We are talking about two objects, the construction of which is being completed this year - the housing and administrative center, located at the building address: Moscow, st. Malaya Pirogovskaya, ow. No. 8, p. 1, 2, 3 (developer - OJSC “Moscow silk-twisting factory“Mosnitki”), as well as a multifunctional complex at the building address: Moscow, Central Administrative District, Smolenskiy per., Vl. 19–21 (developer - SK Donstroy CJSC). The projects of both houses were developed by OOO Architectural Workshop ABV Group, headed by architect Nikita Biryukov.
Work with both projects began before the 2008 economic crisis, at the same time the projects were agreed at the "Project" stage. After a change in project management occurred in the development companies, the new project managers asked for relatively minor project adjustments. However, when the construction work reached the stage of implementation of the facades of the objects, the developers stopped taking into account the opinion of the architects, redrawing the project on the fly, ignoring the comments and entries in the architectural supervision logs.
In the house on Malaya Pirogovskaya (consists of four different parts), the result of such an arbitrary intervention was the appearance on one of the facades of giant counter-reliefs with images of Empire ladies and gentlemen, which were not coordinated by the architects: they differ from the antique and Egyptian samples of the genre by the complete absence of plastic - the contours of the figures are cut with grooves in concrete slabs. On the same building in Pirogovka, a facade appeared, stuck on the outside of the masonry, instead of the facade inserted into the spacer of the brick structure, and instead of the brick ornaments of the facade masonry, the customer simply glued foam plastic parts in abundance over the cladding. During the period when changes were not agreed by the architects on this object, the interests of the developer were represented by Alena Deryabina, who acted on behalf of the developer on the basis of a power of attorney, and who, unfortunately, did not at all listen to the opinion of the architects on this issue.
The facades of the building in Smolensky Lane, according to Nikita Biryukov, "suffered less, but still disfigured." Here “instead of white, almost crystal dolomite stone, the developer arbitrarily used yellowish-rusty and beige-brown finishing stone, which made the facades depressing,” the author is sure. The case was completed by large, placed in plain sight illumination lanterns: the developers of the lighting project proposed by the architects of the Architectural Workshop ABV Group were also ignored by the developers.
At present, LLC "Architectural Workshop" Group ABV "has sent complaints about non-compliance with projects to the Committee for State Construction Supervision of the city of Moscow, as well as claims to the developer companies. Also, LLC "Architectural Workshop" Group ABV "prepared claims for the protection of violated copyrights, which will be filed with the court based on the results of receiving responses from developers to the claims sent to them.
At the time of publication of this material, it was not possible to receive a comment from representatives of the Donstroy company.
We spoke with the architect Nikita Biryukov about the details of the case.
Archi.ru:
Russian architects constantly grumble, saying that the project was ruined for them, but they almost never sue and do not fight for their rights. In any case, I cannot remember such cases, it seems to me that you are the first. How did you decide?
Nikita Biryukov:
“They didn't just ruin the house here, it’s different. I believe that this is beyond the bounds. People crossed the line. I have never met such a monstrous disregard for the opinion of an architect in my life.
What happened at Pirogovka, I cannot classify otherwise than as vulgarity. Everyone who knows us, as architects, looking at this house, laughs, think that we are crazy. I don't want to throw stones in the direction of the author of the counter-reliefs - but there simply cannot be such three-meter panels with magazine graphics on the facade of this building, there should not be.
Where did the idea with reliefs come from?
- In one of the variants of the project, we had a proposal with reliefs, then this decision was abandoned and forgotten. In our version, we made bas-reliefs, there was a professional, voluminous plastic, powerful, juicy. There are a lot of examples of architectural plastics, I will not even refer to classical examples in Moscow, in Stalinist architecture there are many examples of full-fledged reliefs and high reliefs.
We were categorically against counter-reliefs, we did not sign anything of the kind as authors. We refused to participate in this, but our opinion was ignored by the developer.
What is your goal in court?
- First of all, we want the facades to be disassembled and rebuilt according to the project. We handed over to the customer all the working drawings of the facades, we have high-quality renders, we can put them in court next to the photographs of the houses built, it will be possible to compare, everyone will see how different they are. In addition, of course, we want to declare publicly: what has been built is not our houses, not our architecture. Defend your rights; none of the architects does this, I understand very well why. Everyone is afraid of losing their jobs.
Do you expect pressure from developers?
- Of course, they will press, everything is not easy. They now feel absolutely unpunished.
Do you count on the support of the professional community? Have your colleagues supported you? I remember that at Arch Moscow in the spring they talked about the copyright of architects …
- I tried to talk with colleagues, many bureaus have similar problems with developers, but it all ended only with conversations. Strictly speaking, there is no community. There are personal interests. Since I am not a refined architect, but a fighter, I have been fighting all my life, then I am not a very typical person for this society, I communicate with few people, I live quite secluded. Public life is not interesting to me. What I like about the Anglo-Saxons - yes, they line up like a pig and go to defend their rights. And Russian architects, individually, are all wonderful people, but there is no community and I think it won't be long. Therefore, I stopped thinking about support, I will fight myself. The client has crossed the line and I can't help but react.
