Press / "New Moscow" and the periphery
Grigory Revzin writes in Kommersant-Weekend about "New Moscow", the development of which lately looks more and more like a utopia. The almost spontaneous formation of a new city, in which neither the state nor the professional community interferes, amazes with its pace and results: the metro has already been built, the airport is developing, tens of kilometers of roads and millions of square meters of housing are being built, Disneyland, a high-speed tram, progressive schools should appear … However, despite the chance to create something new and fresh, everything is developing according to the well-known scenario of Moscow sleeping areas, which are generally not bad, but represent “nowhere”: “areas in which people are unfamiliar with each other and are not capable of any collective action, they do not associate themselves with their area, they are not proud of anything, they cannot remember anything interesting next to them."
Anna Tolstova in the same edition talks about smaller, but also significant changes away from the Moscow agglomeration - in Nikola-Lenivets. Now there is a developed tourist infrastructure, creative industries and even more architectural attractions, and the organizers plan to lure the Norwegian bureau Snøhetta to the shores of the Ugra. The author of the article calls what is happening as rural gentrification: "on the ruins of the agricultural industry, artists are settling in order to prepare a place for the cultural and tourist industry." True, as usual, after the mission was completed, the artists - the peasant artel of Nikolai Polissky - left, and with them the amazing art that gave this place such a powerful charge of energy left.
Modern architect
Last week it became known that St. Petersburg will lose another example of modern architecture - "Alla Pugacheva's theater". Maria Elkina from Art1 thinks this news is bad. She recalls many notable and successful projects of foreign architectural firms that were never implemented in the city for a variety of reasons. Officials, architects, heritage conservationists, developers and public figures become suspiciously unanimous when it comes to a city that's important and beautiful. The author finds a disappointing explanation: "it is worth removing the unspoken barrier that prevents the appearance of a high-quality architectural product from the outside, as it turns out that it is as much better than the one that is now, as the BMW of the fifth series is better than a used Lada."
Olga Mamaeva collected for Colta.ru the opinions of Russian experts about the current trend - the transformation of an architect into a “pop star” or a commercial brand that acts more according to the laws of the market than of art.
"Afisha-Gorod" has released a clear material about modern architectural competitions. The general director of KB Strelka, Denis Leontyev, tells in detail what competitions are, how they differ and what their goals are, and also explains the difference between Russian competitions and foreign ones. Other experts share their experience of directly participating in such events.
Long-term construction
The website of the Moscow Architectural Council publishes another selection of projects submitted for working consideration. This time they are associated with the reconstruction of "frozen" construction projects or with the transformation of existing buildings. This includes projects for the reconstruction of the 16-storey building of the Soviet Sputnik hotel, the President Hotel on Bolshaya Yakimanka, the administrative building of Kalibr OJSC on Godovikova Street, ground parking on Usacheva Street near the Sportivnaya metro station. Also, projects were considered for the transformation of an unfinished industrial building of the 1980s.on Baumanskaya Street (it will turn into a hotel and administrative complex), reconstruction of an industrial building on the Akademik Tupolev embankment and modernization of a mansion on Smolensky Boulevard, 19. In all cases, special attention was paid to the accessibility of the pedestrian environment and the permeability of territories.
Continuing the topic, you can also mention a small selection of German long-term construction, which is published on the website of the radio station Deutsche Welle.
Place memory
Konstantin Mikhailov writes in Kommersant about the restoration of the Transfiguration Church in Moscow 50 years after its explosion. Despite the fact that Preobrazhenskaya Square has changed a lot over the past half century, the restored temple is able to return memory to this place, the author believes and positively assesses the result of many years of work. The temple was raised on a small podium (in the basement floor, the original white-stone foundation will be available for inspection), it was returned not to its original appearance, but to its appearance at the time of the explosion.
In Ulyanovsk, a similar project is being prepared to return the "memorial" dimension to the urban environment. Ulpressa reports that Andrey Anisimov's Workshop has presented a project of an Orthodox complex on the site of the lost Spassky women's monastery. Whether the church on the territory of the complex will be restored in its historical form is still unknown. Architects strive to preserve, first of all, the very idea of the monastery and the memory of it. But on a small site surrounded by large Soviet buildings and modern shopping malls, this will not be easy.
Blogs
On the Strelka Institute blog, you can read a short story about the Urban Treasures workshop, led by Charlie Koolhaas, artist and architectural photographer, daughter of Rem Koolhaas. A group of students created a photo book, which included photographs of the Izmailovo district. The curator explained that they sought to capture the mystery of the place, its layers, to capture the moment “when the urban environment interacts or connects with the spontaneous manifestations of human life, when some actions are performed at the will of the environment”.
Ilya Varlamov, at the request of the Moscow Government Information Center, talks about a new project for the improvement of Moscow streets - "My Street", as well as pedestrian zones and routes, and Alexander Shumsky continues his report on the process of reconstruction of Maroseyka and Pokrovka, where positive changes are already visible: wide sidewalks, civilized parking spaces and lighting.
Alexander Minakov talks about the new movement “Peter without Advertising”, which, as you might guess, aims to free the beautiful architecture of the city from information and advertising waste. You can join the group by following the link.
Archiblog Shu reacts in a similar way to Maria Elkina to the refusal to build Alla Pugacheva's theater, designed by the Populous workshop. According to the authors, the point is not in the theater, but “in the deplorable state of the St. Petersburg urban environment in general and architecture in particular,” which sooner or later will lead to the fact that the city on the Neva will turn into an architectural province.
Arkady Gershman invites readers of his blog to express their opinion on how Russian urban planning will develop in the next 20-30 years. So far, predictions are mostly pessimistic.
