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The exhibition, intended for public comment, is, on the one hand, typically architectural, as it consists of tablets and small scale models. But in comparison with professional festivals, its composition is curtailed: the format of the show, proposed by the organizers to the participants, assumed a layout, a master plan, a diagram of social infrastructure facilities, a bird's eye view and several visualizations. Apparently, not everyone followed the format exactly, since there are many where the stages of resettlement are shown, there are text comments and other schemes, less often floor layouts. All the participants made videos of the projects, among them there are very good ones, all of them are shown in turn on one screen. But nowhere are there the simplest figures - density, height, percentage of apartments for sale, the number and type of parking lots - the very data that are, presumably, key for renovation projects.
In the TK there is a table from which it follows that the authors of the projects had to fill in this simple information on their projects - but at the exhibition they are not obvious and do not lie on the surface, which is why the proposals lose much in clarity, and the comparison of projects ceases to be accurate. The plot of the renovation itself is so problematic that it provokes to compare not only aesthetics, although one cannot do without it, but also indicators. I would like to see numbers, diagrams that would allow us to compare the main "texture" of projects. At the Venice Biennale, at times there are excellent visualizations of charts - when you want to reveal the data, show it graphically, there are many ways for this. Here there is no feeling that the projects are shown from all sides and in detail; rather “presented” rather than disassembled.
Yes, 600 hectares of pilot territories is only 4% of the total area of the renovation according to the decree of 1.08.2017. But if we assume that the projects are really experimental and will somehow influence the subsequent deployment, then the total area of the renovation as a whole, according to the mayor, is about 30% of the residential area of Moscow according to the federal plan. And 14% of the territory of "old" Moscow (excluding the annexed New Moscow. So I want numbers and clarity.
But they are not there, and there is a temptation to perceive the projects aesthetically, to evaluate what impressed me, what is the emotional reserve. Models with this approach turn into a kind of sculpture, and tablets - into paintings, and yes, everything becomes even more incomprehensible. From this point of view, as Grigory Revzin rightly concludes, the poster design of Zaha Hadid's workshop is the most poster-of-all: it contains a powerful and clearly readable plastic idea of an explosion funnel. The project does not get bogged down in trifles, context and reasoning - it offers Moscow a visualization of the "nuclear potential" that it possesses as a metropolis, but it cannot dare to express it clearly and artistically, being confused in millions of square meters a year. The same project, however, resembles the "saucer" of Moscow as a whole: as you know, the capitalist city grows like a mountain, in the center there are skyscrapers, to the outskirts, while the socialist city, on the contrary, is low in the center and rises like the edges of a saucer to the outskirts. Three microdistricts, that is, large quarters of the Kuzminki district, in the project of the Hadid bureau turn into two such saucers: it would be interesting if Moscow-"saucer" ever built up, following the principle of budding, with smaller saucers.
Perhaps a lot will be clarified by subsequent presentations and analysis of projects. But still we will try and we will compare at first glance.
Let us first note that there are exactly half of the participants - ten, they are experienced and well-known Russian architectural bureaus. The other half is divided into three parts: eight projects with significant foreign participation, of which five are a bright “star” foreign name or company clearly prevails: Zaha Hadid, Stephen Hall, Arep, Bofill, Erik Egeraat, who has returned to our lands again. There are three more consortia where rather strong Russian participants have teamed up with famous foreigners: UNK project and Japanese Nikken Sekkei; Muscovites Buromoscow and Dutch MLA Makrus Apenzeller; Alexander Tsimailo and the French Michel Devin and Valaud & Pistre. We also note that there are at least two pairs formed - with foreigners, shall we say, actively represented in Moscow, who have shown an extraordinary interest in renovation, participating in its presentations since the announcement of the competition. In addition to Russian teams, teams with foreign leadership and, let's say, "parity" teams, there are two more in which development companies are leading: PIK in Tsaritsyn and Krost in Horoshevo-Mnevniki. It's easiest with Krost: the building density of Wellton Park in the 75th block is 34,500 m2 per hectare, which is a lot, and working with four renovation quarters in the neighborhood, the company went "by contradiction", proposing a density even less than the average density indicated in the recommendations of the Moscow City Architecture Committee - 15,000 m2 per hectare: density of quarters of five-storey buildings 10,000 m2/ ha, the TOR of the competition provides for an increase in living space by a factor of 1.4: residents must increase living space by a third, so that 15,000 m22/ ha - the lowest possible density of renovation. Probably, such an emphasized self-restraint can only be afforded by a development company that independently makes a decision about profit. By the way, this is the only project where numbers are clearly shown on the tablet, although not all of them either.
