Recently, the architect Ilya Utkin told us about his project for a residential complex in Kadashi. This project - much smaller in size compared to what the developer had planned to build near the Church of the Resurrection in Kadashi earlier - is based on the memory of the history of the place: a sausage factory that existed here in the 19th century. Despite the delicacy of the approach to context, the project has its supporters and opponents. Another project appeared, based on the idea of reproducing urban plaster classicism; the church community opposes any construction. The controversy continues. Meanwhile, the Arkhnadzor movement supported Ilya Utkin's project. We are publishing a commentary by one of the most famous activists of the movement Natalia Samover.
“If this project is implemented, it will become, in my opinion, an exemplary example of the regeneration of the historical urban environment, because it has found a complex balance between the obvious value of the area's environmental characteristics and the requirements of modern use. It is only necessary to add that on the territory next to the projected buildings there is still one status monument - the Deer Chambers of the first half of the 18th century. This building is younger than the Church of the Resurrection, but older than the sausage factory. A kind of sign of the depth and multi-layered history of the Kadash. Utkin orients to the facade of these chambers the route of the Kadashevsky deadlock, which he is extending.
The rest of the historical buildings (which, however, were few among the Soviet workshops) were almost completely destroyed by the efforts of the developer, when he still dreamed of realizing there a three times more massive object. The activists literally obscured the wall of the sausage shop with their own bodies, and now it serves as an anchor to which the entire stylistics of Utkin's project clings. The choice of the style of factory architecture of the late 19th century, here, in my opinion, is the only possible one. Firstly, this is the style of preserved authentic historical buildings, secondly, the style of this place, when it was Grigoriev's factory, and finally the style of Zamoskvorechye, where there was a lot of similar architecture and a lot has survived to this day.
Finally, this is the style of the historical surroundings of the Church of the Resurrection in Kadashi. It is naive to compose in this place some kind of classicism of the beginning of the 19th century (why, by the way, not the beginning of the 18th century?). Firstly, there is no data on what the facades of the houses that stood in this place at that time were. We have only the historical plans of the quarter at our disposal. Secondly, nothing at all has come down to us from the urban environment of that period, while not only images, but also several original fragments of buildings have survived from the environment of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. I would like to dream that the implementation of this project will be a breakthrough in the sad practice of false regenerations that disfigure Moscow, but I can't believe it myself.
There are still unique circumstances that forced the city authorities to really severely restrict the developer, and not everywhere there is a sufficiently smart and cultural architect. Moreover, however, a sample is needed, which can be referred to when discussing other regenerations. All of the above, of course, does not mean that there are no more problems in this quarter. The entire site is the territory of the protected cultural layer. Excavation with an excavator is not the most correct way to handle it, but for several years the site has been empty, and archaeological exploration has not been carried out. But this, as they say, is another story that does not concern the qualities of the project under discussion."
Natalia Samover
