The museum boom that swept the world at the turn of the millennium actually bypassed Russia. Several hundred interesting museum buildings have been built in Europe, the United States and Asia since the early 1990s. The rules of the game were the same in almost all cases: the articulated desire of local authorities or large foundations to create a bright landmark; international competition; selection of a daring unusual project and its implementation in the urban environment, often based on the principle of contrast [1]. European capitals received several first-class masterpieces and new objects of attraction: in Helsinki - the Kyasma Museum (Stephen Hall, 1998), in Amsterdam - a new wing of the Van Gogh Museum (Kisho Kurokawa, 1999), in Rome - the MAXXI Museum (Zaha Hadid, 2010), in Paris - the Anthropological Museum on Quai Branly (Jean Nouvel, 2006) and the Center of the Louis Vuitton Foundation (Frank Gehry, 2014).
Nothing new was built in Moscow or St. Petersburg. The State Hermitage, in all respects the flagship and locomotive of Russian museum affairs, has set the vector for museum renewal. This vector is the expansion of the territory of large museums, expansion, the seizure of new buildings and their adaptation to suit your needs. Rem Koolhaas's brilliant analysis of the "museum suitability" of the General Staff building formed the basis of Nikita Yavein's serious project. The result, which caused polarizing opinions, still remains the only completed project in this area. Koolhaas also succeeded in the second step - the adaptation of a much more modest modernist cafe "Vremena Goda" in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure. Gorky under the Center for Contemporary Culture "Garage" [2]. Having found a renovated building, Garage began to call itself a museum.
The old capital's museums have dreamed of expanding all these years. The largest museums in Moscow (and the country) can compete in the duration and quirkiness of the construction epic. *** Main museums in Moscow
The State Tretyakov Gallery has been developing a project for a new building at the corner of Lavrushensky Lane and Kadashevskaya Embankment for over twenty years. During this time, three directors of the gallery have changed, and the team of authors of the project, led by the constant Andrey Bokov, has also changed. The crisis followed the crisis, the construction was postponed, the project was reworked many times, and at the end of 2010 the doomed house of the exchange artel of the Khludov merchants was finally demolished. The demolition and the foundation pit that quickly emerged in its place attracted lively attention to the Tretyakov Gallery, as a result of which new metamorphoses awaited the project. Information has leaked out that the project of the new building, for which funding has been received, has become outdated many times, and its exterior does not stand up to criticism. The new chief architect of Moscow, Sergei Kuznetsov, being an apologist for the competition system, promptly announced a competition for new facades for the building designed by Bokovy, arousing the master's sincere discontent. The competition was won by Sergei Tchoban with the project of showcase facades resembling the frames of paintings in a tapestry hanging. The construction of the hybrid competition continues. Time will tell whether it will be convenient for the Tretyakov Gallery. The new director of the State Tretyakov Gallery, Zelfira Tregulova, pays more attention to the improvement of another not very comfortable room in the building of the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val.
Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts A. S. Pushkin also started talking about expansion and reconstruction in the mid-2000s. Irina Antonova dreamed of implementing Ivan Tsvetaev's plans - to create a "museum town on Volkhonka". To the main building of the Museum of Fine Arts, built by Roman Klein, renovated in the 1990s, the Museum of Private Collections and the Museion Children's Center, she planned to add two more estates, and thus completely "museumize" the entire quarter. This idea received the highest support from President Medvedev. Sir Norman Foster, then triumphantly conquering Moscow with more and more new proposals, quickly made a draft design. The tender for Foster's escort was won by the workshop of Sergei Tkachenko. The project was quite radical both in terms of attitudes towards architectural monuments and in terms of "privatization" of public spaces in nearby neighborhoods. The subsequent criticism of "Arkhnadzor" was shattered by Irina Aleksandrovna's diamond confidence in the prevalence of museum needs over the law, backed up by high patronage at the city and federal levels. The project, with vast underground floors, skylights in manor parks, overlapping courtyards and the construction of a glass five-leafed leaf on the site of the Kremlin gas station, seemed to have already taken place. The initiative project for studying the Volkhonka quarters "Territory of Culture", developed by the "White City Project" in 2012-2014, was not even noticed by Antonova.
