Ostozhenka: The First Virtual

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

Ostozhenka is a street; until 1986 - Metrostroyevskaya, because here in an open way, having dug everything up, in 1934/1935 they built the first Moscow metro line, the red one. Ostozhenka is an area mainly between the street and Prechistenskaya embankment.

And finally Ostozhenka is a large and well-known architectural studio; a workshop that began with the collaboration of four and then six architects on an urban development concept for the area in the late 1980s. Then, for the first time in Soviet history, which was just ending at that moment, the workshop was named after the street that had recently regained its historical name, one of the first in Moscow; later it became fashionable and there were several more such names for the bureau by the name of the streets.

In general, this one - for the first time »- in the history of Ostozhenka, there are many streets and bureaus: the first failed Soviet avenue and the famous failed Palace of the Soviets; the first metro; the first urban planning protests; one of the first renaming; the first comprehensive reconstruction project; one of the first independent bureaus; many of the first striking experiences of modern architecture embedded in urban planning constraints.

In the 1960s, Soviet urban planning developed mainly inspired by the Voisin Le Corbusier plan, that is, not just neglecting the context, but from time to time trying to trample, clear and destroy more, and build it higher or at least wider. By the mid-1970s, not immediately, but gradually it became clear that this could no longer continue and the city center had to be somehow protected. Nostalgia has intensified. In 1976, a law was passed on the protection of monuments. In 1982 the film "Pokrovskie Vorota" was shot. There were ideas for the development of the historical center and projects for pedestrian streets, the most famous of which is Arbat, which was transformed by 1982 by a team led by Alexei Gutnov. In 1984, the restoration of Shkolnaya Street began. And if we look through the magazine "Architecture and Construction of Moscow" for the 1970s, and then for the 1980s, then the difference is huge: the magazines of the eighties shout outright about how to protect the Moscow center and what is valuable in it. The attitude has changed exactly the opposite.

“There was a time when tsekovskie towers of light bricks were being built in Arbatskiye lanes. I wanted something different, everyone understood that working with these towers we were disfiguring and trampling Moscow. I wanted to look for other ways, but then they could only be looked for theoretically. We did theoretical work, walking paths in the center, and so on. And in graduate school, I had a similar topic related to delicate reconstruction. When in 1989 two young architects whom I knew, Andrei Gnezdilov and Rais Baishev, came to me and said that a design group was being created at the Moscow Architectural Institute that would deal with Ostozhenka, they literally persuaded me. I had experience in the historical center, 13 years of work in the General Plan, with Stoleshnikov, Pokrovka and so on, that is why they came to me. They convinced me. And the time was interesting. " [On the work of the Department of Advanced Research and Experimental Development of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan of Moscow, created by Alexei Gutnov, see the article by Vladimir Yudintsev]

The Ostozhenka project was the first in which the architects made an attempt not only to preserve, but to actively reconstruct the historic city, to find the "grain" from which it once grew, and revive it, suddenly it will take root and flourish.

The project was in tune with the mood in the society of the late 1980s: the Soviet experiment failed, it was necessary to find new foundations, perhaps by returning to the notorious "70 years ago", where we left capitalism. There was a lot of romanticism in this, a lot of dreams - probably no less than 20 years ago in the futurism of the thaw. Needless to say, not everything "went like this" in the end. But, first of all, the Ostozhenka project has been implemented. And, secondly, it was the first and unique attempt to find new ideas in the well-forgotten old urban fabric, and in this sense it was firmly rooted both in Moscow architectural theory and literally in the history of the place: the authors conducted a detailed historical research, “raised »Maps of historical estates and laid their outlines in the basis of future development.

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  1/3 Scheme with areas of integrated design and reconstruction with the main TEP. Project. 1: 1000. 1989. Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  2/3 Scheme with areas of integrated design and reconstruction with the main TEP. Project. 1: 1000. 1989. Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  3/3 Scheme of functional use of the territory and development. Project. 1: 1000. 1989. Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

In a way, they suggested that the Ostozhenka district begin development anew, preserving the detachment of city planners, giving the authors of individual buildings freedom, without turning into either a dictate or even a design code.

