The time has come to attend to the subject of protection of the main objects of the 1980 Olympics - future architectural monuments of the seventies.
Today there are several good reasons to focus more and more closely on the venues of the Moscow Olympics. A full-scale reconstruction of the architectural and construction experience in the construction of Olympic facilities is essential for understanding the whole versatility of the formation of a holistic event picture of those years and the variety of motivations that determine and reveal their historical and cultural value.
In the years leading up to the Moscow Olympics, and during the days of the Games, there was a lot of writing about the Olympic venues, and constantly emphasizing their future purpose. The townspeople were satisfied that in the future, after the end of the Games-80, these objects should fully belong to the city, and not so much as monuments to a historical event, but to participate in the fullness of their "vitality" in the daily life of the capital. It would seem that the time has long come to write about the XXII Olympic Games in the past tense - a specific reason for the construction of Olympic facilities in Moscow has become a fact of history. This role of theirs, no matter how they treat it, left its mark on the entire subsequent period of their life in the city. There is reason to speak of the objects of the Olympics precisely as monuments - monuments of their time, since they are not only precisely tied to a specific time period, but also characterize it most fully. The Olympic function of these structures does not die away, but acquires a new content that allows them to be treated as objects of full-fledged historical knowledge.
According to the legislation existing in our country for the preservation of historical and cultural heritage, 40 years is an age that opens up the opportunity for setting certain structures for state protection as monuments of their time. Olympic facilities always and everywhere receive this status, since they naturally maximalistically present their modernity. It is important to note that it was the interpretation of the concept of "modernity" that was most significant for the authors of the project concept, and how viable it was and was able to fully retain its significance after decades, testifies to its full historical value.
Olympic sports complex on Prospekt Mira
M. V. Posokhin, B. I. Thor, L. S. Aranauskas, R. I. Semerdzhiev, Yu. P. Lvovsky, Yu. V. Ratskevich and others
The largest in Europe, as the 1970s required for the facilities of the Moscow Olympics, the sports complex on Prospekt Mira began to be built in 1977. All the main decisions: conceptual and design (not excluding economic, political and image) - were taken by this time. In the years preceding the construction, the key value characteristics of the complex were laid down, which predetermined the formula for the subject of its protection as an architectural monument of history and culture - one of the landmark objects of the Moscow Olympics.
What did you pay attention to in the first place when forming the Olympic Complex on Prospekt Mira?
The location of a large sports complex between Prospekt Mira and Severny Luch was programmed long before the Olympics. At the end of the 60s, searches were already underway for its architectural form and “formula” for its versatility as a large and multifunctional object. Strictly speaking, the careful planning of this large urban area was another stage in the implementation of the concept of the General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow in 1935. Giving the future object the Olympic status added to the concept of the sports complex that share of maximalism, which, while emphasizing the uniqueness of the event, nevertheless allowed the object to retain a full-fledged opportunity to participate in the daily life of the city after the Olympics.
The generally understood "rule of exclusivity" was also assigned to the Olympic Palace of Sports, as well as to practically all facilities being built for the Olympics. It was supposed to become the largest indoor universal hall for its time. It was designed for 35–45 thousand spectators, depending on the spectacle event held at one time or another.
The multifunctionality of the universal complex was carefully differentiated at all stages of the pre-project comprehension of the task. The urban planning chord of the Olympic Complex has secured two outbound (one of which became Olympic Avenue) highways between themselves, located near two metro stations on Prospekt Mira.
The idea of locating the pool and the universal hall on a common stylobate also maximally fully works on the concept of compactly packed versatility. The same logic is developed by the idea of constructing a movable acoustic curtain, which allows dividing the hall into two and simultaneously holding various events (and not only sports) in opposite halves of the hall.
The appearance of the Olympic Hotel and the skillful functional use of the significant height difference at the construction site expanded the range of functional capabilities of the universal Olympic complex. One of the leading authors of this construction, B. I. Thor, during the Eurovision Song Contest in 2009, was sincerely satisfied that 30 years after the construction of the Olympic Sports Palace, the hall of the Olympic Sports Palace was not outdated and did not have to be "modernized". It turned out to be sufficient to bring the concert equipment and "drape" the facade with advertising banners, which gave the "Olympic" the feeling of a new holiday.