The change of course happened with the change of the director. Marina Loshak, who replaced Irina Antonova, found the courage to revise the project and announce a closed competition. The original idea of a chamber competition for the building of the depository was transformed into a competition program for a new concept for the entire territory of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts with the adjacent quarters. Vladimir Plotkin, Sergei Skuratov and Yuri Grigoryan, who won with the Rizosphere project, were invited to participate.
Grigoryan's work on the master plan of the museum town consists of several components [3]: design of the depository; preservation and restoration of architectural monuments, including the main building; changing the transport scheme, creating pedestrian spaces, developing the quarter's program - here cooperation with transport guru Federico Paralotto (Mobility in Chain), who knows the area in detail from his experience with the White City Project, turned out to be irreplaceable. The most complex and controversial of the components is the design of the underground space. A single underground level connecting the Klein building and the surrounding estates was laid at the request of Antonova in Foster's project. This idea formed the basis of the TK, according to which the Government Decree on the allocation of budgetary funds was prepared [4]. Clause 14 of this decree, which has the force of law, provides for a comprehensive restoration of the main building of the Pushkin Museum, with the commissioning of 17,377 m2 until 2020. Paradoxically, both the new director of the museum and the architects participating in the competition became hostages of this document, which was adopted by inertia by the slow state machine. The prospect of digging a colossal space up to 12 meters deep under Klein's masterpiece seems incredibly risky, and the need for these underground levels does not seem fully thought out, but now it is possible to reverse this element of the concept only at the level of the prime minister. Memories of the dramatic reconstruction of the Bolshoi Theater, “hovering” in the air for many months, cause serious concern for any project of large-scale underground work on architectural monuments, especially those located in the immediate vicinity of the river.
In parallel, the Pushkin Museum is developing two more storylines associated with the reconstruction of two manors of the XVIII century. Marina Loshak entrusted Yuri Avvakumov and Georgy Solopov with the Golitsyn estate, where the Institute of Philosophy was housed until recently [5]. Nikolai Lyzlov got the Vyazemsky-Dolgorukov estate, the former Marx-Engels museum, which stood for many years in a semi-emergency state. The project of the Gallery of Art by Old Masters, partly inherited from Foster and Tkachenko, involved the creation of underground levels and a passage to the main building. Lyzlov's sincere attitude towards scientific restoration and participation in the project of such respected specialists as Tatyana Belyaeva stumbled upon a prosaic reality like the already approved technical specifications, the expertise passed, the contracts concluded, the decisions made long ago [6]. As a result, a scientific survey of the estate takes place in parallel with construction work, and the most valuable cellars of the 17th century are discovered during the excavation of the underground floor. City defenders watch this complex game of compromises with bated breath.
Courtyards and passages
The idea of the museum town was also supported by Irina Korobyina, who came to the post of director of the Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchusev after the death of David Sargsyan. David dreamed of making an open depository of architectural fragments on the approaches to the museum, in a tiny public garden at the back of the Gardener's House. Project Meganom, whose workshop has spent more than ten years there, helped visualize these ideas: a powerful shelving with fragments of Vitali's attic on display along the wall and a monument to Catherine II in the foreground.
Korobyina came up with a large-scale idea of a "museum cluster" uniting tourist routes between the Kremlin Museums, the Museum of Architecture and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin. The project involved the restoration of the main building of the museum - the Talyzin estate, the reconstruction of the outbuilding-ruins, the museum "habitation" of Starovagankovsky lane and a long underground passage between Aleksandrovsky garden and Vozdvizhenka. Of all this, only the reconstruction of the famous "Ruins", where Sargsyan began to hold exhibitions at his own peril and risk back in 2001, came close to embodiment [6]. The project of the Rozhdestvenka bureau by Narine Tyutcheva can be considered an example of adapting a historic building, comparable to the approach of David Chipperfield and Alexander Schultz to the restoration of the New Museum in Berlin.