“I would consider this a success of the methodology,” says Andrei Gnezdilov. - Not architecture and not some of our volitional intention, but precisely the methodology: the main thing in the city is the development of the "cell", that is, home ownership, the building of which can change, and more than once. But the character of the city remains. In my opinion, the city turned out to be real. There is no feeling that this is a city of modern times - it is part of the historical center of Moscow."

In a word, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the architects decided to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the bureau by dedicating the exhibition to this project - an indicative, starting, uniting them, and developing due to its specificity practically all these years. It is not surprising that the exhibition is housed in the Museum of Moscow - this is one of the key subjects for the history of the post-Soviet city, and the museum, housed in the Provision warehouses, ended up on Ostozhenka, in the project area. Better and hard to come up with.

Exhibition

And now the exhibition, conceived small and, according to its curator Yuri Avvakumov, "fun", having gathered to open on March 20, falls under the just begun quarantine. The chairs with the names of the architects of the bureau turn out to be empty - and although there was no talk of quarantine when the exhibition was planned, it turned out symbolically: as if everyone had gone to work at home, and empty, only the designated places of people remained.

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  1/4 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  2/4 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  3/4 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  4/4 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

The museum is closed, all events are transferred to the broadcast mode, the exhibition can be viewed only in the video tour mode.

Now the quarantine has been about a month, and many live in broadcast mode, even drink wine in broadcast mode, raising their glass to the screen. But think about it - the architects of Ostozhenka were again the first, at least among Russian architects, who, albeit forcedly, held a significant exhibition for themselves completely online, having tested quarantine on themselves not only in a working, but also in a presentation manner.

Of course, no one planned such a turn of events. But - as the architect of Ostozhenka, Kirill Gladky, suggested to me - in 1968 the NER exhibition went to the Milan triennial, and that one was closed due to protests, and now the exhibition of the key project of Ostozhenka, which somehow grew out of the NER, also closed without opening … One should not look for historical patterns here, but there are so many coincidences. In the meantime, the exhibition has passed, and from it remained records, which constitute everything that we could see and know about it.

It turned out to be retrospective and non-pathos, not reporting. There was a “red” (actually white) corner with awards, but there was no huge portfolio of the bureau at all. The exhibition was divided into three parts: awards, "architecture" - in this case, we are talking about the urban planning project of Ostozhenka proper, so the plans and the report were also shown in the form of a diagram, where 24 buildings built by the "Ostozhenka" bureau were shown in red, and in other colors - houses of other architects.

There are many architects who evaluate exhibitions on the principle “is there architecture there?” - and so, there was almost no architecture here, or rather there was an urban planning part, not a building. An exception was made for

The International Moscow Bank, built by 1996 and received the State Prize of the Russian Federation and many more architectural awards, is a building in which, according to the architects, the principles of Ostozhenka are perfectly embodied, one of which is the ability to harmoniously fit into the context, to such an extent that not all notice a new building. He stood at the beginning, denoting the architectural section, and was present in the form of a layout, early, about tongs on the roof, even before cooperation with J. Pallasmaa architects.

Although it was possible to find out about the buildings of Ostozhenka on Ostozhenka by scanning QR codes leading to

website of the bureau.

Along the perimeter of the table with a diagram of the district's new buildings, monitors with "talking heads" of architects who were building on Ostozhenka were installed. According to curator Yuri Avvakumov, together they created a multi-voiced noise similar to the city, and each one could be listened to, sitting in front of him: "Architects are a competitive profession, everyone needs to have their own voice and everyone has this voice."

Three sections were accompanied by three videos, one of which was a discussion of the past and future of the area at a round table of architects who built here, and the other an early entry: the architects of the bureau are interviewing residents.

In a word, the focus was not on the portfolio at all, but on the retrospective of the start, memories, people and things. The section of things and stories - things with stories is, of course, the most interesting. Some of them are described in virtual tours of the exhibition.

Tour of the Museum of Moscow:

Excursion ARTPLAY TODAY:

***Things

According to Yuri Avvakumov, this is "a kind of cabinet of curiosities." They are really worthy of a memoir.

Here is a door with traces of a bell from 1913, upholstered with sheets of roofing iron, - says Vladimir Ermanenok. - In 1991, the architects with money from the design of IMB bought a copier, at that time a very expensive piece of office equipment. Fearing that he would be stolen, they put a box in the lobby of the Moscow Architectural Institute for a while and set about guarding the bureau's premises. For this it was required to upholster the front door with iron. A little later, Alexander Skokan invited Irina Zatulovskaya to paint this door - this is how a work arose that the architects even had to save from destruction when someone decided to clean the door.