Of course, great attention was paid to the design and technology of the Olimpiyskiy's large-span unsupported coating. It can be considered a success that we stopped at the proposal of the laboratory of metal structures of TsNIISK, or, more precisely, the author's idea and the development of its long-term by that time head, Doctor of Technical Sciences. IN AND. Trofimova. According to his idea, the technology of rolled thin metal sheet with a thickness of 4 mm, a width of up to 6 m and a length required by designers was developed. Meeting the "Olympic" scale and professional ambitions of the pioneering development, protected by the author's priority, metal rolls of TsNIISK have become a universal method for covering almost all large-span Olympic facilities, regardless of the shape of their plan: be it a rectangular sports complex in Izmailovo or a cycle track in Krylatskoye, erected on an oval plane.
Cycling track in Krylatskoye
N. I. Voronina, A. G. Ospennikov, V. V. Khandzhi, Yu. S. Rodnichenko and others
The cycle track in Krylatskoye is perhaps the most memorable structure, timed to coincide with the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. In addition to the "generally accepted rule" for unique objects at that time - to be the largest in Europe or better - in the world (in the Moscow cycle track the "riding track" is 333.33 meters instead of 250 meters adopted before and after), the cycle track had a number of genuine advantages, regardless of their size. In the cycle track, a lot of different-scale in their significance, but at the same time indisputable constructive innovations were implemented. Basically, it was they who provided the morphological structure of the architectural form of the building, openly striving for the perfection of its architectural and engineering solutions, creating maximum comfort for both a very peculiar function - cycling on the track, and for 6000 spectators - co-participants of this "action".
The authors of the cycle track were able to preserve and "translate" into the language of their modernity the tendencies of architectural shaping dating back to the 1920s. Careful work with function and material allowed the authors to perceive the design task as a sculpting of an architectural (as well as sculptural) form. With the only proviso that strictly executed mathematical calculation became the main tool of artistic "sculpting". The architectural form of the cycle track is one of the few examples at the turn of the 1970s-1980s in our country of the indissolubility of the methodology of shaping, its evolutionary accumulation throughout the last century, right up to the present day. The emergence, or rather the spread of digital technologies, undoubtedly enriches this process, develops it. But it is pertinent to remember at the same time: designed and laid out according to the calculations and concept of V. V. Hange the "canvas" of the Moscow cycle track made of larch bars nearly forty years ago allows to this day to set world records in cycling. And in the choice of material for the working canvas, a convincingly meaningful desire for the creation of one's own, non-borrowed professional tradition was also manifested in the domestic realities. The authors of the cycle track in Krylatskoye undoubtedly knew about the world record of Z. Tyumentseva in 1957 in the 100 km race on the Irkutsk cycle track, built in 1934 from the local building material - larch.
The inclined arches of the cycle track, creating a carefully traced silhouette of the functional filling of the internal space, are interconnected by a tape "roll" membrane proposed by V. I. Trofimov to cover the Olympic facilities.
The main press center of the Olympics on Zubovsky Boulevard
I. M. Vinogradsky and others
The press center also claimed, according to the pre-project concept, to become unique, almost the first in the world, i.e. an unprecedented facility being built for the Olympics. In addition, it was necessary to provide jobs for 3,500 accredited journalists. After the Olympics, the Press Center was supposed to be transformed into a large news agency, to transfer the Union of Journalists here and, if possible, to place other specialized organizations.
The press center is close to one of the most significant architectural monuments of Moscow - the former Provision Warehouses of the architect V. P. Stasov. It is also interesting to use this example to trace how the approach to the design of a new object for the city in the historical environment, or in the immediate vicinity of a unique monument, was understood at the end of the 1970s. Provision warehouses have essentially become a prototype for the design of the Press Center. One of the reasons that formed the "subtext" of such an approach to design, in this case, could be the fact that for many years a garage for cars was located in the Provision warehouses and access to its territory was closed for the townspeople.
The press center was intended to demonstrate the openness of its "existence" not only in the content of its activities, but also in the organization of the urban structure. The city, as it were, entered the space of the Press Center and through it - further, deeper into the historical buildings, developing the tradition that had developed in the city, in particular, on Tverskaya (then Gorky Street), the tradition of letting townspeople through the alleys of old Moscow through the arches in the enlarged front of the building along the red lines … Time decreed otherwise. Food warehouses have become the Museum of Moscow and are available to citizens. The news agency, on the other hand, has become a closed "island" in the city's structure.
