On September 6, "Expert" held a round table on public spaces and theme parks in Moscow in the "Glass Hall" of RIA-Novosti.
I must say that the hall barely accommodated everyone who wanted to discuss the topic, which in a couple of years has become one of the most relevant. The moderators of the discussion, editor-in-chief of the Expert magazine Tatyana Gurova and his special correspondent Alexei Shchukin began with a question: why is it so important for the city to develop public spaces? Is it necessary for Muscovites, for visitors, or for raising the status of the city as a whole?
Sergey Kuznetsov, chief architect of Moscow:
“Today we are just discussing, and the whole world has long come to the realization that a comfortable public and street space is a kind of magnet that attracts active people to the city, and, accordingly, investments. Despite the fact that public places and parks are most often subsidized projects, thanks to them the city increases its quality, status, and with them the value of land and real estate. The more public spaces there are, the more valuable the city becomes."
According to Sergei Kuznetsov, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the city developed in accordance with global trends, when any street and any Moscow courtyard was a high-quality public space. Further, in the middle of the 20th century, there was a serious leap in scale, followed by a transition to micro-district development (see about the same at the seminar on block development). During this period, the city was filled with uninhabited gigantic spaces, or, more simply, wastelands that can not be considered either public or private. When it comes to parks, Moscow has always been and remains one of the greenest metropolitan areas in the world. However, for a long time, most of the existing green areas of the capital were unkempt and poorly suited for a person's stay there.
The chief architect elaborated on the issue of returning the coastal territories to the city: “The embankment cannot only be a road for cars, it must be inhabited. One of the tasks that we set for the participants of the Zaryadye competition is to comprehend the space of the embankment, which today is occupied by a six-lane road, and there is no place for a person there. Currently, we have launched a large-scale project "Moscow River", which will cover all areas adjacent to the river. In Moscow, of the 220 km of coastline within the city, only 60 km are inhabited by humans. It is not right".
Olga Zakharova, Director of the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Leisure
“Our first steps were very rapid: in just five days, the city cleared the territory of the park, and green lawns appeared on the site of the attractions. This was the first experience, and we saw that people want to be in public places. The most important thing is to breathe life into this place, saturate it with events in order to attract people. A space without people is a dead space. Creative youth immediately reached out to us, the free Wi-Fi zone throughout the park attracted the business community. But we would like to see elderly people in the park. In Europe at 80 years old people play weddings, but here at 50 years old a person already feels forgotten and alone, because he has nowhere to go."
The park's management carefully thought out the service, the navigation system and even changed the guards into ordinary clothes that did not attract the attention of visitors, and squirrels were brought to Neskuchny Garden for atmosphere.
Olga Zakharova also spoke about the further development of the park: several additional entrances will be opened, temporary buildings will replace capital buildings, and half of the asphalted spaces will give way to lawns.
Roman Tkachenko, Head of Representative Office of RD Group, told about the project of a gastronomic street called “Romanov Alley”. An unusual, completely car-free street should appear in the very center of the city, in the 41st block. The first floors of all buildings, most of which are monuments of history and culture, will be occupied by restaurants, cafes and “grocery boutiques”.
Nadezhda Nilina, teacher at MARSH architecture school and practicing urbanist, spoke in detail about global trends in the arrangement of public spaces. She emphasized that modern Moscow is in a global trend and listed the main ones:
- “Return to water associated with de-industrialization of coastal areas;
- creation of iconic projects
- along with a huge number of “everyday projects” such as landscaping small areas, controlling traffic on the streets or building public transport stops;
- reclamation of industrial spaces;
- taking care of existing public areas with some updates.
- One of the main global trends is infrastructure and landscape urbanism, the fashion for which arose in the 1930s in the United States, during the Great Depression, despite the fact that this trend is more than expensive. Most of New York's public spaces were created during this period."
Nadezhda Nilina stressed the importance of the city's development of coastal territories. Temporary beaches are organized on the Parisian embankments in summer. In Copenhagen, after works on water purification, a separate pool was created for swimming in it for the townspeople. In New York, there is not only the opportunity to swim in the pool, but the pool itself helps to cleanse the city through phyto-elements, and for New York this is a long tradition: at the beginning of the 20th century, the city had more than twenty swimming pools and baths. In Toronto in 2006, along with the reconstruction of the waterfront, the idea of transforming the parallel highway to a city boulevard was proposed. And it turned out to be a very successful experience. According to Nilina, it is important to remove barriers not only on the approach to the river, but also from the river itself. In world practice, there are many examples when rivers were freed from concrete tunnels, and highways, on the contrary, went underground.
In New York City, the policies of Mayor Michael Bloomberg have created an incredible number of public spaces where everyone has a place. It is important that areas of responsibility are very clearly defined in New York, there is a special cadastral map, where it is determined who is specifically responsible for a particular section of the city. And it is not surprising that, walking along the streets of the city, you can often see how residents of houses sweep the street in front of their entrance.
Andrey Peregudov, Senior Vice President of VTB Bank OJSC, spoke about the project of the theme park “Dynamo”: “It was important for us to create such an urban ensemble, in which all the components would work for each other. We immediately reduced the commercial part provided for in the previous project, actively worked on the Academy of Sports, placing there two hockey halls, halls for martial arts and gymnastics, etc. All this is adjacent to the Dynamo stadium, which will also be transformed, and a new and modern Sports Palace will appear. As for the territory of the park, in the spring of this year we organized a competition, as a result of which we chose two winners at once. The main message of the concepts proposed to us is the creation of a single health and sports zone with bike paths, sports and playgrounds built into the green space of the park. Andrey Peregudov admitted that initially the task of reconstructing the stadium and the park was perceived by the customer as an additional burden. But today it has become obvious that the sports theme is the main highlight of the project.
Oleg Shapiro, partner of AB Wowhaus, spoke about the details of the project for the reconstruction of the Krymskaya embankment, which is now being completed: “Krymskaya embankment has become the first in a series of coastal areas that are to undergo large-scale reconstruction. For the city, this is a very important site, because it will unite the so-called large "green loop", which originates from the Sparrow Hills and follows along the Neskuchny Garden and Gorky Park to Muzeon. It is also planned to create an additional bridge to Red October and walk along the green pedestrian line up to the Boulevard Ring."
The length of the Crimean embankment is more than a kilometer. According to the Wowhaus project, a linear landscape park with an active relief, four warm pavilions, 1600 lamps, undulating benches and sun loungers is being created here. A special accent will be a dry fountain, the "jets" of which can be used as a screen for a mapping show. If necessary, the fountain can be extinguished, and an ordinary paved square will appear in its place.
