Three questions were put on the agenda at once, which has recently threatened to become the norm (looking ahead, I will say that the meeting lasted about four hours).
The project of the installation of the monument "United Cross"
Petrogradproekt
The first to discuss was the draft design of the "Single Cross" monument by a group of Armenian authors, which should become a gift from Yerevan to St. Petersburg. The customer of the project is the "Center for Business Cooperation of Yerevan and St. Petersburg". Designer - Petrogradproekt LLC. The idea of the monument is a union of two fraternal peoples based on the unity of faith. The monument represents two allegorical figures of Russia and Armenia, bowing their heads over the cross.
For all the importance and attractiveness of the idea itself, almost all the speakers agreed that the nature of the monument does not quite correspond to the chosen place - an open boulevard with low vegetation on Pulkovskoe highway, building 3. It is clear that such a landscape puts forward particularly stringent requirements for the silhouette of the monument, which in this case, it raises questions. Elongated figures clung to each other form an extremely generalized and not too expressive vertical outline, like an obelisk. The sculpture is turned to the north, towards Victory Square, and will be perceived mainly in the backdrop, which means that the faces of the figures will be poorly read - the most expressive part of the composition. (To me personally, they seem to be the author's greatest luck).
The situation was aggravated by the authors' intention to make the monument in bronze, while similar compositions, already installed in Yerevan and Moscow, were made of white granite. On the one hand, this material would visually lighten the silhouette, and on the other, the stone is generally more characteristic of Armenia, as Yevgeny Gerasimov correctly noted.
Some members of the City Council recommended turning the monument to the southeast, towards the Heroes' Park, which contains three churches. During the discussion, ideas were also expressed about alternative places for the installation of the monument. For example, Yuri Zemtsov proposed to place it in front of the Armenian Church on Nevsky Prospekt, although this would contradict city legislation. Other options have been proposed. However, the chief architect Vladimir Grigoriev said that the search for a place has been going on for two years, during which eight (!) Addresses in different districts of the city were considered, making it clear that it is time to finish this issue. As a result, the project was sent for revision, with subsequent consideration by the members of the city council in the office of the chief architect.
The concept of the development of the territory near the Oktyabrskaya embankment
Studio 44, Nikita Yavein
The second and third points of the program were the coordination of the projects of "Studio 44". First, Nikita Yavein presented the concept for the development of the territory near the Oktyabrskaya embankment, which is a revised competition project of 2013. The customer was Nevskoe Heritage LLC.
The project embodies the ideas of the authors about the ideal city - this is a huge quarter for 12,000 people, formed on the basis of a classic orthogonal grid with a planning module of 96x96 meters and a main building height of 30 meters. The core of the territory is a green area of 90x90 meters, which is the main public area of the complex. The territory includes monuments of industrial architecture: the red-brick buildings of the Vargunin paper mill and the Thornton Woolen Partnership factory, which are being adapted for housing and infrastructure.
As the reviewer Sergei Bobylev said, the architects, by limiting the main number of storeys, want to compensate for the loss in height of accent buildings, reaching 50-65 meters. One of these accents is that the 65-meter glass tower, according to Margarita Stieglitz, unsuccessfully set off the high factory chimney, distorting the characteristic silhouette of the Neva panorama. But in general, the excess of altitude standards did not cause any particular complaints from colleagues, especially since a skyscraper with a height of 120 meters will be built very close to the project of the B-2 workshop.
The chief architect expressed much greater concern about the land surveying. “If we delimit as on the diagram,” said Vladimir Grigoriev, “the depicted pedestrian boulevards will not be legitimate.” They can simply be swallowed up by fences, which become mandatory elements of new buildings. To this, Nikita Igorevich objected that with the existing quarterly development with completely isolated yards, fences would simply not be needed. However, the very configuration of buildings can theoretically be changed after the division of the territory into sections and drawing up city plans.
The members of the City Council received amicable disapproval from the extended northern building - "poker" next to the factory buildings. But in general, the reviews were friendly and the project was approved.
Residential building on Tipanova street
Studio 44, Nikita Yavein
In the end, the tired experts were offered the concept of an apartment building on Tipanova Street, section 1. The customer of the project is Business City LLC.
Yavein briefly described the high-rise buildings developing here: some in the forest, some for firewood. The authors contrasted the spontaneous variety of forms with a strict symmetrical composition of two high-rise buildings-arches in the form of the letter "P" and a huge square behind them. According to Nikita Yavein, the source of inspiration for him was the work of St. Petersburg architects who left for Moscow and ended up on a different scale. Mainly - "proletarian classics" by Ivan Fomin, as well as paper sketches by the Vesnin brothers. Thus, the new ensemble of Nikita Yavein is “also St. Petersburg, but on a different scale”, given by the width of the highways and the dimensions of the new buildings.
However, in the straightforward expression of laconic volumes, other avant-garde prototypes are also read: in particular, the crossbar - an expressive, albeit somewhat intrusive, technique of Studio 44, refers to the horizontal skyscrapers of Lissitzky.
