The radio tower, built in the early 1920s by the project of the outstanding Russian engineer, architect and inventor Vladimir Shukhov, has never been overhauled over more than 90 years of its history. The state of its structures is increasingly called critical, some time ago there were proposals to disassemble and rebuild the tower, and recently Deputy Minister of Communications Aleksey Volin suggested that its parts should be put down somewhere until better times in order to build sometime elsewhere. Than predictably caused a heated discussion.
Meanwhile, there is a completely different, if not the opposite, approach. The historian Yuri Volchok, who has been studying the state of the Shukhov Tower for a long time, is sure that the degree of its damage is greatly exaggerated. A year ago, he turned to the architects of the Fourth Dimension bureau, who, on a voluntary basis, without an official order or an investor, developed a concept for the preservation of the monument. The authors examined the tower many times, communicated with representatives of the Shukhov Foundation, engineers and designers. In the spring, the project was shown at the Golden Section. “Of course, the tower needs to be repaired, but today there is no real threat of its collapse,” says Vsevolod Medvedev, one of the authors of the concept.
The authors proposed to preserve the tower by placing it in a glass-metal cube for ten years. During this time, it is proposed to explore the monument, assess the condition and damage of structures, without rushing to prepare and carry out the optimal restoration, in order to then open the tower for its 100th anniversary. The architects are confident that such conservation will not only help preserve the monument in a sub-critical state at the stage of searching for optimal restoration methods, but will also allow (like a huge showcase) to demonstrate the tower together with restorers to everyone for ten years.
The box is planned to be built in the load-bearing structures of scaffolding on a square base in plan. Reliable structural system of the box will relieve the load from the tower along its entire height. The resulting spaces around the tower structures will serve as research laboratories at the preparatory stage, and at the stage of restoration they will turn into a multi-level construction site. The two walls of the shell will be blank. One of them is a screen for photographs and videos dedicated to the history of the Shukhov Tower and the television center on Shabolovka. The second is an information stand with the latest reports on the progress of the tower's restoration.
The two remaining sides of the box, all glass, will allow the entire city to observe the restoration, which would thus become a citywide attraction. Day and night (thanks to the illumination) the tower will be in full view - the authors emphasize. And for a detailed and close inspection, as well as for the most complete inclusion of the tower in the life of the city, the authors proposed to build a panoramic elevator from the outside of the protective box, which lifts visitors to an open observation deck arranged at the top of the glass shell.
Simultaneously with the restoration work on the tower itself, it is necessary to put in order and make the adjacent territories publicly accessible. Today, the tower, which has not been functioning for a long time, is surrounded by endless fences and neglected, dilapidated buildings. There is not the slightest opportunity to approach the monument by more than 10-12 meters, and even then you will have to try hard to see the unique structures. The paradox is that the land at the foot of the tower, which officially belongs to the television center, is not used by the owner in any way.
The authors of the concept propose to clear the territory of the 4th quarter of the Donskoy district, located at the intersection of Shabolovka and Shukhov street, turning them into a green public space, eliminate all fences, reconstruct existing buildings, while preserving their functional purpose and the rights of owners, users and tenants to their working areas.
One of the main objects here should be the SI-technology center based on the development of Shukhov's ideas, inventions and patents. The building of the college is proposed to be re-profiled for the training of technicians in the maintenance of SI-technological equipment. Also on the territory of the quarter, in one of the historical buildings, a museum of the Shukhov Tower and the history of Russian television should be organized. The long-term construction belonging to the TV center could become the Internet center of Russian television. On the basis of a low unfinished building adjacent to it, the authors came up with the idea of creating a volleyball club.
According to Vsevolod Medvedev, the transformation of the quarter could be done with minimal funds - for example, cleaning the territory and reconstructing the facades of buildings. If you wish, you can carry out these works fairly quickly to provide the townspeople with free access to the tower. Ideally, we would like to create a new powerful public space, a new cultural center of attraction.
The concept presented is still schematic: the authors deliberately avoid pronounced architectural images, proposing only the distribution of functions within the quarter and methods for solving the sore problem of restoration. They insist that in this case it is necessary to attract the greatest number of professional forces, the attention of the city authorities, and possibly a competition. One way or another, but the problem needs to be solved, and the concept of the Fourth Dimension Bureau proves that it can be solved.
