A new resource for collecting urban planning proposals from the townspeople “What Moscow wants” continues its mission on the Internet. Until September 20, the moscowidea.ru website and Facebook page are collecting ideas from everyone who wants to improve the capital. And on September 1, it was the turn of professional architects and designers, who are now invited to develop a specific solution for one or several ideas accumulated in the project and upload it to the site by October 15. The project is actively discussed on the network, including the architects themselves. Some do not like the semi-professional approach to the topic: “In my opinion, this is a profanation,” Elena Gonzalez comments on Maria Fadeeva's Facebook page. - Visibility of movement and democracy to the detriment of the profession. People already (thanks to Katz and Varlamov) got the impression that any city dweller bursting with good intentions can solve planning issues at once”. Nikita Asadov also defended the professionals, according to whom “good ideas and motives, instead of help and support, are beginning to be used in someone’s interests, they are engaged and are quickly exhausted”. On the other hand, Natalya Sukhova, on the other hand, is confident in the benefits of urban activism; according to the architect, the creative and non-commercial activities of such activists cannot be dumping and harm the professional workshop. In addition, for beginners, it is also an opportunity to realize their non-commercial projects, the architect adds, and to convey their idea to potential investors, writes Maria Fadeeva. Nikita Asadov sums up that the project's website will most likely turn into a book of complaints and an advertising platform for young architects and designers, where "one thing with the other will practically not be connected in any way."
The city activists themselves, meanwhile, make up for the lack of professionalism with enviable persistence. The already mentioned blogger Ilya Varlamov, by the way, recently received an answer from the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction about the fate of Triumfalnaya Square. The committee assured that they would gladly support the holding of an architectural competition for its improvement, if it would be ordered by the Department of Overhaul, which is in charge of this territory.
And activists-town rights activists from "Arhnadzor" recently congratulated all sympathizers on the opening of the exhibition "Town-planning counter-revolution", which after long wanderings was sheltered in his gallery at Winzavod Marat Gelman. "Arhnadzor" was in every possible way prevented from doing this before the election of the mayor, but even now, as they write in the blogs, Gelman had troubles with the leadership of Winzavod because of the exhibition.
Another popular blog of activists to improve the traffic situation in the capital, proboknet.livejournal.com, discussed the recently completed reconstruction of Bolshaya Dmitrovka, which was actually turned into a pedestrian, leaving only one lane for cars. Bloggers found that aesthetics took precedence over logic. The appearance of the street with its architectural monuments freed from "automobile, asphalt and advertising rubbish" has undoubtedly improved; however, wide sidewalks not fenced off by posts will tempt motorists to force them into three rows again, users noted.
At this time, Sergey Estrin reflected in his blog about the role of drawing and the ability to draw in the profession of an architect. According to Estrin, architectural drawing not only raises the professional standard, but also convincingly affects the customer. In any case, the architect himself, according to him, always accompanies the visualization of projects with sketches. You can see how one interacts with the other on the websites of Sergey Estrin - the Gallery of Drawings and the Workshop.
And in the professional community of urbanists RUPA, the discussion revolved around innovative projects of multifunctional cultural centers in small towns of Russia. The blog atner.livejournal.com analyzes one of these pilot “houses of a new culture”. The author of the blog notes that “the analogy with the Soviet Palace of Culture with its ubiquitous agitprop is present only at the level of historical comparison. There is no such monumental construction and tall colonnades ", but" there is mobility and efficiency, consistency and the possibility of transformations. " This is in theory, but in practice, as urbanists found, the new version of the IFCC, discussed the day before in the government, is just like "a standard Soviet House of Culture with circles of sewing, song and dance patterns." - “It's sad that in the direction of simplifying the functionality of the centers, taking into account local conditions; I suppose a complete deformation of the idea,”notes Alexander Vodyanik. Simply “they are not mature enough, everything will slide towards the next mall,” adds the user neochapay.
By the way, in London, the real deformation of various objects, from cars to rugs at the door, is produced by one of the new skyscrapers. The ru_architect community marveled at how the concave mirrored facade of an unfinished building unexpectedly for architects, and even more so for the townspeople, began to work like a giant lens, in the focus area of which you can even fry eggs.