Another "increment" of the Museum of Architecture evokes less sympathy. We are talking about creating a branch in the house-workshop of Konstantin Melnikov. The architect's son Viktor dreamed of creating a state museum, and both his daughters, Ekaterina and Elena, shared this idea. Victor was supported by David Sargsyan, and Irina Korobyina continued his work. Paradoxically, the methods by which the case was completed went far beyond the framework of museum ethics, splitting the professional community of Moscow [7]. The condition of the Melnikov house itself has long been a cause for concern due to ground movements caused by new construction on Novy Arbat. The Museum of Architecture has announced the start of engineering surveys of the house, entrusted to ARUP, but there is no talk of the beginning of restoration or work to strengthen the foundations. The exposition dedicated to Melnikov's work should be located in the Gardener's House, in the former office of Meganom. Its authors are Mikhail Beilin and Daniil Nikishin, members of the Citizenstudio association, who won the competition for the concept of museumification of the Melnikov house itself with the paradoxical project "Tapki". In accordance with it, the inhabited house, which was followed by Melnikov's granddaughter Yekaterina Karinskaya, was already a museum, where nothing had to be changed - only to give out furry slippers to visitors.
The Moscow Kremlin Museums, separated from the Museum of Architecture by a still unexplored underground passage, have a complex and varied architectural economy. These include three Kremlin cathedrals, the Church of the Deposition of the Robe, the Armory, and the Patriarch's Palace. In 2008, the Ivan the Great Bell Tower was museumified - the Museum Design Laboratory (Alexei Lebedev and Vladimir Dukelsky) designed a multi-tiered exposition there, dedicated to the history of the architecture of the Moscow Kremlin. Elena Gagarina, who came to the post of director in 2001, started talking about the need for new spaces for exhibiting priceless funds. There were no vacant areas inside the Kremlin itself. An unexpected decision arose in the neighborhood: the Kremlin Museums were transferred to the Middle Trading Rows by Klein, where in 2007 the Presidential Administration began an unsuccessful reconstruction according to the project of Mikhail Posokhin, which turned into the demolition of the internal buildings.
Elena Gagarina invited Yuri Grigoryan to make an "audit" of the object she inherited - a monument with a complex circular system of spaces and an unfinished underground parking lot. The research was followed by design: Project Meganom, gradually occupying the niche of the leading museum designer in Moscow, is working on a new building in the dimensions of the demolished one, and the Nowadays bureau of Nata Tatunashvili and Natalia Mastalerzh makes interiors for it. During the time when the issue with the Middle Rows was being resolved, the 14th building of the Kremlin, built by Ivan Rerberg in 1934, was reconstructed twice, and then demolished. The history of this demolition raises a lot of questions, one of which is why not transfer the building to the Kremlin Museums, so as not to carry their treasures beyond the Kremlin walls.
A neighbor of the Kremlin Museums, the State Historical Museum, in the first half of the 2000s announced the annexation of the Mint and Printing House and talked about plans to overlap them. Thus, the most interesting spaces of the 17th century, for many years closed by gates and excluded from city life, would finally find themselves "in the interior", and the entrance to them would be possible only with tickets. Criticism of the projects and lack of funding led to the revision of projects. As a result, the Mint was restored and opened to the public in 2014 as a courtyard, not a lobby. The building of the Lenin Museum (Moscow City Duma) transferred to the Historical Museum was restored as the Museum of the Patriotic War of 1812.