All items were brought from the bureau and labeled for temporary museum storage, so they turned from the personal collection of the bureau and architects into museum value - and it turned out that the exhibition shows people and the history of the bureau through things. There are a few more doors among them, it turns out to be consonant with Brodsky's Rotunda in Nikola-Lenivets and other similar things from objets trouvés. We see architects who design a delicate, but rather radical renovation of the area and at the same time collect its fragments, preserve parts of Ostozhenka in their bureau, roll a white stone ball found on the lawn, assemble doors and stools.

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  1/8 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  2/8 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  3/8 The door of the first office of the bureau. Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  4/8 Door of the first office of the bureau. Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  5/8 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  6/8 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  7/8 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  8/8 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

But the point, of course, is not only in these old things - the architects do not collect the Ostozhenka Museum, rather, something that got there on the occasion settles in the studio. The main thing is design, a day-to-day process from which artifacts also remain.

The string for cutting foam, says Rais Baishev, “was made by one of Sergei Pavlovich Korolev's associates in the city of Kaliningrad, now it is the city of Korolyov, in his own private garage. Garages were at that time magical laboratories, in which it was possible to make something that could not be bought for anything. " The string, initially guitar string # 1, was heated by a current passed through a transformer, and the heating could be controlled. “So the magic of the tool itself becomes the magic of layout. And prototyping, as you know, is the most famous design method. And despite the fact that several generations of computer technology have changed over 30 years, up to 30 changes have occurred with the programs in which we work, this tool has remained unchanged."

The sign "Mosgorexpertiza" is perceived sharply. We, of course, do not do any expertise, - explains Andrey Gnezdilov. The plaque was found in the trash when the establishment was moving, they took it with them in a folder that “just fit”, and here it is. “We could not help bringing it to the bureau, now it hangs here, and there is a slight irony in this, because we are preparing to meet with this examination as the biggest exam in life,” explains Andrei Gnezdilov.

And such a mixture turns out, from the doll of Sasha Gutnova to the plane Ilya Muromets Sikorsky, which usually hangs from the ceiling in the office and has now returned there: “The plane was presented by the customers on the occasion of moving to our new office. He comes from the laboratory of one of the Tupolev institutes, and he is a movie hero, in the early 1970s he starred in a film about the fictional story of friendship between Sikorsky and Tupolev,”says Andrei Gnezdilov. A mock-up of the aircraft hangs above the 1988 aerial survey, which served as the basis for the project. Both the stone ball and the logo of the bureau by Vladimir Chaika, executed in volume: the outer volume of the cube with a cutout and the inner one in the form of a three-dimensional Greek cross. And a metal hanger with 16 hooks, which were enough for a long time (now the bureau employs about 60 people).

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  1/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  2/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  3/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  4/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  5/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  6/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  7/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  8/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  9/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  10/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  11/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

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  12/12 Exhibition "Ostozhenka: a project within a project". Museum of Moscow, March 20 - April 12, 2020 Photo © Daria Nesterovskaya

All this gave the exhibition a naturalness and a kind of party-like soulfulness: there are no strangers here, like Gutnov's in the General Plan, and then in Ostozhenka, people were selected “according to the principle of mutual sympathy,” says Alexander Skokan in the ARTPLAY TODAY video. They did not quarrel, "did not bother each other." You look at these chairs and things - and you think, maybe I'm not a stranger here either. In its own way, an amazing effect, a Moscow get-together, but it differs from a get-together in that everyone is busy with one thing, and do not interfere with each other, and the GAPs have a sufficient degree of freedom. It is quite important to show the character of the bureau, because the characters are different, even very different. Here is the following: respectful to people and the context (I wonder, what if these approaches imply each other? Where they don't offend people, they don't offend the city either? It's hard to say) - and even working without context in an open greenfield, they strive to create a context inside.

The program "Chief is an Architect !?" ARTPLAY TODAY:

Project dates in short

September 24, 1987 - the decree of the USSR Council of Ministers "On the complex reconstruction and development of the historically formed center of Moscow in the period up to 2000".

