Video project “General Plan. Dialogues”has existed for about a year. Within its framework, the Institute of the General Plan of Moscow publishes conversations and interviews on topical topics in the field of architecture and planning. Fresh material - conversation Maxim Gurvich, head of the architectural and planning association No. 2 of the Institute of the General Plan of Moscow, with Andrey Gnezdilov, who is known as the co-founder of the Ostozhenka bureau, but also for some time was the chief architect of the General Planning Institute: about the essence of the profession, about Kommunarka, Big Moscow, the Moscow river network and teaching architecture. We bring to your attention both the video and the transcript of the conversation.
M. Gurvich: Good day! I am Maxim Gurvich, “General Plan. Dialogues . And today we are talking with Andrey Gnezdilov, one of the founders of the Ostozhenka Bureau, in the past the chief architect of the General Plan Institute.
Please tell me, I introduced you as an architect, city planner. Now a rather stormy controversy has unfolded on this topic - who is an architect, who is a city planner. Moreover, it is no longer discussed whether the architect is the one who is engaged in urban planning and cities - he has already turned into some kind of engineer. Please tell me your opinion: who is engaged in urban planning and who works at the Institute of the General Plan.
A. Gnezdilov: I think that architects, because all other specializations, they arose within this profession - urban planner, designer. Once at the Architectural Institute, when the department of interior was formed, Stepan Khristoforovich Satunts said: "Have they invented the department of the section yet?" He was ironic on this topic, because he, as a deep man, understood that everything is architecture.
M. Gurvich: That is, you are not embarrassed when you call yourself an architect. Are you not participating in all this debate?
A. Gnezdilov: I do not participate, because the answer is obvious to me. This discussion is strange to me. Most likely, it is led by people who do not feel the essence of the profession.
M. Gurvich: For me it is also strange, nevertheless it exists, so I wanted to ask you about it. And the second question I would like to ask you is about education. You graduated from the Institute of Architecture in 1980. I also graduated from the Architectural Institute in 1999. When you graduated from the Architectural Institute, it was such a pillar, indisputable in the architectural world. When I graduated from the Architectural Institute, he was already a pillar too, but maybe he was already shaking. Now in our reality there are a lot of different organizations, institutions that train urban planners, architects, urbanists, whatever you call it. This is MARSH and Strelka, a huge spectrum has appeared. For the architectural bureau "Ostozhenka" and for you personally, which institute remains the main one in this profession?
A. Gnezdilov: For me, naturally - the Architectural Institute, because the Ostozhenka bureau grew out of the MARCHI research and design center, which was just formed by the Moscow Architectural Institute as a self-supporting organization, which received the contract for Ostozhenka. And we were the design group that dealt with Ostozhenka. And then it so coincided in time that privatization began, the socio-economic structure changed, and we created a separate, first self-supporting, then a partnership - LLP was then called - the architectural bureau "Ostozhenka". The Institute of Architecture for us is definitely an alma mater. Such figures as Lezhava, Kudryavtsev, Nekrasov are our "fathers", our everything. I cannot change this, but I believe that the Institute of Architecture should change.
It is clear that we are all getting old, and, of course, those very listed people have aged ahead of us, Ilya Georgievich, unfortunately, has already died, this is a very heavy loss. I just can't believe he could have died; maybe his voice remained within the walls of the institute. Of course, the institute should change, teachers should come there. But everything depends on financing, we are all connected with the fact that we constantly do not have time, we are constantly looking for work, because if you don’t look for it, you will simply remain unemployed. This is a serious problem because the institute has to pay teachers. I had experience, I was the chairman of the GEC at the ZhOZ, at the department of Nekrasov. We looked at a lot of works, we also watched Mamleev's works, his groups. I have seen 56 undergraduate bachelor's degrees. I must say that the level is very good. Naturally, the most interesting work came out in the Tsemaylo group. Why? Because he is a practitioner, because he is a famous practitioner, because he is a successful practitioner. And so the thesis of the whole group was built for him, it is 18 people, this is a lot, and not only Sasha worked there, assistants also worked there, and the diplomas were very clear, intelligible and precise. This is exactly what the MARCHI Institute lacks - the full professional dedication of the teachers.