Fortunately, yet another project for a large-scale overlap of the courtyard was defeated. The Museum of Moscow, which had moved to the Provision Warehouses on Zubovsky Boulevard, threatened to build a new building on the side of Kropotkinsky Lane, which would close the Empire square. The gigantic inner square was to be covered with a glass roof designed by Yuri Platonov, thereby repeating the bold overlap of Gostiny Dvor. The project, which has been promoted since 2008 by the chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, contradicted the legislation on heritage protection so much that it drew unanimous criticism from the expert community and the media. The new director of the Museum of Moscow, Alina Saprykina, accepted her post in 2013 on the condition that the controversial project would not be implemented.
A new concept for the restoration and adaptation of the Provision Warehouses was developed by Evgeny Ass, who masterfully revived a similar type of object - the Arsenal building in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, which turned into the Volga branch of the NCCA and one of the most fashionable exhibition sites in Russia [8]. According to Ass's concept, Proviantsky must return to its historical interior appearance - the floors built for the garage of the Ministry of Defense will be dismantled, revealing the majestic Stasov arches to their full height. The vaulted cellars will become accessible to visitors, combining all three buildings into a single interconnected space. With the departure of Sergei Kapkov from the post of head of the Moscow Department of Culture, the development of the project was suspended. Meanwhile, the remaining courtyard of the Proviantsky courtyard has also become a fashionable place where concerts, festivals, flea markets and children's parties are held. Locked on all sides for decades, it literally returned to the city.
A changing project in a changing world
The competition for the renovation of another largest museum in Moscow - the Polytechnic - was covered in detail in the Russia Project [9]. It was preceded by exemplary preliminary work under the leadership of Yulia Shakhnovskaya, first director of the Polytechnic Foundation, and then the museum itself. First, a competition was announced for the concept of the development of the museum, the task for which was written by the luminary of museum design, Austrian Dieter Bogner. According to the results of the competition, the respected British company Event Communications was chosen from four finalists, which had been working on the research and concept for several months. The resulting 2000-page document was presented to experts, but not architects. Participants in the next competition for the architectural concept of renovating the Polytechnic Museum received only a few pages of text as a TK …
The final choice of the head of the jury, Igor Shuvalov, between the two finalists - the more experienced in museum business, the American Thomas Lieser and the young conceptual Japanese Junio Ishigami - surprised even the jury member, Grigory Revzin [10]. It was obvious that a more visionary project was chosen, allowing for further changes. Two of the most striking elements of the Museum as a Park concept, the ETFE translucent roof and the recessed garden around the museum, almost overshadowed the fact that little was said about the restoration of the historic building and the organization of the museum space in the project. The development of events only confirmed the initial fears. The film was deemed unsuitable for the Moscow climate and replaced with heavier glass, while Anna Andreeva's exquisite prairie and meadow landscape design gave way to a more practical beautification project from Wowhaus. Little is known about the progress of the restoration inside the building, other than that it should be completed by 2018.
At the same time, a new building of the Museum and Educational Center of the Polytechnic Museum on Lomonosovsky Prospekt should be built.
The 2013 international competition gave several examples of first-class museum architecture: projects by Thomas Lieser, Yuri Grigoryan, Farshid Mussavi paired with Narine Tyutcheva, Mekano International, who worked with Vladimir Plotkin, were in no way inferior to the project of Massimiliano Fuksas (who won together with Sergei Tchoban). The lack of public information from the Polytechnic Museum suggests that this competition will join a long line of high-profile competitions without continuation.
*** St. Petersburg
The successful experience with the General Staff inspired the Hermitage to expand further. At the very end of 2013, the Exchange building was transferred to him, across the river from the Winter Palace. The Central Naval Museum, which had occupied it for seventy years, was evicted in 2011 in connection with the idea of Vladimir Putin and Valentina Matvienko to open a modern Commodity Exchange here [11]. With grief, the museum was taken to the Kryukov barracks in half, the idea of an oil exchange hung in the air, and the monument to Tom de Thomon stood for several years without heating. After lengthy discussions of the adaptation options, Mikhail Piotrovsky's proposal to place the Museum of Heraldry here was accepted, but so far only one tenth of the necessary funds have been allocated for the restoration of the emergency masterpiece.
