Press / New look of Moscow
The portal of the Archcouncil of Moscow reports the long-awaited news: panel houses of outdated types in the capital will no longer be built. By the decision of Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, their production will stop in 2016. And for construction according to standard projects, the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction has developed new requirements: multi-storey, corner sections that will allow the formation of quarters, a variety of colors and materials of facades, free planning, open and comfortable public spaces. The first floors should be occupied by shops, cafes and social services. The block on Bazovskaya Street is considered as an example of construction in a “new way”. They want to start mass production of new series in 2015.
Gazeta.ru wrote about how foreigners are changing the image of Moscow, whose ideas bring the city closer to Europe in terms of comfort and convenience. Foreign designers started in the capital with the implementation of interior projects, more complex things were difficult - remember at least the residential complex "Russian Avant-garde" by Eric van Egeraat. Now the situation is much better - foreign specialists are actively designing residential complexes with affordable prices and significant public areas.
RBC talks about plans to turn Novy Arbat into a semblance of New York's Times Square with the help of giant advertising and illumination. Nine media facades may appear on high-rise buildings, and light domes on the roofs of two-storey buildings, to which illuminated stairs will lead. According to the authors of the idea, in this way it is possible to simultaneously earn huge amounts of money from advertising and turn Novy Arbat into a cultural phenomenon that attracts millions of tourists.
Interview: architect and developer
Afisha-Gorod published an interview with the head of the Copernicus investment group, Alexander Senatorov, who owns most of the Narkomfin house and is engaged in adapting it to modern use. The hero of the material expresses the thought: “those who don’t sacrifice little, lose everything” - therefore, in the course of work they get rid of reeds (“the last syllable of the word best characterizes this material”), original batteries and windows. But they retain planning solutions and functional zoning. Despite the use of new materials, "the new facade will look the same." He has been working in the House of Senators for 8 years, so he calls his common sense and conscience the main regulators of the entire project ("There should be one person who makes decisions. I will be him"). If we manage to get the remaining 30% of the house and complete the repair and restoration work, the apartments in the house will be sold to a certain circle of people. As you read the interview, you almost begin to believe his hero, but then he proposes his plan to save the Shukhov tower: “we cut it, we remelt all the old, genuine material, add new metal to it, and then from this mixture we build a tower in a new place. its original 350-meter form”.
Senatorov gave a more restrained interview to the Citibum portal, where he expressed, perhaps, the slogan of the developers of the future: “To revive and restore the monuments of constructivism (or any other era) is not only prestigious, not only honorable that magazines write about it, it is also beneficial … Beauty will be made, people like it, people pay money for it. The concept for the restoration of the house was prepared jointly with the bureau Kleinewelt architecten, it was recently completed and is now planned to be presented to the Moscow City Heritage Site.
For fans of the work of Santiago Calatrava, who recently gave a lecture in Moscow, there were two more interviews of the Spanish architect: on our portal and in "Afishe-Gorod".
Petersburg and regions
A new concept of adaptation for the modern use of New Holland has been approved in St. Petersburg, Kommersant reports. A tactful and minimalistic solution without new construction suited both officials and city defenders. Some controversy was caused only by the decision to make windows in the roofs of the former warehouses of the ship's timber, and the topic of bridges will also be considered separately.
Far from positive was the reaction of the Council for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage to the project of adapting the complex of buildings of the Stables Department for a hotel, as reported by RBC. The government handed over the monument to Plaza Lotos Group LLC without competition, and the details of the project became known only recently. All the alterations that anger experts and city rights activists have become possible thanks to the historical and cultural expertise signed by the director of the Spetsproektrestavratsiya institute Vladimir Fomin. Now one of the most authoritative specialists in the city, Margarita Stieglitz, is preparing a new examination. At the same time, the investor is ready to meet with heritage specialists, but the governor always avoids openly discussing problems with the monument.
Kommersant writes that two investment groups have already shown interest in the construction of a pedestrian bridge to connect Krestovsky Island and Primorsky District: the Italian company INC and Scp Basillique from Monaco. It is this bridge that will be used by the masses of football fans who, after the matches at the Zenit-Arena stadium, will get to the Begovaya metro station under construction. One level of the bridge will go to pedestrians and cyclists, the second will be given to shops and restaurants. The bridge should be built in 2015-2017.
The same source reports on an interesting project in Voronezh: renovation of the territory of the former Kommuna printing house in the historic center of the city. The concept provides for "comprehensive improvement with the dismantling of discordant objects" and the restoration of the printing house "with the subsequent addition to the courtyard facade of a building of variable number of storeys." The resulting complex of buildings is proposed to be used for various social events, and the inner square - for rehearsals of the music school.
The Village talks about the original experience of choosing a living space. In the spring of 2012, Alexander Lunev from Tomsk bought an old water tower from the city mayor's office in order to settle in it. In 2016, if he can raise enough money, he plans to complete restoration work and equip a pedestrian zone, playgrounds and a small garden near the monument.
Blogs
Afisha-Gorod's interview with Alexander Senatorov could not fail to spark a discussion on Facebook. Yuri Palmin believes that the hero "comes from the dashing 90s" "uses the ideological potential of the House of Narkomfin for his own cultural identification," quite naturally his "desire to appropriate cultural layers unclaimed by the authorities and build a system of self-reproduction on their basis." The interview evokes mixed feelings, it is called honest and scary. According to Anton Kalgaev, the character seems to have left “Fair enough” - an exhibition-“fair” in the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Dmitry Gusev believes that in St. Petersburg one can only dream of such an approach to heritage - "in the midst of pseudo-historical buildings and the apocalypse of current architectural thought." Anna Ratafyeva writes: “the interviewee’s value system is so different, but so foldable that it fascinates”. Elena Gonzalez explains the situation: the authorities do not need this house, the agitated public will never raise money for restoration. The emergence of an investor in this situation is a miracle. And although he is a "villain", but still the only hope at home, it remains to force him to do good by all available means.
Dmitry Ternovsky in his blog talks about the bike paths of Moscow, which are now 146 km in the capital. All of them are primarily walking, that is, they are not designed to perform a transport function. The current bike paths are demonstratively beautiful, the most striking example of this is the sections from the Crimean bridge to the Luzhniki and from the Crimean embankment to the Victory Park. On the one hand, there are two-way traffic, perfect markings, rental points and even special waste bins where you can throw garbage on the go. But at the same time, the paths are usually divided by cyclists, rollers and pedestrians, and cars use them as parking spaces. However, things are still much better than in Yekaterinburg, where paths are laid in all projects of new streets. The blog about the urban environment "Living Streets" writes about them.
Arkady Gershman writes about a park in Jurmala, which he liked with zoning, landscaping elements, bicycle and pedestrian paths, as well as good materials. Its highlight was the high observation tower. Daria Bychkova wrote for UrbanUrban about another successful European experience: children's playgrounds in Malmö, Sweden, which brought the city the City for Children award. Malmö, with a population of 300 thousand people, has about 220 urban playgrounds, 20 of which are thematic, their design is borrowed by many cities in the world. Daria Bychkova talks in detail about how and by whom these parks are created.
User babs71 went to look at the Alexandria residential complex, built in St. Petersburg by Ricardo Bofill. According to him, the building almost immediately makes you remember the "proletarian dorik" of the 30s, despite the fact that it looks much more cheerful. It looks good, but it is very strangely located: two of the most spectacular facades are turned into the depths of the quarter, and not very successful short "stubs" appear on the streets. The author suspects that Bofill has never seen the site at all.
