Nizhegorodskaya Strelka, the confluence of two powerful rivers, the Oka and the Volga, has always been the focus of designers. The construction of the stadium for the 2018 World Cup has sharpened this interest, and the discovery of the history of warehouse structures only proved that it is dishonest to work quickly and standardly on this territory, first you need to decipher and understand its meaning.
Today in Nizhny Novgorod a public organization "Open Strelka" was created, which held a workshop in early January under the leadership of the Center for Applied Urban Studies, based on its results, is preparing a scientific and practical conference "Strelka's Cultural Codes", prepared a presentation for the City Planning Council. True, no one gave a word to the activists at the council: all the slides - from various enthusiasts and bureaus - were collected, shown and commented on by the chief architect of the region, Sergei Popov. And communication with the discussion of ideas, promised by the governor Valery Shantsev, has not yet taken place. Therefore, it is important to present publicly what ideas about the development of Strelka have been relevant in recent years among designers looking for alternative conceptual approaches.
Alternative to the official proposals - to create an Orthodox park of military glory, an elite administrative and residential quarter, a certain park around the cathedral, a walk of fame with access to the bell tower on the cape …, They tried on a variety of ideas for Strelka. However, it was the public that focused attention on the fundamental positions: Strelka is a public, attractive place of social and cultural activity for the maximum possible number of citizens.
Thus, the architect Aleksey Kamenyuk prepared for the booklet "Open Strelka" for the City Planning Council, as he himself defines, schemes of possible options for the stage-by-stage renovation of its territory. It focuses thought on the differences: Strelka is different from other parts of the historical center of the city, therefore, the approach to the concept development should be different, not “traditional”. While the future is uncertain, reasoning is based on the opposite: Strelka Cluster should not become
- only a place of conservation of preserved buildings and their museification;
- the territory of hypertrophied recreational functions;
- the center of realization of ideological and symbolic constructions artificial in relation to its history and meanings.
Alexey Nikolaevich believes: “All of the above already exists in different parts of the historical center of the city and beyond its borders. There are both typological samples, types - with all the costs of traditional, long-irrelevant approaches. The arrow, according to the architect, provides a unique opportunity to implement the concept of arranging a universal urban, human space, which can form in the most natural way in time.
The natural formation has already been dictated by the framework of the situation: before 2018 and after the World Cup. According to the planning and land surveying project, adopted in the fall, the entire territory of the cape should be freed from the facilities of the former port by the championship. The cranes have already been sawn, four warehouses are still in question. There were no expert opinions on their condition, but the official media exaggerate an insistent desire to move somewhere
openwork structures of the century before last (they are dismantling with a grinder!) from warehouses along the Volga, and reinforced concrete structures along the Oka - to be demolished. In this case, an intelligible planning horizon is limited by the uniform, although, judging by the reservations of those in charge, then it is not difficult to reconsider the cathedral's security zone and build something."Something" does not suit many townspeople - now the "biography" of Strelka is recorded in objects of different eras: fairs, exhibitions, the Soviet city of Gorky, there is even an underground bunker on the territory. Everything is our story. It is with this given that we need to work. That is why the activists insist on the need to develop the territory in two stages. Before and during the championship - conservation of facilities, temporary improvement of the territory, regulated access to Strelka, with a gradual increase in the types of activities and events. During this time, it is necessary to hold a competition (and not even a single one, it seems, with a detailed analysis of the territory) and already by the anniversary of the city (800 years in 2021) to begin work on the creation of a complex corresponding to the high status of the place and the ambitions of large developers.
Historically, Strelka has always been a place of merger, exchange, from where new things came to the city. And although the terms of reference for the future competition are not yet available, the definition of a place as a creative cluster is in the air. Moreover, the experience of artistic interventions is also known here: for three springs in a row, Parisian and Nizhny Novgorod students under the leadership of Xavier Juyot experimented on Strelka. It is significant that in 2005 the Center for Contemporary Architecture brought the Archborne Troopers to Nizhny Novgorod. Sketch proposals of young architects are still relevant.
