Architect Ilya Zalivukhin, founder of the Yauzaproekt bureau, this week became the hero of a broad network discussion. The noise was caused by the concept of the strategic master plan for Moscow, developed by him, about which the architect spoke about in an interview with the Dozhd TV channel the day before. Ilya Zalivukhin proposes to develop a polycentric city that will live and move around by creating a single frame of highways. “No breaks,” the architect emphasizes. - It's as if, for example, the subway network were open. Doesn't work, really. So it is here. " The highways, according to the author's plan, will pass through unbuilt areas without affecting the existing streets: one of the mistakes of the mayor's office, according to Zalivukhin, is that "turning streets along so-called chords into sub-highways will not work." Streets, in turn, should belong to residents, not cars, let them be full-fledged avenues and boulevards with developed public functions in the first floors of buildings, the architect concludes.
Bloggers entered into a heated controversy. The author was reminded that the West has long abandoned the construction of highways within the city, and the territories reserved for them in Moscow are mostly built up. “Proposals to cut the city by highways into separate egg-enclaves do not differ much from the disastrous urban planning policy of the Moscow authorities,” user Om Mireazmov writes in the comments in the RUPA community. "It is necessary, on the contrary, to increase the connectedness of neighboring districts outside the center, and not to aggravate their isolation." Irina Zeltsman on the PRORUS page notes: "The most logical, sensible and long-lasting solution is the development of OT, including a suburban one, like RER or London Crossrail." And Alexander Antonov called the project of Ilya Zalivukhin a modern utopia, however, with rather clear goals: instead of maximizing the "trunk line of the existing network with minimal attention to the rest of the road network", which is now being implemented by the mayor's office, it is proposed to bring Moscow closer to European cities through which highways really pass. “At the same time, Ilya will probably not refuse to develop a street network either, but his concept focuses on connections between the“cities”of a Moscow“agglomeration”like Paris, where Paris is only the very center of the Agglomeration,” Antonov concludes.
A good illustration for the discussion was a post from the Live Streets blog about how the next roundup is going to be “stuck in” in the center of Yekaterinburg. The model of “highway lining” of cities is winning everywhere: in this case, we are talking about creating a traffic-free Moscow street, which, according to the blog's author, is part of a network of regulated streets and rests on the city center. The new interchange will simply move traffic jams to neighboring intersections, we are sure in the blog.
Let us add, by the way, that Ilya Zalivukhin's interview interested not only fellow architects, but also residents of the Moscow district "Gagarinsky", familiar with his project for the restoration of the Palace of Pioneers on Vorobyovy Gory. The author of the blog inna-vetrova.livejournal.com recalled to the architect an attempt to “fraudulently remove the protection status from the parks of the Palace of Pioneers, the Natalia Sats Theater and the Circus on Vorobyovy Gory”. Ilya Zalivukhin did not stand aside and commented on the criticism on his Facebook page. The architect is sure that the project for the restoration of the Palace with the construction of the second phase of the second phase of sports buildings 8 and 9 and the Corps of Young Naturalists, developed with the authors of the original 1960 project F. Novikov, V. Yegerev and V. Kubasov, is “a chance to save the monument overhaul ". According to Zalivukhin, the protection status does not allow the Palace to work fully, "all recreational spaces are built up and occupied by sections in the architectural monument." However, the architect is ready to discuss the project with residents at public hearings.
Another interesting discussion about territorial planning unfolded in Kaliningrad: the day before, a non-commercial project for the regeneration of the historical center "Heart of the City" was discussed here. The architects propose to build a new cultural and tourist core in the city, thus transferring this accent is from Victory Square, which today is an administrative and commercial center, but it does not cope well with the function of leisure.
Architect Sergey Estrin in his blog at this time argues with the opinion of some professional media that the era of beauty and complexity in architecture, "the exuberant but expensive fantasy of Zaha Hadid and Thomas Heatherwick" after the crisis was replaced by "puritanical simplicity and uncomplicated design." “Despite the fact that the general view of the architectural achievements of our city betrays the investor’s uncertainty about the future, the customer interested in the architect’s masterpiece product does exist in nature,” Estrin is sure. And, of course, there are architects "with an unbreakable desire to create architectural beauty," adds the author of the blog, naming among them, for example, Mikhail Filippov.
Meanwhile, many Muscovites, including architects, were outraged by the news from the deputy mayor of the capital, Marat Khusnullin, who recently announced that the construction of "affordable housing" should not be allowed strategically. The official explained this decision by the need to curb migration and preserve the capitalization of the housing already available to the townspeople. Architect Dmitry Khmelnitsky in his blog called Khusnullin's statement "monstrous." Khmelnytsky is sure that the city authorities, first of all, should provide citizens with the most affordable housing, as, for example, in Germany, where city planning competitions are held on the condition that the cost of housing does not exceed the minimum amount. The indignation was also shared by Mikhail Belov, according to whom there are already enough "Platinum and Golden Miles" in Moscow, as well as "ghettos in the form of parks and embankments (imitating the West, if you squint), with free Wi-Fi and sushi for five hundred rubles, and therefore there are no you will not find a single pensioner with a granddaughter."
But Alexander Antonov, in the comments in the RUPA community, considers this a delusion of progressive Western urbanists who try on Western models for specific Russian conditions: "From the point of view of the development of Moscow and the Russian Federation as a whole, Khusnullin made an absolutely correct statement, even if it is 300% antisocial", - Antonov is sure. "Stimulating the construction of cheap housing will not increase its affordability," adds Alexander Lozhkin, especially since "affordable housing" in Russia means "poorly built multi-storey multi-apartment buildings", and just inaccessible to the majority of those in need, the architectural critic concludes.
