitely make a big international competition for the Moscow River - Moscow Waterfront, “Moscow's Water Facade”. The question of its volume, filling, what will be included in it, will be determined by the concept of the development of the Moskva River, which must be prepared; it will also become the technical specification for the competition. A very large international competition has been announced today for Rublevo-Arkhangelskoye.
Moreover, everywhere we have very different partners: Don-Stroy for the Serp and Molot plant, for Arkhangelskoye - for Sberbank, for the Moscow River - the Moscow government, for the metro - this is the metro itself and also the government of Moscow. And these are only the largest of the planned competitions.
And what will be included in the task of the competition for the Moskva River? First of all, the embankments?
- Not only the embankments, but also the Moskva River itself - its transport, the ecological situation up to the program of its cleaning, so that you can swim and fish there, as before. And the adjacent territory: this is very important, because today only about 60 km of the 220 km of the coastline of the Moskva River in the city has been developed and is truly accessible to people. In those projects that are now being largely developed - ZIL, Zaryadye, along the Vorobyovy Gory, Luzhniki, Tushino, Mnevniki - this is still about 60 km. That is, in the near future we will double the part of the coastline that is "inhabited" by humans, and is not occupied by enterprises and communal zones. And as a result of the full implementation of this program, the development of 100% of the territory adjacent to the river is envisaged. Today we clearly understand that water in a city is a huge value, we need to focus on it, we need to capitalize coastal areas, and, of course, leaving empty communal zones or industrial zones there is an impermissible waste. Because the Moskva River and the adjacent territory are 10% –20% of the territory of our city as a whole.
Do landing stages fall under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction? They disfigure the appearance of the city so much, and it turns out that they can be placed even in iconic places …
- This, unfortunately, is a big problem, because they are not directly under our jurisdiction. Therefore, I hope that during the implementation of this program we will also resolve the issue of landing stages, because we have already tried to deal with them in a variety of ways. But due to the fact that the water area of the Moskva River is under the jurisdiction of the federal authorities, the grid cell of the legal field is too large here, and the landing stages "slip through" into it.
What is happening on the territory of ZIL now? When will work start there?
- We have a ready-made implementation plan next in line for approval. As I have said more than once, now all planning projects are approved only on the basis of the implementation plan. This innovation is the initiative of the mayor, but we are also largely involved in this and support it in every possible way: a planning project is impossible without an implementation plan. What is the problem with such a chaotic development in Moscow over the past two decades: wherever roads and other infrastructure objects were drawn, they remained only on paper, and as a result, only development objects were realized - what tastes better. Now this is not the case, since we do not release the developer without assessing the necessary investments in the infrastructure.
Now such a document has been developed for ZIL and is being prepared for approval. And the site itself is handled by the Moscow City Property Department, which prepares tenders to attract investors to specific objects. I hope that the works will be launched within a year.
Who developed the planning project?
- It was developed by the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan, but one of the first things I did as chief architect was to involve Yuri Grigoryan in this project as the winner of the competition for the territory of the ZIL plant, which was carried out by the Department of Science and Industry. But, unfortunately, due to the fact that the competitive practice then did not reach the level to which we have raised it now, that is, there was no clear mechanism for involving the winners of the competition in the implementation of the project, all this was optional and practically did not intersect with the real life.
There were good materials on this competition, so we invited Yuri Grigoryan to cooperate with the General Planning Institute, and they eventually completed this work together.
So we actively involve the General Planning Institute in cooperation with various architects. For example, we will plan Kommunarka together with the American company Urban Design Associates - also so that the results of the competition for the Moscow metropolitan area will not disappear, but go into action. Therefore, the ideas that they then proposed for Kommunarka will be used in real work on its planning.
It turns out that, except for the case of Kommunarka, the results of the competition for the concept of the development of the Moscow agglomeration will not be useful anywhere?
- The problem is that the competition problem was formulated at such a level that these results can only be used as a base and a bank of ideas, and their practical application is difficult. Of course, serious people have worked there, there are a lot of interesting urban planning ideas, and as a result a book of good quality was made. The results of the competition confirmed the ideas about polycentrism, the development of public transport, its participants confirmed the aspirations of the authorities, but it cannot be said that their projects can be implemented.
What are the criteria for the selection of jury members for competitions held by Moskomarkhitektura?
- We are looking for people either from the Moscow government or those who are competent in the chosen topic. So, in Zaryadye, this is the Department of Culture, which will manage this park, the Department of Nature Management, which is responsible for the green area of the city, the Department of Property, which is in charge of the site, etc. That is, our colleagues who supervise this topic in different directions. Plus, surely - Russian and foreign experts on this subject: landscape architecture, town planning, and urban planning in general. These should be people with serious authority and maximum independent judgment. The number one task in organizing any competition is to conduct it without any lobbying. And the best tuning fork to assess whether it succeeded is the composition of the competition participants. The fact that 420 companies have applied for Zaryadye, including all the leading offices, shows that the competition is of the highest quality.
By the way, we have the same indicators for almost all open competitions, although there were not so many of them, I know. But organizing an open tender is both more expensive and longer in time, and it is not in our power to decide everything. What we are doing is advocacy and explanatory work among the owners of sites so that they generally agree to hold a competition, and at least to reach a closed competition is already a huge work. Open contests are generally a super task.
