The proposal to dismantle the famous Shukhov tower on Shabolovka, received at the end of December from the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications (whose balance sheet is the monument), and this week got into the media, made a lot of noise. The deterioration of the structures of the 148-meter hyperboloid, which has stood without major repairs since the day of its construction in the early 1920s, has reached a critical level, and the protracted question of restoration has come to a head. The Ministry of Culture, however, immediately followed a ban on the dismantling of the monument - as Gazeta.ru writes, the ministry pledged to force the signalmen to do restoration work, since there is already an approved project. According to the head of the Shukhov Tower Foundation, Vladimir Shukhov, only an independent international examination can make the final verdict on the tower. However, according to some experts cited by art1.ru, even in the most extreme case, you can do without disassembly by mothballing the building in a glass-metal box.
Dozens of contemporary Shukhov hyperboloid monuments, meanwhile, repeat his fate in St. Petersburg. Architectural historian Margarita Stieglitz told Karpovka how the buildings of the outstanding avant-garde artists Alexander Nikolsky and Noah Trotsky are being tested by their owners. And the newspaper Nevskoe Vremya calls for a broad discussion about the public-initiated project of pedestrianization of Nevsky Prospekt in the section from Moika to Fontanka: here it is proposed to cut the highway in the center with a wide boulevard, leaving two lanes in each direction for traffic.
In Samara, the cleansing of the center “from the rotten disgraces of the city”, announced by the governor, took the form of a planning project, which was recently presented to the head of the administration. The architectural community was not invited to the discussion; however, the ex-chief architect of the city and well-known defender of historical monuments Vitaly Stadnikov recalls that legally the project does not require public hearings at all, although it involves an alarmingly large volume of commercial and residential real estate along the river floodplain, Kommersant quotes.
Meanwhile, the capital Pushkin Museum. Pushkin shared his new reconstruction plans, which had been greatly adjusted after Norman Foster's bureau left the project. As the director of the museum Marina Loshak told RIA Novosti, the idea of the museum town remains, but it itself is being modified: competitions will be held for new buildings among Russian architects, for historical buildings - a new concept of restoration is being prepared. One of the French specialists is now helping the museum with the concept of the entire complex, the agency reports.
Among those who actively opposed the previous project for the reconstruction of the museum, which grossly violated the security legislation, was "Arhnadzor" - these days the movement celebrates its fifth anniversary. In this regard, the newspaper "Fair Russia" took a long interview with Rustam Rakhmatullin, in which the coordinator told why he considers the Arkhnadzorites to be idealists, what is the new stage of the movement and how the protection of monuments was carried out 150 years ago.
Meanwhile, Kommersant writes extensively about a new project for a spiritual and cultural center in Paris with comments by its author, French architect Wilmotte and ex-author, Nunez-Yanovsky. Instead of one large building "under a glass skirt", the complex has now turned into several sparsely standing buildings. In the meantime, Kommersant explains why it has a five-domed head: in the absence of a distinct style in modern Russian architecture, golden domes for the French - that a “hat with earflaps”, the Russian center in it will always be recognizable.
Well, since this week in Russia is Olympic, it's time to remember how the capital of the previous winter games, Vancouver, withstood the test of a giant construction site. How it turned out that this Olympic village became the "greenest" in the history of games, and Vancouver itself has long held a place in the top five cities in the world with the highest quality of life - read in an interview with the chief designer of the Vancouver Olympics Roger Bailey.