Over the years, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, in Staraya Derevnya, an unusual building of the Hermitage's storage facility has grown (the first two stages - 2003-2012, the Trofimovs' architectural workshop). Open for excursions, but located far from tourist paths, it has little changed the museum map of the city. Rem Koolhaas' bureau OMA won the tender for the third stage of the depository. The 13-storey glass cube with exhibition halls, an open storage facility, a library, a café and a glass bridge over the railroad should be completed by the end of 2018. An even bolder expansion of the Hermitage to Moscow, to the territory of ZIL, is described in a separate material in the section "The Birth of a New One" [12].
The Russian Museum, which has been adding new and new mansions for many years, has finally started the restoration of the main one, the Mikhailovsky Palace. Initially, the project was commissioned by Mikhail Filippov, who proposed an elegant solution for the use of internal technical courtyards, decorated in his signature fine graphics. The project was discussed, then there was a lull for several years, and in the spring of 2016 the Russian Museum announced that a new project developed by Lenpolproekt CJSC had been accepted for implementation [13]. As often happens, the proposed solution looks like a highly simplified version of the first option.
The long-awaited expansion is also in store for the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg. Most recently, he was transferred to the Stables Department - an extended Empire building by Vasily Stasov, a "relative" of the Provision Warehouses in Moscow. The transfer of the monument to the museum can be considered a happy outcome - the previous tenant, CJSC Orange-Development, planned a radical reconstruction of the ensemble into a hotel, breaking it down into separate apartments. The cancellation of this project was due to the unified position of the Council for the Preservation of the Cultural Heritage of St. Petersburg and the personal participation of Alexander Sokurov [14]. The museum already has a concept for adapting the new building, but it is not yet known who will develop the architectural solution for such a complex complex.
In general, one gets the impression that large Russian museums do not yet have the opportunity to shock the world with new architecture. Insufficiency and bureaucratization of budget financing, non-transparency of decision-making, their political engagement, the rigidity of legislation on heritage protection, restrictions on protected zones and a lack of free plots in the centers of the capitals, finally, a limited number of architects capable of solving issues of this magnitude - the whole tangle of circumstances leads to the fact that museums are slowly and difficult to renovate. [1] Khrustaleva M. Museums of the future today // ArtChronicle. No. 4. 2002. S. 38-59. [2] See "Project Russia" No. 77, p. 28. [3] For more details, see the interview with Y. Grigoryan in this issue: “Project Russia”, no. 80, p. 148. [4] Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of December 9, 2013 N 1138 "On the implementation of budgetary investments in design, comprehensive reconstruction, restoration, technical re-equipment and new construction of objects of the property complex of the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin ". [5] For more details see this issue: Project Russia, no. 80, p. 158. [6] Over the abyss. Interview with Tatyana Belyaeva // Keepers of Heritage. 20.10.2016. [7] Khrustaleva M. Melnikov's House: The History of One Nationalization // Snob, No. 02 (79) 2015. [8] See Project Russia No. 65, p. 108; Khrustaleva M. World conversion: About the fate of arsenals in the world and here // ArtChronicle. No. 4. 2003. S. 110-116. [9] See Project Russia No. 63, p. 136-153.
[10] Revzin G. “They believe what they will do, and the whole world will be surprised” // Kommersant, 10.10.2011. [11] Zerkaleva A. In the imperial style // Lenta. Ru, 27.12.2013. https://lenta.ru/articles/2013/12/27/birzha/ [12] See more in this issue: Project Russia, no. 80, p. 203.
[13] Gerasimenko P. The plan for the reconstruction of the Mikhailovsky Palace worries the professional community // The Art Newspaper Russia, 19.02.2016.
[14] The stables department is not disfigured by the apart-hotel // Heritage keepers, 2015-23-06.