August 5, 1988 - decision of the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Council No. 1666 "on the comprehensive reconstruction and restoration of the central part of the Leninsky district", the Ostozhenka district, which has already been renamed from Metrostroyevskaya.

“There were many places in this area where new houses could be built. And I must say that the center of Moscow in Soviet times, as well as now, was considered an elite prestigious place. The famous Arbat lanes were built up by the Economic Department, and there appeared many houses of light bricks, which quite strangely cut into the historical buildings, although those who lived in them were quite cozy and comfortable … for various reasons, the entire Soviet era was in oblivion."

The construction plans provoked protests, and these protests gave rise to the idea of a comprehensive design for Ostozhenka.

1. Alexander Skokan:

Ostozhenka - the last Soviet urban development project / Lecture, with the participation of Andrey Gnezdilov

1988 – at the Moscow Architectural Institute - specially for working with Ostozhenka - created Scientific and design center (SPC), in which the "Feasibility study of the project for the complex reconstruction of quarters No. 131-144 of the district of st. Ostozhenka with the development of a consolidated general plan for complex development and improvement. " One of the initiators of the creation of the center was Ilya Georgievich Lezhava. The Institute of the General Plan of Moscow, Mosinzhproekt, Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University took part in the work. An abstract of the SPC project was published in the "Project Russia".

December 22, 1989 - within the framework of the SPC MARHI, the Ostozhenka design bureau was created. The head is Alexander Skokan, architects Rais Baishev, Andrey Gnezdilov, Dmitry Gusev. They began to design the IMB Bank as part of the NPC.

1992 – the creation of an independent Ostozhenok bureau, with six founders: Vladimir Ermanenok, who at that moment preferred Ostozhenka to the career of the head of the planning department of Mosgrazhdanproekt, and Valery Kanyashin were added to the four.

1995 – the composition of the workshop has grown significantly, the architects have settled the communal apartment opposite on the floor and expanded the office.

Late 1990s - all communal apartments in the area are settled, intensive development begins, a little later nicknamed the "Golden Mile".

The Golden Mile and the Life of Ostozhenka

So, the project for the comprehensive reconstruction of the Ostozhenka district began with an “interesting time”, keen on modeling new principles of the city's development. Already in the 2000s, real estate here became expensive, especially (!) On the left side of the street, from the side of the river and the Ostozhenka district itself. It was here that the first notable urban buildings of the now famous Yuri Grigoryan and Sergei Skuratov appeared, whose Copper House went around the covers of many magazines and caused a lot of imitations - and in fact its green volume, stretched towards the river, with a small green park along it, responded to one of the principles reconstruction project - it was assumed that cross-links, walkways and driveways, between the street and the embankment, would be developed. Here, as well as throughout Moscow, stylizations also arose - but it was here that a "reserve" of modern architecture appeared, it seems here, earlier than other places, they began to take excursions not to historical buildings, but to new buildings. Memories are characteristic: architects voluntarily bring their projects to Alexander Skokan, and he, without criticizing anything, signs them “overlooked”, delicately not interfering with the author's idea. Even now, answering questions, Skokan and his colleagues very carefully note that they do not like this or that house on Ostozhenka.

The area has been criticized many times for being expensive and lifeless. It is, indeed, very quiet - and the authors consider it an advantage, as well as the high price of housing. Indeed, in capitalist reality, cheap real estate in the city center may indicate that such a center is dying, or at least something is wrong with it - like in the center of Istanbul, where wealthy people prefer to settle in new districts. If real estate in the central area is expensive, this at least means its market success. In addition, the authors and, by their own admission, and set the goal of creating a predominantly residential area, quiet and calm. It is only along the borders of such an area that the popular now (well, before the pandemic) urban social life, cafes, shops and clubs are naturally developing. The architects of Ostozhenka compare such a life with a "crust" that forms near the metro and partly on the embankment, in particular, in the recently completed Maple House, which continued the IMB line towards the Crimean Bridge.

