Tower
The fate of the Shukhov Tower continues to be the main theme. The latest news can be found on the page "Shukhov Tower: SOS". Eduard Hayman posted on his blog the documentary film "Inspired by Shukhov" by Natalia Arashavskaya, which was filmed in 2013 and was waiting for its time to be shown at festivals, but in light of recent events, the director decided to make it publicly available. The film clearly shows how the ideas of an engineer influence the development of parametric and generative approaches of Russian architects and artists. Boris Kondakov-Zhelezny expresses new considerations as to why the tower should stand in its place and what benefits it can bring to the city. Together with dozens of other masterpieces of constructivism, the tower is strung on a single compositional axis - the New Boulevard Ring of the capital, which may become a popular tourist route. Also, the project "Walks in Moscow" announced a selfie contest under the motto "The Shukhov Tower is cooler than the Eiffel Tower". And here you can find a selection of posters in defense of the tower on Shabolovka.
A clip with a film by Natalia Arashavskaya:
Peterhof
Last week, one more problem joined the problem of the Shukhov Tower: it is planned to surround the parks of Petrodvorets with high-rise buildings and parking lots. Change.org is collecting signatures against.
Cities
The authorities of the Moscow Region have approved the project of the residential complex "Zvezdny" - a 23-storey tower in the spirit of the 90s, which is planned to be built in the center of Zhukovsky. There are historical buildings around, houses are mainly 4-storey high, but the standards and restrictions, as can be concluded from the discussion in the RUPA community, have not been developed and not fully approved. The legislation has not been violated in the literal sense, and the overall impression of the project is quiet horror. “If the construction goes on, then talk about the sanity of the existing legislation can be forgotten. About "public spaces" even more so, - writes Elena Gonzalez. “I think that all construction projects that will not start in the next month or two will not start very soon,” Yaroslav Kovalchuk reassures her.
Alexander Lozhkin published in his blog "City Development Program" - instructions for municipalities in the areas of urban planning, transport, environmental policy, improvement and organization of local self-government. The document was created taking into account the discussions at the round tables of the architectural festival "Golden Capital", which recently ended in Novosibirsk. According to Lozhkin, only one candidate for mayor of the city, Ilya Ponomarev, is cooperating with him on these issues.
Meanwhile, in the blog of Yuri Krupnov, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Institute of Demography, Migration and Regional Development (IDMRR), a different proposal appeared, addressed to the leadership of the Omsk region and the federal government. According to Krupnov, the note summarizes "the results of three days of work", but the proposal is striking in scale: the authors propose to build two cities in Omsk, with the old and the new airport, for 50 and 30 thousand people, and also - to make Omsk a center for "the development of the Arctic and industrialization Central Asia ". In another message, you can get acquainted with Krupnov's speech at a round table about the demographic future: “large families should live better than anyone else,” says Krupnov.
In St. Petersburg, Maria Elkina is looking closely at the Nevskaya Ratusha business center, which is being built according to a project by Sergei Tchoban and Yevgeny Gerasimov. The author is particularly worried about the decoration of the main building - according to her, it resembles a UFO, and it can already be seen from the embankments of the Neva.
Bicycles
And finally, a serious discussion was caused by Alexander Shumsky's attempt to debunk the myths that there are too many obstacles in Moscow to the use of bicycles and the creation of appropriate infrastructure. Neither the climate nor the traffic situation scares him. The main message is that everything is possible if you wish. The author was supported by cyclists from Perm, where, after the appearance of dedicated tracks, half of the city switched to two-wheeled vehicles. Whoever is right in disputes about the convenience of using a bicycle, the authorities are sticking to their own line: the Ministry of Economic Development has offered the regions to invest in the most effective types of communication, namely in buses. Alexander Antonov called this decision “ingenious”: when the whole world, including even Africa, builds megalopolises and agglomerations based on the development of the rail transport network, we go our own way.