The number of participants in the competition for the project of the Museum and Educational Center of the Polytechnic Museum and Moscow State University. Lomonosov, which was conducted at the beginning of my work as the chief architect, shows that the quality of the jury and the level of preparation of the competition were high. Or you can compare the current competition for the territory of Zaryadye with the competition that took place before - simply in terms of the composition of the participants: there is a difference in preparation. And this is not an accident, these are all absolutely calculated things.
What are the criteria for selecting members of the jury? These criteria are in the air, although they are not spelled out anywhere, that, for example, they should be holders of certain awards, we have award winners in Russia - as much as you want. The fact that we have dropped out of the world assessment of architecture (what we are trying to make up for now) has led to the fact that our awards, prizes and titles in the world do not say anything to anyone. At the same time, it must be admitted that the world quality assessment is the best assessment, there is no doubt about this at any level of competition. This is true for manufacturers of cars, aircraft, weapons - whatever, and in the field of sports, too, no one disputes the fact that international assessment is extremely important: you can be considered truly the best only if you are the best in the world. Only architecture with us so far went apart, and it was believed that we recognized ourselves as the best, and what they think about us in the world, nobody worries. We are going to change this now, because here too we want to be the best in the world.
- Our readers complain about the shortness of time given to develop a competitive project: they name as examples the competitions for an object in Moscow City, for the facades of the new building of the State Tretyakov Gallery, the current competition for the NCCA project …
- Timing is, of course, the next serious problem. It should be understood that any competition extends the time frame for implementation. But it’s better to spend time getting ready, then getting a cool object than trying to work on a project in a hurry: this is confirmed by practice. How long it took to develop the Tretyakov Gallery, until we came there with a competition, how long it took to develop the Pushkin Museum, how long it took to develop Zaryadye! And the results are zero. We offer everyone a simple "roadmap": how to draw up a program, assignment, attract world and our stars, get a project and implement it. There is a guarantee of an excellent result, although time and money are spent. The same NCCA - how much it was done … And in the end everything again came to the same "road map". Over time, the people responsible for these sites agree with us. But we are becoming hostages of the previous story: so much effort and money has already been spent that it is not easy to decide to start all over again. But nevertheless, many agree to this, in particular, my gratitude for the NCCA - the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky: without his support, this competition would not have taken place.
But, on the other hand, there is a simple and understandable logic: we want to see the result in our process management, so we need to hurry up, set a short time frame - this is a compromise. Even on such a national scale as Zaryadye, it took a great deal of work for us to give the participants three months to develop the project - and for this we were also criticized.
Are there any real steps planned for the transition from microdistrict development to quarterly development?
- This is a very important issue, which we are now dealing with: on August 28, we held a seminar on this topic, which showed what we want to do, but has not yet determined how. However, there was a speech by Sergei Melnichenko, who, at the request of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction, makes new standards for urban planning, where all this will already be laid down.
The question of how to implement this is certainly worth it, and we are actively working on this. I suppose there will be many contradictions with the city code, which will also need to be changed. For example, according to the current principle of calculating the number of parking spaces, a lot of them are created, they are not in demand and only increase the load. Also, everyone knows that nowhere in the world there are issues with insolation, and we continue to fight against tuberculosis. What prevents us today, as well as throughout the world, from working not with insolation, but with illumination? Everyone understands that light is important in a room, but it doesn't have to be direct sunlight: this is a very harsh condition, and it greatly interferes with normal planning. The layout of the street, public space cannot obey the course of the sun, at the same time, public life, communication of people with each other, whatever one may say, is more important than "communication with the sun" in their apartment. If you need sun, you can go out into the yard. We have to overcome this anachronism today by the entire professional community. But, unfortunately, there are a number of political speculators, there is no other name for them, who declare that we are taking the sun away from people.
Are there already projects with quarterly buildings?
- Such a serious experiment - not only from the point of view of the approach to development - has already been ZIL: there is a quarter grid, although the existing rules of insolation are still observed there. The next experiment will be Rublevo-Arkhangelskoe: there we will approach both parking spaces and insolation in a new way. Kommunarka and Tushinsky airfield belong to the same series.
In one of your recent interviews, you mentioned the incubator for young architects, which Mikhail Posokhin organized at Mosproekt-2: I would like to know the details
– This is our joint idea with Mikhail Mikhailovich: he embraced the idea of developing youth practice with great enthusiasm and offered himself to take young architects under his wing at his institute - not as employees of the institute, but realizing that sooner or later they would leave Mosproekt -2 and will open their own workshop. He gave them premises, the opportunity to work - to cooperate with the institute, to be co-authors of projects, that is, to practice. This is essentially an educational program, although participants receive a real contract for creative work on a real object, after which they can already enter the free market.
And today the guys are already working there, and you can take more. Through Archi.ru, I would like to address teams of young architects, from those who feel capable of becoming an architectural start-up in Mosproekt-2: you can come to us at Moskomarkhitektura or directly to Mikhail Mikhailovich Posokhin, tell who you are, what you can, why do you think that you will succeed (that is, you need some kind of base) - and your candidacy will be considered.