And yet the general pathos of the symmetrical composition with an extended colonnade and a grand staircase framed by cascades of fountains is undoubtedly classic, "Stalinist". And the axis set by it turns out to be so powerful that it requires urban planning justification. "From a cannon to sparrows" - this is how Vladimir Popov described the work of his colleague. - "An unjustified swing to the Champs Elysees": shooting between the two "arches of La Defense", the axis perpendicular to Tipanova Street goes nowhere. The only obstacle in her path is the green oak in the center of the courtyard: but in order to justify its compositional role, this oak must be a sacred tree. Realizing this, Nikita Yavein clarified that the decision of the compositional center is not yet final. But what, in essence, can justify such a powerful technique? Temple? Palace of Trade Unions?
This particular case once again exposed the general problem of the urban spatial framework, the basis of which was traditionally not streets and axes as such, but meaningful dominants to which these axes lead. One way or another, this project of "Studio 44" was also approved. ***
Residential complex on Moskovsky prospect, 114 letter B
Intercolumnium, Evgeny Podgornov; Special Design Bureau
A week later, on December 14, the City Council considered the architectural and urban planning appearance of the residential complex at 114 Moskovsky Prospekt, letter B. The customer was Mercator LLC, the designer was INTERKOLUMNIUM LLC and Special Design Bureau LLC.
The meeting was a continuation of the closed meeting of the City Council members, which took place in early December. The project of a huge residential complex, which was intruding into the existing appearance of the Moscow Gate Square, which was then submitted for discussion, showed the need to critically comprehend the general situation around the responsible urban development center. Therefore, both the designers and their colleagues from the audience were seriously preparing for an open discussion.
The complex presented by Yevgeny Podgornov should arise on the site of the former industrial zone, growing behind the "back" of two historic Soviet buildings that directly fram the square. The first of them is an architectural monument: the outpost fire station, built by the architect David Buryshkin in 1925, the second is an identified object of cultural heritage - the former kitchen factory of Yevgeny Katonin, built in 1933. The height of both buildings is small, two and three floors, respectively.
The speaker described the history of the place in detail, demonstrating archival materials that captured the main stages of the formation of the square. The architectural surroundings of the triumphal Moscow Gate, designed by Vasily Stasov in the thirties of the 19th century in honor of the victorious end of the Russian-Turkish war, developed quite spontaneously. The square had some chance to turn into an ensemble after the Great Patriotic War, when it was decided to restore the gates dismantled in the 1930s, but beautiful pictures were not given to come true. In the post-perestroika period, the area began to grow overgrown with individual high-rise structures, developing an imbalance around the Empire-style monument.
The new quarter will come out onto the square with a 35-meter long "wings". In total, the LCD has five buildings; the total height of the complex varies from eighteen to forty meters: five to eleven floors. The area of the site is almost twenty eight thousand square meters.
Taking into account the general character of Moskovsky Prospekt, the authors proposed to decorate this facade in a restrained "Stalinist" style, with a classic three-part horizontal division and a slight opening of the wall. The responsible area of the cornice crown was given in two variations: historicizing and more modern. The rest of the facades look more modest.
As expected, the discussion of the project was the reason for the analysis of the general urban planning "trouble". Some orators, including Sergei Shmakov, spoke in the sense that since there is still no common ensemble of the square, there is nothing especially to disturb the new building. No less pessimistic was the remark of Alexander Viktorov: "It is useless to talk about the ensemble in the framework of the current legislative framework!" According to him, any proposals for the preliminary development of territories are met with "fierce resistance" today.
Others, like Mikhail Kondiain, on the contrary, called for doing everything so as not to aggravate the situation and in any transformation to “foresee the ensemble”. The aforementioned building of Katonin's kitchen factory and the 1961 metro pavilion symmetrical to it create some prerequisite for it. According to Yuri Mityurev, theoretically, behind this pavilion, it would be possible to erect a "wings" similar to that proposed by Yevgeny Podgornov, since the buildings located on this site do not have a protected status.
In the context of common problems, the own, internal qualities of the new project were also considered. As Vladimir Grigoriev noted, the complex being created sets the tone for all future development, emerging on the site of vast industrial zones around Moskovsky Prospekt. In this sense, the environment proposed by the authors caused the chief architect "the deepest melancholy." The main object of his criticism was the tightness of the courtyard zones, skillfully veiled in the visualizations, the ill-conceivedness of the pedestrian connections and the end solution of the southern front of the complex.“The land is not what we inherited from our fathers, but what we borrowed from our children,” he recalled the well-known wisdom, urging architects to take a more responsible approach to creating “the embryo of the future quarter”.
Some speakers called for a reduction in the height of the complex; some of the speakers criticized the style, reminding that the “Stalinist” facades were not meant to be a background. Feels like the concept should be consistent with the comments.
In my opinion, a generalized reference to the prevailing style of Moskovsky Prospekt is quite appropriate here, the main thing is not to make it too active. The attitude towards general symmetry seems to be correct as well as a chance to respond to the most powerful ensemble “challenge” of the Empire style monument. As for the actual living, environmental qualities - here the authors still have something to work on. The project has sensitively touched a "sore spot" of general urban planning problems. I would like the professional polemic to bring the necessary improvement of the legislative base even an inch closer. ***
