The Union of Moscow Architects appealed to the general public, representatives of the federal and Moscow authorities, the professional community with an appeal to hold a new competition for a project for the reconstruction of the building of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences - a competition corresponding to the uniqueness of this monument of Soviet modernism (more about it), and the scientific significance of the institution located there. We are publishing an open letter from the President of the Agrarian Academy N. I. Shumakov, as well as the history of the issue - what happened to the INION building and around it after the fire in early 2015.
IPO Union of Moscow Architects expresses serious concern about the situation around the restoration of the building
INION RAS.
In February 2015, the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D. A. A letter was sent to Medvedev, signed by leading Russian architects, art historians, scientists about the need to restore the building of the INION RAS according to the project of the outstanding Russian architect Yakov Belopolsky with the involvement of a wide range of specialists and the professional architectural community. The letter was signed by more than six hundred architects, they were supported by citizens - almost 11,000 signatures were collected in a petition on www.change.org.
The appeal of the architects and the petition were forwarded to the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FANO) of Russia, from where a response was received signed by the Head of the Federal Property Department I. V. Romanenko, in which it was said that "The plans provide for the maximum restoration of the INION RAS library."
Despite the promise of restoration, which is impossible without the participation of the expert community, further work on the object did not take into account the opinions of specialists and the wishes of the INION RAS staff, and was also carried out without wide coverage in the information space, which is necessary given the uniqueness of the object and its cultural significance for Moscow. Such an approach to solving the most complex urban issues contradicts the principles of openness and professionalism inherent in Moscow's urban planning policy in recent years.
The criteria for choosing the general contractor, the procedure and conditions of the past competition for the concept of building reconstruction, which was not announced and therefore remained out of sight of the leading design organizations, could not lead to a decent result. This is evidenced by the level and nature of the projects submitted for the competition. The implementation of any of them will lead to an irreparable distortion of the original appearance of an outstanding work of Soviet modernism, will not solve the functional problems of the Institute and the library, and will not reveal the potential of the INION RAS territory as an important resource for the development of public spaces in the South-West of the capital.
The Union of Moscow Architects believes that the importance of the tasks of restoring the building and developing the entire complex require a full-fledged architectural and urban planning competition in compliance with generally accepted principles: openness, competitiveness, professionalism. The terms of reference for the competition should be developed by an expert group including architects, INION staff, architecture historians and librarians. The competition must be organized by a reputable professional institution with a proper reputation and public confidence.
In this regard, the MOO SMA considers it expedient and ethically correct to consider the results of the competition held by GIPROKON LLC as insufficient basis for further design work on the restoration of the INION RAS building and the development of the complex territory.
We ask all interested parties to support the initiative of the Union of Moscow Architects to hold a new architectural and urban planning competition corresponding to the significance of INION RAS as an outstanding architectural work and its status as a leading scientific institution of the Russian Federation.
President of the IOO SMA N. I. Shumakov
History of the issue:
- On January 30, 2015, a fire broke out at INION RAS, causing serious damage to the building. In February 2015, the initiative group sent a letter to the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D. A. Medvedev, signed by leading Russian architects, art historians and scientists on the need to restore the building of the INION RAS according to the project of the outstanding Russian architect Yakov Belopolsky with the involvement of a wide range of specialists and the professional architectural community. The letter was signed by more than six hundred architects, they were supported by citizens - almost 11,000 signatures were collected in a petition at www.change.org
- The appeal of the architects and the petition were transferred to the Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations (FANO) of Russia, from where a response was received signed by the Head of the Federal Property Department I. V. Romanenko, where it was said that "The plans provide for the maximum restoration of the INION RAS library."
- In March 2016, following the results of a tender organized by the "FKU" Directorate of a single customer for construction, overhaul and current repairs " through the public procurement portal (https://qoo.by/pXi), the developer of the future project, LLC "Design Organization" GIPROKON”, Founded 4 years ago and not having a high professional reputation (in the tender documentation there is no“Confirmation of the participant's qualifications in the application”).
- Only two applicants participated in the tender: as indicated above, the contract for design and survey work worth 140 million rubles was received by Project Organization GIPROKON LLC, the loser on the government procurement portal is the company Ardent-M. 50% of the authorized capital of Ardent-M belongs to Alexander Gennadievich Malykha. Galina Gennadievna Malykha is the sole founder of Giprokon. For more details on these circumstances, see the REN TV report of 08.16.2016.
- In July (2016-05-07) an architectural competition was launched for the concept of restoration of the building of the FGBU INION RAS.
- The most important competition data are not posted on the website of the competition - the date and place of the announcement of the start of the competition, the organizers of the competition, the type of competition, experts, the jury of the competition.
- The competition was not announced on professional resources and in public media.
- Less than a month was allotted for the preparation of competitive projects.
- Only 14 projects were submitted to the competition.
- The results of the competition were announced on August 16, 2016 at a round table. The first place was taken by two projects, the authors of which are Kirill Tesler and Alexander Kozhevnikov. No second place awarded. The third place was taken by the project of Azamat Takhtarov.
Attention is drawn to the blatant affiliation of the winners of the competition and the members of the jury:
Competition winners:
Tesler Kirill Igorevich, docent of the Department of Design and Urban Planning MGSU, PhD
Kozhevnikov Alexander Mikhailovich, Cand. architecture, associate professor of the department "Architecture of rural settlements" MARCHI, chief project architect LLC "Giprokon"
Jury members:
Volkov Andrey Anatolyevich, rector MGSU
Balakina Alevtina Evgenievna, head Department of Building Design and Urban Planning MGSU;
Shvidkovsky Dmitry Olegovich, rector MARCHI;
Esaulov Georgy Vasilievich, vice-rector MARCHI;
Malykha Galina Gennadievna, Professor, Representative of the General Designer Organization LLC "Giprokon"
