The history of the monorail reorganization project began with information about its demolition. This decision of the city authorities is expected - the functional belonging of the monorail has not been determined for fourteen years of operation; At the same time, the complete demolition of the structure, in the construction of which funds and efforts were invested recently, demonstrates the inconsistency of the urban planning policy of the last two decades. Wowhaus architects propose not to demolish the flyover, but to turn it into a recreational area - a sports park-garden.
Five kilometers of functions
The theme of the park, as conceived by the architects, was sports - its structure is formed around running and cycling paths, and the architects called their rather specific version of the park on the light metro tracks "health path". But sport is a sport, for him everything is not designed, and the peculiarity of the project is a thorough reading of the territory from the context and stringing different plots and functions onto the notorious branch of the light metro. So that a walking or cycling trip with a length of 5 km or more was saturated with a change of impressions - but at the same time, so that a new atypical park would attract those who live or work nearby.
The architects have fully thought through the process of rebuilding all five kilometers of the overpass from a structural and technical point of view. The tracks of the monorail go somewhere nearby, somewhere they are separated - they were connected by decks and brought out the consoles, which increased the area of the top. The stations - rather large structures with wide areas for passengers - have been rethought functionally, striving to rationally use their covered warm rooms.
The monorail starts from the Timiryazevskaya station, where the educational and residential buildings of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy are located - that's why the educational greenhouse is conceived here in the project, it is inscribed in the turning circle and became the starting point of the park.
The sleeping areas between Timiryazevskaya and Milashenkova Street were interpreted by the architects as a sports popularization zone designed not for professional training, but for enthusiasts of different age groups from children to retirees: interactive playgrounds, places for entertainment and a public greenhouse were placed here.
The next part of the overpass passes over the railway tracks, according to one version, the Transport Department plans to keep tram traffic, and in order for trams to cross the railway tracks using a fragment of the monorail overpass, the architects provided a ramp. This part is a "transit zone", here the bike and jogging tracks run parallel to the tracks, they were protected from trams by green trellises.
The middle of the monorail is the Telecenter station - the point of concentration of the TV companies' offices. Complex
The Ostankino television center operates around the clock, more than two hundred television companies operate in it, and the International Institute of Film, Television and Radio Broadcasting is also located here. Telecentre employees need recreation areas within walking distance from the place of work, which would include places for walking, cafes, restaurants and shops, as well as possibly fitness complexes - the casual-zone planned here includes all these infrastructural facilities. Further, it smoothly passes into the zone of the "Dreamy Garden" - a park area planted with fruit and berry trees.
The dreamy garden is conceived as a major attraction that can attract visitors from all over the city to the park. From here, a view of the Ostankino church and the estate, a pond and a TV tower opens up, which is taken into account in the project - viewing platforms are planned. In addition to the trees blooming in spring and fruiting in summer, the garden includes an open-air panoramic pool, the likes of which in Moscow does not exist - it provides an opportunity to swim to the edge and look at the Ostankino pond from above. It is easy to see that the pool is a kind of echo of the pond, it duplicates the pond even in proportion, it seems to be its reflection raised above the ground. The architects divided the water bowl into two zones: for sports and for recreation.
The garden continues with a family leisure area, which in its meaning complements the sports promotion area at Milashenkova Street, and also adjoins a residential neighborhood. The monorail station "Academician Korolyova Street" - a rectangular and rather large building - is being transformed by the authors into a children's sports center, which becomes the core of the zone. Nearby - a leisure center and waiting areas for parents, with cafes and restaurants, including on the roof; they are designed to provide an influx of visitors in the evening. Further, the theme of the sports center is continued by a two-story playground with a rain-proof roof.
In the next section, the monorail runs next to VDNKh. The exhibition complex itself attracts visitors, and the task of the park in this place is to catch the flow. The attention of those walking should be attracted by the riot of nature in the experimental greenhouse - the architects are turning the former Exhibition Center station into it and it should remind “of the romantic context of VDNKh”. Plants "spill out" out and twine around the monorail structures, like in the jungle - as if nature got out of anthropogenic control and took over the overpass. The plot is complemented by light installations - now in the project they look like a rainbow arch.
This is followed by a professional sports area: sites for strength training, extreme sports, coaching and a first-aid post. The sports zone is replaced by a cultural one - the final part of the park.
In the area of the former Monorail depot, behind Sergei Eisenstein Street and not far from VGIK, in the former Monorail depot, according to the project, experimental theater venues are located. In the turning circle there was a place for an amphitheater and an open stage - recall that in the first circle an experimental greenhouse was conceived for Timiryazevka, and here, on the opposite side, there is a stage, probably for future filmmakers. However, the appearance of theatrical venues is also not surprising if we recall how many theaters, let alone amphitheatres, are in the Wowhaus portfolio, from the Green nearby at VDNKh to the Electrotheatre or a stage inside the Kaluga ICC. In the building of the depot, the authors of the project also placed a museum of street art and graffiti, combining it with a museum of transport, which has lost its premises. The idea of using the exhibits of the museum as a canvas, according to the idea, will help to combine the art exposition with the transport one.
