Miracle ship
We started with the main thing. Oleg Kharchenko presented a sketch of a wedding palace on a unique section of Malokhtinsky Prospekt, where part of the land with a small cape protrudes into the water surface of the Neva in front of the highway.
The customer was LLC "Invest-Group", the designer was LLC "URBIS-SPb". The area of the plot for construction is 0.44 hectares. Previously, there was a boat station, then the site was sold to private hands, which makes its development almost inevitable.
De jure everything is legal, de facto everyone understands that the new object will radically change the appearance and the existing structure of the embankment - and this is a regular front of the monumental pre-war development of G. A. Simonov and B. R. Rubanenko. In addition, the building will cover the panorama of the opposite bank with the ensemble of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Reviewer Nikita Yavein several times said the phrase "if construction is possible here at all" - for him, it seemed to me, it is not obvious.
The project of the "URBIS-SPb" workshop itself is a segment-like 4-storey 17-meter building, almost literally repeating the shape of the site. On a symmetrical plane, an irregular volume, vaguely resembling a ship, grows, expanding in all directions. Moreover, both of its "sides" are decidedly different from each other. The one that overlooks the Neva is completely glazed and from a distance resembles a sports arena. The land-facing façade takes on a curvilinear shape following the plan for the two upper floors. The side facades, according to the author, are "practically absent" and for this reason were not shown in a scan. Meanwhile, when moving along the highway, it will be the junction of two completely dissimilar sides of the wonder ship that will be visible.
The reviewer noted the great culture of black-and-white presentation of the project, on which, given the extremely small scale of coastal sweeps and perspectives, the new object was practically unreadable. It is possible that this was the goal of the authors.
However, most of the speakers supported the project, approving the idea of a ship docked at the pier. Criticism was mainly focused on the view superstructure on the roof for outdoor events as a frank groundwork for an extra floor.
Vladimir Popov spoke most sharply: "I am convinced that this will be an urban planning mistake." The architect called the project another sad testimony of the architecture of today, of which there are already a lot on Malokhtinskaya embankment (obviously, this meant the head office of Bank Saint Petersburg, popularly nicknamed the "electric kettle" / "toilet bowl" and the adjacent glass prism of the BC “Eightedges”).
In addition to his own review, Nikita Yavein came up with an idea to move the new building to the axis of Tallinn Street. This idea was supported by Mikhail Mamoshin - the author of the only, in my opinion, convincing modern implementation of the image of the Nevskaya embankment (the building of JSC AK Transneft). The architect proposed to solve the new building in the form of two pavilions, throwing an arch between them. However, this would require the addition of the Malokhtinsky cape, which the customer, of course, will not do.
In general, the idea of saturating the desert expanses of the coastal highway with life seems to be sound, especially since the only alternative to the social function was large-scale elite housing. However, the price for this may be a new portion of the visual vinaigrette that is gradually filling modern embankments.
Exception as the norm
The second issue was a sketch of a residential complex on a former industrial area in the Nevsky District. Customer - Electromechanical Plant OJSC, designer - PARITET GROUP LLC. Consideration included deviation from the limiting parameters in terms of height.
The speaker Andrey Sharov presented a symmetrical comb-like composition of 20-storey prisms, which was solved as propylaea of the extended Uezdny Avenue. At the same time, the 60 m laid down by the authors is the maximum permissible height here, provided only for point objects, while the main building level should not exceed 40 m. As noted by Vyacheslav Ukhov, "we fall into traps that we set ourselves." If a deviation from the norm is possible, then the customer will want to use it to the maximum.
The unjustified scale aroused unanimous resistance from colleagues. Many did not like the monotonous "carpet" solution of the gigantic facades, although the "richness" of plastics and decoration would hardly have saved the situation - in my opinion, rather the opposite. One way or another, the project of "another ghetto" was harshly criticized.
Old station - new pavilion
Further, a sketch of the reconstruction of the pavilion of the "Victory Park" metro station was discussed. The existing pavilion was built in 1961 according to the standard design of the architects A. S. Getzkin, V. P. Shuvalova (the entrance halls of the Electrosila and Frunzenskaya stations and, with some changes, the Gorkovskaya stations were made according to it). Later, the pavilion was reconstructed, which distorted the modest and light style of the 1960s. The customer was the St. Petersburg Metro, the designer was OOO SUART-project, a workshop that had previously rebuilt the Gorkovskaya pavilion. The goal of the current transformation is to expand the station's lobby and ramp.
The project is an egg-shaped structure with a hidden second floor for internal use. The building looks like a two-layer structure, where a stone case expanding upward is "put on" over the glass volume. The pavilion is crowned with a small dome and a canopy made of two decorative rings. It was he who became the main object of criticism, although other comments were also expressed. For example, the underestimation of the memorial nature of the place (during the blockade on the territory of Victory Park, the corpses of the deceased Leningraders were burned), as well as the general monumental style of Moskovsky Prospekt. Wishes were expressed, if not to literally repeat the Getskin pavilion (which is impossible due to changes in size and proportions), then at least to stylize the new structure for it. Vladimir Reppo noted that the front and rear facades are architecturally "confused", which will make it difficult for passengers to find the main entrance. In general, it was obvious that the project did not convince colleagues.
Sculpture in the end
At the end of the program, two projects of monumental sculpture were considered. One of them is the reconstruction of the lost monument to Prince Peter of Oldenburg by the sculptor Ivan Schroeder. The monument, erected in 1889 in front of the Mariinsky Hospital, was lost in 1930 and is being recreated from surviving photographs. The project was ordered by the International Charitable Foundation. D. S. Likhachev. A group of authors - V. S. and S. V. Ivanov, G. V. Lukyanov, I. V. Verzhbitskaya, S. P. Odnovalov.
Undoubtedly approving the idea of recreation, the members of the city council noted a rather careless presentation and some inaccuracies of the cast model in comparison with the presented archival photograph. Also, special attention was paid to the improvement of the adjacent territory.
Finally, we discussed the project of a monument called "1914" for the city of Pushkin by sculptor Vladimir Goreviy. The customer was the St. Petersburg public organization "Veterans of Foreign Intelligence".
The sculpture is a collective image of a regimental priest who blesses the soldiers of the First World War leaving for the front. The monument is planned to be installed on Cathedral Square, in front of the reconstructed Catherine Church of Konstantin Ton.
This was, perhaps, the only project that practically did not cause any complaints from the City Council. The remarks concerned only the improvement - instead of a flower bed, it was proposed to lay out "harsh" paving stones. The advice was sounded to slightly change the proportions of the pedestal, which the sculptor made low, squat, democratic. Personally, the figure itself seemed somewhat fractional and wordy, which was especially noticeable in comparison with the laconic silhouette of the Prince of Oldenburg.
In general, the very fact of the demand for urban sculpture is encouraging, which allows us to at least hope for a gradual transition from quantity to quality. However, as an ensemble art, urban sculpture is a hostage of urban planning and architectural solutions. And if the considered monuments are erected in the places planned by their predecessors, today in this sense the situation is sad to the point of hopelessness, which was again reminded by the City Council.
The official results of the voting will appear later.