Universal sports hall "Druzhba" in Luzhniki
Yu. V. Bolshakov and others
Equestrian sports complex "Bitsa"
L. K. Dyubeck, A. G. Shapiro, A. R. Kegler, Yu. P. Ivanov and others
Olympic Village
E. N. Stamo, A. B. Samsonov, O. G. Kedrenovsky and others
It seems quite timely to talk about Olympic venues now, long before the legally fixed date for the possibility of acquiring the status of a monument. It is appropriate to "build in" the Moscow Olympic Village of the 80s into the meaningful sequence of the implementation of the idea of complexity by industrial methods of the erected development, starting with residential areas of the 1920s and 1930s, up to new and so different, based on the real possibilities of our days, residential formations on Khodynka, in Kurkino and others. It should be remembered that Cheryomushki did not have time to be put under state protection. Knowledge about the image of one of the earliest residential areas of the first generation of mass industrial in factory construction, implemented in the late 50s - early 60s, remained, alas, bookish and remained in the metaphor of its name and its total spread across the cities of the country as a common noun, which has long become instructive.
It is appropriate to pay attention to the fact that the residential areas in the now “foreign” cities, in particular, the water-green diameter in Minsk, the residential areas of Vilnius, Tallinn, etc. have acquired historical and cultural value. Their concepts and implementation played a role in the formation of the project the concept of the Olympic Village-80 and the improvement of its territory, which looks quite worthy to this day.
Understanding the historical value of the Olympic Village will preserve the integrity of the three-dimensional composition of the Village that has survived to this day, almost in its original form, with open (not yet fully built-up) perspectives, angles, panoramas, views of the neighboring areas that are conceptually important for the formation of its image. They characterize the world outlook of their time, including in the organization of space, no less than the catalog reinforced concrete elements from which the residential complexes of the Olympic Village were built.
The Olympic Village in Moscow, with the natural everyday life of its existence as one of the city's residential areas, is probably a good example for the broadest conversation about how fully the objects of the 1980 Olympics can characterize the level and state of the architectural and construction business in Moscow at the end of the 70s. x years. At the same time, there is one more side of the issue, which is very important when talking about the Olympic Village as a potential monument of the historical and cultural heritage of its time, one of its places of interest. It was built so quickly that the final concept, which had established itself in the layout, did not have time to transform in time, as was often the case with many projects of newly created, including experimental, districts of Moscow. Comparing photos from a model and photos from nature (from a sufficiently high point - from a helicopter, for example), it is easy to confuse them, they are so identical, and this is very important when talking about how the Olympic Village really has reason to characterize those acquired by the architectural profession by their time opportunities for creating a full-fledged urban environment.
For experimental projects, the long terms of their implementation in nature are pernicious in essence. In this regard, the Olympic Village can be considered, although not announced, but, nevertheless, one of the full-fledged experiments associated with an integrated approach to design and construction. In this case, the complexity extends not only to the simultaneous bringing together of professional and economic means and efforts, but also to the simultaneous creation of residential buildings and public buildings. Or, it would be more correct to say: on the realization (by both the customer and the performers) of the indissolubility of all the components necessary for the full functioning of a relatively large and independent fragment of the city.
Today there is every reason to object: what is so surprising about it? After all, they were building for the Olympics - by a date that can neither be moved, nor "divorced in time". The situation is exceptional and cannot be compared with any other experimental construction area. It's right. But this exclusivity also has an experimental content. The uniqueness of the situation "provoked" the formulation of a rather new and in its own way original task for those years: a professional understanding of the ideas of the complexity and integrity of an autonomously existing residential area had to be realized in the shortest possible time and with the means that were available. This required from the participants in the design and construction not only the mobilization and concentration of organizational and economic efforts, but also professional experience and skill. It is obvious that the situation that developed for understandable reasons during the construction of the Olympic Village was very favorable. But the concern of the team of authors of the architectural studio, where the project of the Olympic Village was created, and the fate of their next projects - the Ramenki and Nikulino quarters, where the complexity of the building, alas, was not supposed to be achieved at the same time, is also understandable. It "accumulated" in time, initially unpredictably for a long time.
E. N. Stamo - the leader and, without a doubt, the creative leader of the group of authors experienced this situation as a personal, intra-family drama. His father, engineer N. L. Stamo, in the twenties, was one of the main organizers of mass industrial housing construction in the country, the first director of INORS - an institution designed to create scientific and methodological foundations for the formation of the necessary production conditions for the implementation of this idea in the proposed circumstances of its time. The main one, according to the creators of the strategy of mass housing construction, was not so much a lack of funds, but a catastrophic (according to N. L. Stamo) lack of qualified specialists in real construction, depriving it of a seriously planned and hopefully visible prospect.