Among other distinctive features, less obvious than density, which has yet to be thoroughly compared, some of the projects at the exhibition are closely tied to the pattern of existing buildings, striving to put new houses in place of the foundations of the five-story buildings to be demolished. The goal is, on the one hand, to preserve the maximum of the existing greenery: if the construction is going on in the old place, the trees have a better chance of surviving, it is even possible that they will all be preserved. On the other hand, in this approach, there is a certain cultural nostalgia, the desire to preserve the pattern of old districts and, thus, the memory of them. At first glance, there are at least three such projects: Timur Bashkaev in the Golovinsky district preserves footprints of long brick five-story buildings; AO Mosproekt and Aleksey Ginzburg in the area of Vernadsky Avenue put blocks on the places of five-story buildings, connecting their lines with their jumpers. The project of the SPEECH bureau in Kuzminki follows the same path, assembling blocks in the places of demolished houses along Volgogradsky Avenue (but not in the depths). "Ostozhenka" also builds the direction of several orthogonal grids of its project along the "dotted lines" of five-story buildings, however, turning the lines into quarters, replacing the microdistrict shading with a cellular structure with courtyards. Signs of a similar solution, but applied more precisely, are present in the outlines of the Meganoma and Alexander Tsimailo quarters, but they inherit the outlines and not everywhere, but in places. The Meganom project is declaratively based on the concept of a “super park” formulated by these architects in 2013 at the MUF: its essence is that the “Big Bagel” microdistricts between the TTK and the Moscow Ring Road - firstly, largely inherited the planned structure of estates, and secondly, they themselves have now turned into a "park", which must be equipped with care; this concept also has a fair share of admiration for the old neighborhoods. A more material development of the nostalgic note is proposed by the MLA + and Buromoscow project: here the authors proposed to preserve a fragment of the building as a monument of modernism.
At first glance, such an orientation toward the old planning orientation could be seen as a contradiction or even a slight “opposition” in relation to the main idea of the competition - reformatting the “erroneous” microdistrict development into the “correct” quarterly development. It would be easy to conclude that some of the architects did not really accept the pathos of the competition and allowed the microdistrict component to grow in their projects. It would be simple if the dual was not already laid down in the TK. Generally speaking, the TK of the competition is formulated according to the well-known principle “for all the good”: if you look at the pictures, then closed rectangular blocks seem to be a predestination, but in the text from them there is only a mention of the corner sections. But there is a demand to “emphasize the local identity of the place” and “develop a greening strategy while preserving the existing green spaces” - which more than coincides with the features of linking to the contours of old houses seen in some projects, mostly Russian.
The projects of foreign authors, on the contrary, more often subordinate the territory to their own vision, without being attached to the "traces" of demolished houses. This is most noticeable in the proposals of the "star" bureaus - Zaha Hadid, where the structure of the territory has been completely changed, as we remember, and Stephen Hall, where completely new undulating houses with giant arches are strung on a "thread" connecting the places of accumulation of former five-story buildings - an attempt linking new buildings to demolished in this case is very conditional, and admiration for the form is obvious. On the other hand, a radical change in the structure of the district can be caused not only by the desire for a "large sculptural" form, but also by the planner's view: for example, Sergei Skuratov completely changed the Tsaritsyn district in his project, laying the axis of the new boulevard south of the existing axis of the driveway.
