Taking into account the scandalous background of the project, the KGA took a number of precautions: firstly, journalists were not invited to the meeting, although they were not prohibited from entering the informed. Second, the Judiciary Quarter issue was considered the second of three, seemingly to avoid prolonging the expected heated debate. The very fact of submitting three large projects to the City Council at once is the first in my memory. At the same time, two "accompanying" projects, although important (especially the apartment building on Utkin Prospekt, which forms the square in front of the Ladozhsky railway station), are still incomparable in their importance with the fateful judicial complex. As a result, the meeting lasted four and a half hours, the audience was pretty exhausted, and the concentration of "steam" accompanying the scandals did not work out.
Contrary to the fears of officials, the project of Evgeny Gerasimov went quite smoothly, there were no particularly acute hail-defensive attacks, or harsh criticism from colleagues.
In fact, as the representatives of the customer emphasized, all the vicissitudes of the Judicial District are within the legal framework, nothing has been legally violated. And the project itself looked quite convincing in terms of its level. Meeting the "wishes of the workers", 45% of the territory was given to the park. To accommodate all the necessary functions, including the return to the project housing for judges, the complex has shrunk and became more compact. All the necessary standards, including the required 23-28 meters in height, were met. The only exception was the theater, the height of which, equal to 35 meters, was nevertheless agreed by the KGIOP. The style of the complex tends to be neoclassical and looks neutral in relation to the historical environment.
The Gerasimov complex consists of four blocks: the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the residential area and the theater, which is designed by Sergei Tchoban. In plan, these buildings form a quadrangle with a "taken out" fourth corner, which filled the square. The entire massif of the complex has been moved to the west, making room for green space. The speaker Evgeny Gerasimov eloquently accentuated the town-planning role of the Prince Vladimir Cathedral, for which the project provides for visual shots.
Of course, there were comments, some of them seemed very convincing to me. For example, Yuri Zemtsov expressed concern that the imposing portico of the Supreme Court would become an inappropriate competitor to the portico of the Tom de Thomon Stock Exchange - the undoubted dominant of the Neva panorama. To avoid this, he proposed to move the park along the embankment so that the green curtain would exclude the very possibility of rivalry. After all, no matter how convincing the picture looks, in reality it can easily turn into an urban planning mistake, of which there are many examples. By the way, the project of the Bureau "Zemtsov, Kondiain and Partners" with such a location of the park according to the results of the competition in 2013 was the second after Atayants and enjoyed the greatest sympathy of colleagues in the shop [1].
Mikhail Mamoshin urged to observe the laws that have just been adopted and to leave the Eifman theater within the height standards (Nikita Yavein and some other speakers expressed the same opinion). In addition, following Vyacheslav Ukhov, he urged not to flatter too much with the idea of visual shots at the Prince Vladimir Cathedral, which will work very sporadically, but rather lower the overall level of the complex so that the silhouette of the dome and bell tower can be read from everywhere. Finally, Mikhail Mamoshin expressed a fair fear that the above-mentioned excavation in the quadrangular plan of the complex would be a provocation for developers who, sooner or later, will build it up for the needs of the judicial complex.
A variety of opinions were heard about the theater staging in terms of its orientation in space, as well as about its architecture, which, in contrast to the neutral neoclassicism of Evgeny Gerasimov, was a postmodern plot in the spirit of Dmitry Barkhin, with a glass "body" and lush Ionic porticoes.
One way or another, the high professional level of the proposed project, it seems, did not cause any doubts. As a result, the project was approved by a majority of votes.
However, there is no escape from the ethical component: after all, this turn in Judicial history cannot be called otherwise than a triumph of the administrative resource, it is here both a lever, and a norm, and an example to follow. The results of the competition were canceled, the winning concept was "taken as a basis", but its author did not receive anything in the end, except for moral and material costs, as well as the oral gratitude declared by the representatives of the customer. Let me remind you that the competition was generally free; the only reward was to be the author's further work with the winning concept. The jury's decision and the results of the citizens' vote were ignored.
It is also becoming the norm that the most important urban areas, one after another, are given away for design without competitions. At the last meeting of the City Council, it was the sea façade of the city, now here is the Judicial Quarter, as well as the residential complex considered by the first issue, decorating the square near the Ladozhsky railway station - in fact, the visiting card of the city for visitors (however, the last project was never agreed upon).
The situation is rather sad. [1] The Kapitel magazine conducted a survey on this matter.
