*** With this publication, we are opening a new genre of advertising for professional magazines: we will ask the editors-in-chief to briefly tell about the new issue. It was a good coincidence that Anna Martovitskaya, who worked as Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Archi.ru for five years, starts the "Journal" column; This spring, Anna was invited to become the editor-in-chief of speech: magazine, and we are delighted to welcome our colleague to a new job. So, a new editor-in-chief, a new issue of the magazine, a new heading. The floor is given to Anna Martovitskaya. ***
Anna Martovitskaya, editor-in-chief
speech: / provided speech:
“The theme of the metro was suggested to the magazine in the summer by one of its founders, the chief architect of Moscow, Sergei Kuznetsov. The choice of the theme by the chief architect of the city was more than understandable: just in those days a competition started at the Solntsevo and Novoperedelkino stations, the importance of which is difficult to overestimate - this is the first architectural competition in the history of the Moscow metro over the past half century. In addition, next year the Moscow metro will celebrate its 80th anniversary, and preparations for this anniversary have already begun. But I confess that, as the then newly appointed editor-in-chief, the voiced topic, due to its specificity and certain narrowness, rather confused than inspired. However, starting to closely investigate the question of what kind of metro stations are being built today in different parts of the world, I discovered a rich and extremely diverse world: both the best architects of the world and incredibly talented young designers work with this typology, for many of whom it is the implementation of the underground facilities has become the very "lift" that brings the professional Olympus to the very top.
The diversity of the modern metro was the basis for this issue. The geography of the objects presented in it is very wide - from Rio de Janeiro and Chicago to Dubai and Singapore with numerous stops in European cities and, of course, Moscow. In fact, Australia has become the only continent not covered by us, except, of course, Antarctica, but, strictly speaking, there is no metro there in the traditional sense of the word.
However, having made the theme of the issue the architecture of the metro, both along and across, having investigated the question of what stations are being designed and built today, we considered the urban development aspect of the development of off-street transport no less important for ourselves. No matter how iconic and unique this or that station may be, we were primarily concerned with the question of what it is capable of giving to the city and its inhabitants in a broader sense than just transport accessibility, how it transforms a particular area, complementing, and often qualitatively changing the structure of its landmarks and public spaces. Extremely interesting and indicative from this point of view are those published in the issue of the Kraaiennest station in Amsterdam (MLA + bureau, whose head, Markus Appenzeller, became a special guest of the presentation of the issue), Uruguai in Rio de Janeiro (JBMC bureau), Morgan in Chicago (Ross Barney Architects). However, unfortunately, sometimes life makes its own adjustments to the spectacular ideas of architects and city authorities: for example, the Benimamet station in Valencia (architect Luis Ferrer), which got on our cover, was supposed to become the “keystone” of a vast park, but, Alas, the economic crisis that broke out in Spain does not yet allow the project to be fully implemented.
According to the magazine's tradition, the theme of the issue is comprehensively revealed not only in reviews of individual buildings and a historical essay, but also in several interviews, the heroes of which are architects who have been designing off-street high-speed transport systems for many years. And again, we tried to show the widest possible range of approaches and opinions: the interlocutors of speech: metro were the famous Dutch architect Jan Bentem, who owns the projects for the new Amsterdam metro line, as well as the central stations of the four largest cities in Holland,the author of the reconstruction of the King`s Cross station and the new metro line in Delhi, Hiro Aso (partner of the British bureau John McAslan + partners), as well as the president of the Neapolitan metro Giannegidio Silva, thanks to whose efforts Naples confidently leads the rating of the most beautiful subways in Europe today.
In conclusion, I would also like to note that from this issue the speech: magazine received an updated layout, which, we hope, will make it even more in demand among the readership. Also, the "Internet representation" of the magazine, the site archspeech.com, began its work, conceived as an encyclopedia of modern architecture, where the topic of each issue (both already published and future) will be revealed even more comprehensively."