A bunch of plots
Not only the functional content of the Monosad, but also its imagery is sensitive to the environment, although it is devoid of stylizations - rather, the authors think over the views, sometimes from the point of view of harmony, sometimes - paradox, well reflected in the illustrations. What is building the takeoff of a titanium rocket of the Museum of Cosmonautics against the background of an ivy-covered "summer cottage" greenhouse, or the communist impulse of Mukha's Worker and Kolkhoz Woman far behind overgrown plants, read the "abandoned" monorail supports - both are monuments to degraded futurism, one of the 1930s, the other of the 1990s x years: no matter that they had a different background, both are discarded, and the authors of the project feel this passism well.
From the same series of plots with a double bottom - a replica pool of a pond, the fruit of a reflection on two types of artificial water. Or the lattice of pergolas in the form of very schematically depicted but recognizable spikelets - a reminder of the Golden Ear fountain and the proximity of VDNKh, but in the illustrations, again, superimposed on the Ostankino tower.
Before us is not just a high-quality and diverse landscaping, in these shamanic beads, strung on the failed megaproject of Yuri Luzhkov, not only vines and trees sprout, but they cross, intensify, intertwine meanings with which the whole district is densely saturated. In this approach, there is a lot of theatrical - a play of paintings, similar to the Gonzaga theater, on the theme of genius loci, will unfold in front of the visitor of the park in motion. The current pictures, apparently, are his key acts.
Utopia or not utopia, High Line or not High Line
Wowhaus propose to reorganize the monorail into an ideal Platonic garden, which may seem somewhat utopian - there are enough walking park spaces in Moscow. However, before proposing the concept of Monosada, the architects analyzed the recreational infrastructure of both the entire city and those areas through which the monorail passes, focusing on the data of sociological research, for the collection of which their long-standing partners, KB23, were involved as a consultant. To be in demand on a city scale, the park must have a unique purpose and offer, in addition to walking areas, infrastructure facilities that could be used both on weekends and on weekdays - the Monosada project takes these requirements into account.
Actually, the idea of turning an obsolete suspended railway into hanging gardens is not new - a Moscow resident, who, after the opening of Zaryadye Park, has not heard the name High Line except from an iron, will come up with an American prototype first. The similarity with the famous DS + R park on rails is noticeable to the naked eye - meanwhile, the authors of the project do not deny it, but do not emphasize it either, recalling that the first "hanging garden" on the old railway was the Parisian park La Coulée verte, equipped in 1988 -1993 years. On the other hand, according to the authors of the project, they were more interested in the example of the Seoul Skygarden, built in 2015-2017 by MVRDV.
What was important for the authors was not a sonorous hyped model, but the requirements of the context and circumstances of the existence of an unprofitable light metro. But. Even a cursory glance at the project is enough to notice: the main driving force behind the architects' work was the fascination with the unexpected attraction that the monorail turns into, which, since the moment of its construction, we must admit, is a dull and heavy construction - with such an urbanistic habitation of it. Dispelling despondency, enthusiasm for invention and the ancient joy of the emergence of a new public space, and even so funny and intricate, unexpected throughout - and not (only) the promotion of sports - became the presentation frame of the project at Arch Moscow. Perhaps, who knows, the Hellenic joy of enlightening being will be able to lead the project further, to its probable realization.
By the way, in the same place at Arch Moscow, Oleg Shapiro named two principles of the bureau's work that fit well with Monosad: to provide a person with the maximum number of opportunities when interacting with space - and to create architecture for joy.
Open dialogue
The aforementioned creative joy - the cutest feature of the project - consists of two components, which in this case work together.
First: the project has not been ordered by anyone, it is a proposal for the city authorities in an open dialogue mode. Such proposals have been practiced by Wowhaus for a long time, designing "forward", offering the city new plots of urban development of neglected "escheat" or simply poorly functioning spaces. The method - let's call it the project action method - helps architects to work with what is interesting and set the tasks that, in their opinion, are really relevant. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't: it turned out just fine with Krymskaya Embankment, this is admitted even by many motorists who have lost the exit from Sadovoe, with Revolution Square, the project was not implemented. Wowhaus' considerable experience in working with improvement projects should, in theory, contribute to the advancement of the project.
The second component has taken root in the bureau not so long ago. There are many young employees at Wowhaus, but a few years ago the bureau began to actively develop a three-month internship program: it allows temporary employees to gain real work experience and replenish their portfolio, to the bureau itself not to lose youthful tone and take on similar projects imbued with joyful creativity. Last year the interns worked on the raft and a number of urban installations, this year Monosad is entirely their work, executed under the direction and with the participation of the Wowhaus architects. ***
The project is definitely an urban study, in all its parts, starting with the already almost obligatory for Wowhaus projects KB23, and including further answers to the pragmatic requests of the area, as well as cultural and historical answers, combining the vigor of youth and sports with passism, inevitable companion of urban rethinking. The combination of these not quite related things - young, new and former, joyful and sad, pragmatic and melancholic, provoking reading, but not contradicting direct pragmatic use - seems to be one of the characteristic features of the bureau's projects.
Monosad was first presented at Arch Moscow in May 2018, recently the project was shortlisted for the WAF award.