“If we add 2-3 more cafes there [to Ostozhenka], then the issue can be considered resolved,” Yuri Grigoryan said in one of the discussions. In the same place, however, he admitted that he considered the predominance of the residential function to be wrong, and if more offices were added to the plan, then cafes would appear, and the area would be more lively. The position of Yuri Grigoryan, a participant in the development of Ostozhenka, turned out to be one of the most self-critical, maybe even harsh: “Few old houses have survived, many have been broken, lost under the pressure of the market. The romantic master plan of "Ostozhenka" assumed the preservation of this fragile environment, houses of 2-3 floors, the density there was two times lower, and so on … And, I will say it may be an unpopular thing, but it seems to me that in the zone between Ostozhenka and the river, there are no good new houses. Including ours. Some are a little better, a little worse. But they don't create any environment. Maybe we weren't too ready. The bank is still the most solid work of environmental architecture, even the facades are split, attached … It can be read as a work of environmental architecture. At such a time, they began to build it up, what to do, and did not keep the preservation under the pressure of money. I would also say that many historians were not so zealous in defending the old city that was there. Although there were no capital buildings, there were even small wooden houses. And if we imagine that exactly that first general plan of Ostozhenka would have been implemented by the hands of not those, but Swiss architects, or as now the best world practices work with the preservation of wooden houses, with the preservation of the environment … Then I would be happy to see how it looked like. It seems to me that this level of our workshop also shows: what kind of compromises we all make from time to time. If there is value in the general plan of Ostozhenka, which was made, then it is an attempt to preserve the historical environment. This is an interesting and brilliant example, given the experience that at that time was that the project existed for a long time, "summed up Yuri Grigoryan, concluding that even Nowadays, few people think about creating a “good city” and suggesting, perhaps now, to make a new master plan for Ostozhenka and better explore this area”[from here].

The power of the architect

In discussions and interviews, especially of Alexander Skokan, it was repeatedly said: at the time of work on the project, the architect was endowed with much more power than now. Rais Baishev added something else - the architect was trusted by the developer. Yuri Grigoryan stressed that the builders now have too much power. It is a well-known fact, an architect is more and more often called "to draw facades", and if the environment, then paths and benches. “I drove around Moscow, and I'm afraid soon it will be scary to admit that you are an architect,” says Alexander Skokan.

That is, no matter how hard the architect tries, he has no power. Although this is not a reason not to try. Against this background, Yuri Grigoryan's proposal for better preserving and shaping the environment looks good and demanding, but quite utopian, and the Ostozhenka area is well-formed, especially when you consider that the trend of the 1990s was the population of the center with offices, and the architects opposed them with residential buildings. The creation of a comfortable city is a trend of the later, last decade, the time when most of the Ostozhenka district was formed, although not everything was built yet. One way or another, and the example is one of a kind, and it reflected a lot of the important post-Soviet times in the history of Russian architecture.

Lectures, broadcasts, videos

The exhibition was accompanied by a program of 6 conferences and lectures, the records of which were published, we present them all to your attention, starting with the lecture by Alexander Skokan above.

2. City: Ostozhenka - reality and utopia

Participants: Rais Baishev, Yuri Grigoryan, Alexey Novikov, Konstantin Khodnev

Moderator: Alexander Ostrogorsky, architecture critic, teacher at MARSH

3. Vera Benediktova: Ostozhenka. How it was done

Lecture. Featuring Andrey Gnezdilov

4. People: commoners or townspeople?

Participants: Andrey Gnezdilov, Grigory Revzin, Vitaly Stadnikov, Nadezhda Snigireva, Sergey Nikitin / Moderator: Kirill Gladky, Ostozhenka architectural bureau

5. Narine Tyutcheva: Old New Town / Lecture

6. Buildings: The Golden Mile of Experiments - Architecture vs Real Estate

Participants: Valery Kanyashin, Sergey Skuratov, Tatiana Polidi, Olga Aleksakova

Moderator: Alexander Zmeul, archspeech online edition

The opening of the exhibition was also held on-line:

But the exhibition program is not the only one. The anniversary of the bureau was celebrated by OPENARCH, having released several interviews and round tables, here is the most recent one published:

Ostozhenka: Time / Place. Round table

Round tables:

Concept and implementation. Round table Ostozhenka / Time. A place. Part 1;

Expectation and Reality. Round table Ostozhenka. Part 2;

Development strategies. Round table Ostozhenka. Part 3;

Interview: Alexander Skokan. What was it? To the 30th anniversary of the Ostozhenka bureau