For E. N. Stamo 50 years later, the design of the Olympic Village is also a confirmation of the regularity and usefulness of life in time of the concept of mass housing construction, laid down in many respects by the efforts of INORS. Stamo elevated the creation of the Olympic Village to a creative principle from those objects that by that time had already been introduced into the practice of Moscow development. This, in his firm conviction, should have been the experiment on the uniqueness of the Olympic Village. If desired, realizing the "political will", you can do "everything at once", achieving high operational quality of the residential complex. The drama is that by the end of the seventies it was only possible to bring these possibilities together by preparing for the Olympics. The problem of complex development in other situations remained the most acute after the Games of the 80th year - for many years.
According to the design concept, the Olympic Village in the post-Olympic period was to become one of the largest (14.5 thousand inhabitants) residential areas in the South-West, organically fitting into the logic of the implementation of the Master Plan for the Development of Moscow. This also explained to a large extent its general urban planning and compositional solution, and the typological set of objects under construction: residential buildings - according to the Moscow unified catalog, buildings of schools and kindergartens - also according to projects recognizable for Moscow. During the days of the Games, they were used as warehouses and for other needs, and then after minor, mainly cosmetic repairs, they were used for their intended purpose. Much has been written about all this at one time. And the fact that the Olympic Village in the future, after the Games, was supposed to settle down as one of the many (and in this sense, ordinary) microdistricts of the South-West, was seen as one of the most important prerequisites for the complexity and integrity of the design concept, and a practically "programmed" guarantee of success … All assumptions, on the whole, were justified and did not disappoint the impatient expectations of future new settlers. And yet, the fact that the Olympic Village after the Olympics became an “ordinary” residential area in the South-West of the capital is only its most preliminary characterization.
The conversation about the true place of the Olympic Village not so much in the geographical space as in the semantic space of the city, in many respects comes down to understanding and assessing the spatial patterns of its construction: how individual can be a residential area created according to the catalog of industrial housing construction in the second half - late 1970s ?
The first thing that catches your eye when you find yourself in the Olympic Village in the first years after the Games is walking around it. They just walk, as if they would walk in the woods or along the seaside boulevard, slowly, bowing to their friends, looking at the views of nature and the city's panoramas that generously unfold from here from constantly changing angles. Such a characteristic, which is rarely encountered to this day, can to some extent serve as a completely correct criterion for the quality of the urban environment. After all, this is precisely what they are striving for today - to enable citizens to feel comfortable in the urban space. At the end of the 70s, this circumstance was highly appreciated, first of all, during the reconstruction of the city center and its protected areas. A pedestrian street (whether it be Old Arbat or Stoleshnikov lane in Moscow) was usually associated with the idea of a traditional street and, as a result, with a historical city.
In the Olympic Village, the pedestrian space was created in a newly designed and built area from scratch. It is located along one of the most important radial (departure) highways of the city - Michurinsky Prospect. At this site, the designers stopped, combining the strict requirements and rules of the IOC and the tasks of placing new large residential areas according to the General Plan of Moscow. This duality of the initial design conditions naturally created additional difficulties, since the Olympic requirements and the design tasks of urban planning did not always coincide. Quite often they entered into a contradiction that had to be overcome in the design process, each time finding non-standard solutions.
A very favorable natural environment played an important role in the final choice of a site for construction: forest, ravines, picturesque, not urban in terms of feeling, open spaces. The Olympic Village is located on an area of 83 hectares - stretched along Michurinsky Prospekt for a kilometer stretch. This decision is the result of bringing together the requirements of the IOC and the Master Plan. For two Olympic weeks, the proposed composition made it possible to clearly separate the functional zones of the Village, and from the urban planning point of view, to successfully implement the promising ideas for the development of the South-West, one of the components of the star-shaped center of the capital, which is most actively built up in this direction, along the Kremlin-Central Stadium axis. - Moscow State University.
* * *
A detailed reconstruction of the perception of the Olympic facilities and, first of all, the Olympic Village in two weeks of the Games and for a long time after them, until new layers began to interfere with its development, makes it possible to more fully restore the author's idea and design concept of an object that undeniably claims to become a monument of history and culture of its time. That is why the design stage of the future structure, when the true content of the creative idea is formed, is one of the most important periods of his biography, and it should also be included in the 40-year period, which fixes the time of attaining the right to apply for inclusion in the State Register of Heritage Protection.