Further, the comparison can be based on the typology of development. All projects follow the TOR scheme, where the distance between intra-block thoroughfares is determined within the limits of 75 and 200 m. This is a convenient range, if only because 70 m is the length of an average five-story building with 4 entrances, such a module makes it easy to overlay blocks of blocks-blocks on top of the existing ones strokes. Two hundred meters is the average length of a "Stalinist" house-block, although it is average: closer to the edge of the city, absolutely impossible houses 500-600 m long are found in Moscow. So the range is determined within the framework from the average length of a five-story building to a "Stalinist" house. It turns out not such a large fan of sizes, and it is respected by everyone, of course, but, say, in the project of Ostozhenka and Studio 44, the smaller size 70x70 or 70x100 m prevails, SPEECH mixes all three sizes approximately equally, however, allowing itself only two "Large" blocks; Erik Egeraat prefers the "Stalinist" scale; Bofill's bureau, diluting medium-sized houses with large ones, turns the latter into visual accents with a bright form.
Similar fluctuations in typology concern the towers: some of them "grow" into smaller houses, making the silhouette stepped, as recommended - this is especially clearly seen in SPEECH, Asadov's bureau, the project of Mosproekt JSC and Alexey Ginzburg. Vladimir Plotkin's silhouettes are also stepped, but the theme of a "horizontal skyscraper" appears - massive hanging isthmuses between houses, often above internal driveways.
Nikita Yavein, on the contrary, rigidly divided the types of houses: along the pond in his project, towers were built, throughout the rest of the territory - blocks of similar size with minimal and regular staircase, closer in the ponds - one floor lower, further - higher, no arbitrary steps.
Three authors of projects for the area of Golitsyn Ponds: Meganom, Alexander Tsimailo and Timur Bashkaev, relied on a variety of typology and even "morphotypes" of development (Bashkaev): parts of the area are interpreted differently, open quarters line the boulevard, parts of the area are built up with towers - everything so that residents can choose the type of space they are interested in. The resulting fluctuations between a rigid-checkered grid, and, on the contrary, deliberately varied, may be even more interesting than the above-mentioned “fusion” of the quarter paradigm with the microdistrict foundation.
Of course, the projects have a lot in common, including those based on TK: public spaces and shops on the ground floors; moreover, many authors, which was also allowed, move community centers into separate buildings. It's not even worth talking about bike paths, private courtyards and the distribution of spaces - the rules are followed, I suppose, for everyone. All districts in one way or another adjoin the TPU, here almost everyone grows an office center, the only difference is whether it is interpreted as a City with a pair of glass towers (Arep, Bofill), or immersed in the prevailing structure of the district.
Note also that large Russian bureaus, with a distinctly expressed author's manner, tend to more clearly adhere to the checkered-quarter cut approaching the small 70x70 or 100x70 module - although two "parity" consortia, if it will be allowed to call them that, UNK + Nikken Sekkei and MLA + Buromoscow, on the other hand, clearly prefers coarse mesh and large shapes.
There are also such criteria as the main idea, the idea to which the authors subordinate the project and which they emphasize: for Asadov's bureau, this is the employment of district residents and cheap rent of commercial premises for residents, which looks like a very romantic attempt to develop a small business in the difficult conditions of the Moscow metropolis. In the TPO "Reserve" project, this is an economic calculation and the subtleties of the typology and prices of housing based on it in a narrow framework from economy to comfort class. Timur Bashkaev has a choice for residents and the idea of “relocating twice”: first, according to need, and then according to preferences. In the project of Sergei Skuratov, the main idea becomes, one must think, the predominance of the author's will and handwriting: here are collected subtle methods of working with brick facades, worked out by Skuratov for a long time. In Nikita Yavein's project, the individual handwriting is also distinct and obviously important - it forces us to bring the idea of a quarter and a tower to a megalithic “archetype”. SPEECH's proposal seems to be marked by the features of the "Microcity", in any case, this is one of the projects in which the principle of different-facade sections, the city of facades, is consistently implemented.
These notes in no way can claim to be any kind of final analysis - rather, an incomplete sketch, the first reaction to the available data, and, as already mentioned, they are not enough. Perhaps a more detailed consideration of the projects will lead to different conclusions - it is not for nothing that their discussion was extended for two and a half months.
