Parks in Moscow and the region
The Village, Afisha-Gorod and the Portal of the Moscow Archives Council acquaint readers with the finalists of the competition for the concept of a park on Khodynskoye Pole. According to the chief architect of Moscow, Sergei Kuznetsov, any of these projects can become the winner (he will be named on April 7), but the first three candidates have the best chances. Work on the creation of a park on Khodynskoye Pole should be completed by 2016.
This year, 70 park areas were transferred to the Moscow Department of Culture, RBC reports: they will be transformed within the framework of the Moscow outskirts development program. Artem Sukhov, the chief architect of the Diagonal studio, told the newspaper about what parks could be on the periphery.
The Moscow region will also receive funds for the creation of parks, writes RIA Novosti. According to the development program, at least five parks a year should be created in the region, and at least 15 parks will be improved: they will have high-quality lighting, comfortable paths, benches, zones with wireless Internet, tennis tables. Also, by the end of 2014, more than 10 estates will be transferred to investors for restoration and creation of conditions for recreation there.
From the pages of Kommersant, we learn that Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is planning to build an amusement park: experts are sure that Disneyland Moscow will be very popular. Presumably, it will occupy almost 100 hectares in the south of the capital (in the Nagatinskaya floodplain) and will open in 5-7 years.
In continuation of the park theme, it is worth mentioning a large interview with landscape architect Anna Andreeva, published on the Portal of the Moscow Architectural Council, which is becoming a cognitive resource about the architecture of the capital.
Tower
The media seem to have set themselves the task of conveying the meaning of what is happening with the Shukhov Tower to everyone. Fyokla Tolstaya invited Sergei Kuznetsov, Vladimir Shukhov, as well as architectural historians Anna Bronovitskaya and Alexandra Selivanova to the Kultura TV channel to talk about the uniqueness of the tower and options for its preservation. According to Sergei Kuznetsov, the dismantling of the tower from the point of view of the value of the cultural layer, for which in the era of globalization all cities are fighting as the basis of their uniqueness, is a loss. The experts spoke about the history of the tower's construction and the engineering genius of Shukhov, who managed to harmonize the acutely modern building with the traditional Moscow dominants - bell towers, making it the center of development of the entire adjacent territory. Now the area of the tower is a zone of concentration of the avant-garde; there are 76 buildings of the 1920-30 era, 21 of which have the status of a monument.
Petersburg responded to the problem of the Shukhov Tower: the Project Baltia magazine organized a round table "Monuments of Russian Engineering Art in the Context of Urban Development" and the exhibition "Shukhov Tower: Unmoved Value" in the House of Architects. During the discussion, Joseph Rasha assessed the prospect of the restoration of the tower skeptically, pointing out that its cost would be astronomical in any case, especially if the rivets were preserved. Anton Smirnov believes that the preservation of such details is a prerequisite worth any investment, otherwise the whole meaning of the restoration is crossed out.
Also this week, the situation with Shukhov's tower was analyzed by RIA Novosti, ITAR-TASS, Sobesednik Publishing House, the Internet magazine Construction.ru and many other media outlets. Some sources reported about the idea of moving the tower to Samara, Yekaterinburg, Sevastopol.
Cultural heritage
Radonezh is recognized as a cultural heritage site of federal significance as a landmark, according to Echo of Moscow. This order was signed by Dmitry Medvedev. IA Regnum writes that its borders include the Radonezh fortress, the Church of the Transfiguration, the Church of the Exaltation, as well as the adjacent territory of the city of Radonezh. MK correspondent Anastasia Kuzina tried to figure out what was behind this decision. On the territory of Radonezh there are now about a hundred illegally erected cottages. Archaeologist Sergei Chernov believes that the new status is a “kiss of Judas”, a “smokescreen” for the continuation of development. On the one hand, the status of a "landmark" can become the basis for the creation of a museum-reserve. On the other hand, the new status means new borders and protection regimes. According to Sergei Chernov, in the adopted project there are no boundaries of 287 monuments (mainly archeology), there are no landscape objects. That is, there are no material objects of protection, but there are regimes that will allow you to do whatever you want there. "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" thoroughly understands the history of the issue, and IA Regnum publishes a map of the boundaries of a new landmark.
In St. Petersburg, the government is deciding where to find money to restore the Church of the Savior on Sennaya Square. Fontanka found out that the cost of the work is estimated at 1.5 billion rubles, but funds from the federal budget will not be allocated. Smolny came up with the idea of attracting as a sponsor an investor in the construction of the Pik-2 shopping and entertainment complex, which will appear on the same area.
Maria Elkina in the pages of "Art1" criticizes the idea of the military department to block the courtyards of the Admiralty with a glass dome. In her opinion, there is simply no need for this: it is too expensive to arrange exhibitions in a room of such a volume to open the courtyard on weekends for the townspeople, a roof over it is not needed, bridges-passages between parts of the building can also be built in the open air. In addition, Maria Elkina believes that the dome invented by Yevgeny Podgornov "has nothing to do with the architecture of the building, neither formally, nor conceptually, nor metaphorically."
New districts
The portal "RBC Real Estate" has found out how the "gray belt" of Moscow, which has enormous potential, will develop. The plans of the authorities include the comprehensive urban development of industrial zones, the transfer of enterprises to innovative environmentally friendly production or the placement of science and technology parks on their territory. Half of the volume of new real estate should come from residential development, and half from jobs. The most ambitious projects will be the development of the territory of the ZIL and Serp i Molot factories. Premium-class objects may appear on the territory of the Sacco and Vanzetti plant, the Moscow curtain-tulle factory and the Balchug island. The portal of the Moscow Archives Council names the main obstacles to the development of industrial zones: a large number of owners and a poor provision of transport infrastructure.
Petersburg has not yet reached the reconstruction of industrial zones, the city is growing in breadth, which does not always arouse approval. Residents of the Pushkinsky District tried to challenge the introduction of amendments to the General Plan of the region necessary for the construction of the satellite city "Yuzhny", one of the largest housing projects in Russia, through the courts. The court rejected the application, Kommersant reports.
And in the satellite city of Yekaterinburg, Sredneuralsk, a new pedestrian area with low-rise buildings will appear. The head of the project, Alexander Shilkov, said that pedestrian and bicycle traffic will be given absolute priority. Designers strive to make it inconvenient to own a car there. The office center will become the dominant and "anchor" of the microdistrict: now models of a headquarters, a "horizontal skyscraper" and a building fully integrated into the landscape are being considered.
