In December, Moscow will host the third international Urban Forum dedicated to the theme of the capital's periphery. Architect Yuri Grigoryan is preparing for this occasion a large study on the potential of dormitory districts and suburban industrial zones. Yuri Grigoryan told the details in an interview with the Snob.ru portal, which, however, deleted it without giving any reason. However, the article is available in reposts on Facebook. In it, Grigoryan, in particular, points out the pain points of the current city policy, which, according to the architect, is being conducted uncontrollably and secretly: “For our research, for example, we did not receive any data from the General Planning Institute. In all countries of the world, information about the city is publicly available. And in our country they are trying to keep the market with the help of secrecy,”notes the architect. Shifting attention from the center to the periphery, meanwhile, can be a way out of the city-planning impasse, Grigoryan is sure, because the space between the Third Ring and the Moscow Ring Road is 80% of the Moscow territory, but no concept, no understanding of what can and should be done there, until still does not exist.
By the way, popular Western models may not work here, Yuri Grigoryan believes, since “they are applicable together with their people”; our society is “conservative and does not want any changes, which is called Not in my back yard,” the architect notes, but adds that it’s better to learn from other people's mistakes. But on the mayors of hundreds of Russian cities, who gathered the day before for seminars in the Moscow region, Western practice had a very impressive effect. Gazeta.ru publishes the speech of Alexei Muratov, which was especially liked by the audience, who told the officials about the miraculous transformation of "stone sacks" into cities of the XXI century.
However, Grigory Revzin, who recently left the architectural council under the chief architect of the capital, has little enthusiasm for the new urban planning policy of the mayor's office. In a new article in Kommersant, the architecture critic actually explained why he left the council. Revzin is sure that with the arrival of Sobyanin nothing has essentially changed in the city policy - the revision of Moscow construction projects turned into a redistribution of the real estate market, and the architectural competitions - "an attempt to remove the old Luzhkov generals from the design and put their own." The development of the sleeping areas of Moscow is all the same cyclopean shopping centers in the middle of residential buildings, Revzin writes, they just now look like "modern foreign countries", but in fact leave "scorched earth" around them.
Meanwhile, the Museum of Architecture im. Shchusev, in which, according to Vedomosti, an exhibition of the same name will open the other day. Basically, it is about the most high-profile architectural competitions, including the Museum and Educational Center of the Polytechnic Museum and Moscow State University. Lomonosov, a new building of the Tretyakov Gallery and a shopping center on Tverskaya Zastava Square.
And in the west of the Moscow agglomeration, meanwhile, the design of an entire city is in full swing - the International Financial Center in Rublevo-Arkhangelskoye. In the eight finalists of the competition for the largest urban development project initiated by the feds, as expected, there were several world stars, like KCAP or Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, writes Archi.ru, and from the well-known Russian bureaus, TPO Reserve, Andrey's workshop were included in consortia with them. Chernikhov and Jauzaproject. In anticipation of the winner, Kommersant publishes pictures of the world's leading international financial centers.
In addition, the newspaper, on the eve of the announcement of the finalists and the winner of the most high-profile Moscow competition in recent years - for the concept of Zaryadye Park - publishes an interview with one of the six finalists of the first stage, a consortium led by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. The newspaper was interviewed by Elizabeth Diller and partner of the Russian-Danish bureau Citymakers Pyotr Kudryavtsev. The consortium, we recall, brought together representatives of different specialties from six countries, among which there were, for example, the director of Central Park in New York Douglas Blonsky as a park management consultant, the Arteza workshop - in landscape design, as well as specialists in transport, eco-resilience, archeology and even urban activists.
In Cheboksary, a large project for the reconstruction of the city center - the embankment and Red Square - was recently presented by the famous Jose Asebillo, who has been at the head of the urban transformation of Barcelona for thirty years. In the coming years, the territory of Vladivostok's sea façade may also become unrecognizable: Moscow architect Boris Levyant is designing a new embankment with a yacht club, retail, hotel and office buildings here, deita.ru writes.
Pyotr Ivanov writes about a rare example of a prosperous urban environment created by Soviet architects in the Airport district of Moscow. True, the author believes that such a district came out by chance, as an experiment, since in fact the goal of creating a comfortable urban environment was not set before the designers in the USSR. And more about the story: the authorities of the Moscow Region Korolyov found an original way to decide the fate of the experimental residential building of the 1920s, built for the world's first labor commune: it was proposed to vote for or against the demolition on the Culture of the Moscow Region portal. VOOPIiK and DOCOMOMO-Russia are in favor of preservation, but residents resettled from the dilapidated commune fear that the developer will then expel them from the new building.