M. Gurvich: Was this diploma at the Department of Life Sciences?
A. Gnezdilov: Yes.
M. Gurvich: I am, of course, more interested in the city, because I graduated from Lezhava, and I am worried about the situation there, because practitioners are not invited there.
A. Gnezdilov: I think we should go, give lectures, conduct seminars. We may not be paid much there, but I think we can do our part.
M. Gurvich: The question arises for me also because I have quite a lot of people working in my department who have just graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute, including the Department of Urban Development, I see their pluses, I see their minuses, it seemed to me that it was necessary to make some some adjustments, because there is a feeling that stagnation has occurred.
A. Gnezdilov: Let's form a movement of adult architects, let's go teach children.
M. Gurvich: You were the chief architect of our institute. How old were you?
A. Gnezdilov: 30 months. 2.5 years.
M. Gurvich: It was so hard that you counted every day.
A. Gnezdilov: Then I began to analyze all this time and counted - exactly 2.5 years.
M. Gurvich: The specificity of our work lies in the fact that you do some things, but the result is not immediately visible, some time must pass so that you can evaluate, people can understand, evaluate what you have done. Now it's been 3-4 years since you left.
A. Gnezdilov: I left in 2015.
M. Gurvich: Five years have passed. The time has just come when you can look and say: I managed to do it.
A. Gnezdilov: Yes, I see in the city and I am even surprised, I see some objects, some infrastructural objects that we discussed on a ten-thousandth scale with a felt-tip pen. And I see these objects are built. There is not only speech at junctions, some areas … This also applies to Greater Moscow, and Kommunarka, the metro. We talked about the metro in Kommunarka, as about some unattainable future - and now I get out of the metro, and not a single taxi. As I said, not a single person will be there. And there is.
M. Gurvich: I remember when we were engaged in New Moscow, people laughed in my face, said: what kind of metro, we will never have it here. Now it is there.
A. Gnezdilov: There are no people anyway.
M. Gurvich: But are you satisfied with the results that you see?
A. Gnezdilov: Not.
M. Gurvich: Not? This is normal.
A. Gnezdilov: Firstly, this is a very controversial issue. The idea of New Moscow was debatable for me from the very beginning, this loss of concentration of city life, spreading over a large puddle. Even now it seems to me that it was a wrong move. I see we are building infrastructure, but the urban density of this infrastructure, in my opinion, is unattainable. All this remains in the countryside, in the countryside.
M. Gurvich: On the other hand, this is some other Moscow. Yes, it will not become the same Moscow, but it will be some other Moscow.
A. Gnezdilov: Another Moscow. Apparently life is wiser.
M. Gurvich: We managed to grow a new kind of Moscow, it turns out? Still, it turned out.
A. Gnezdilov: Something worked out. And where it was possible to understand the prerequisites for the emergence of some kind of activity of the node, to bring together some circumstances, including urban planning, landscape, and so on - where concentration arises, a city appears. An example, the most primitive, but with obvious rudiments of urban activity around the Bulvar Dmitriy Donskoy metro station, I happened to be there, for some reason twice in a row, and I looked, there really are people walking, people have their own point of attraction, their center. There, it seems, everything is not so bad, there is landscaping, well lit. I was there once during the day and the other late in the evening.
M. Gurvich: And both times are not scary?
A. Gnezdilov: And both times are not scary. Probably, a big city has close satellites, no longer in the very center. Moscow is a very tough city due to its central structure, it is so centripetal that it can simply burst from the inside. Therefore, all methods of referring activity to at least some periphery, at least to the near periphery, even to a more distant one - they, in principle, save the city from this catastrophe of the central explosion.
M. Gurvich: In general, it seems to me that the story of polycentricity should really become a trend in the near future. Maybe we can talk about it.
I have a question about regional projects. I know that the Ostozhenka bureau works quite a lot in the regions. Personally, I haven’t come across the regions yet, so I’m interested in understanding the difference between working in Moscow and working in the region. It is clear that there are initially more opportunities in Moscow. But the regions also want this. It turns out to bring there not only a picture history in the form of paper, visionary work - is it really to be realized and to do something that would bring them closer to the world level?
A. Gnezdilov: It is clear, you just said about Moscow that it takes 5, 6, 10 years to see, because it’s time to be embodied on paper. I can say that nothing is being built yet, but we feel that everything is heading towards this. Now in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk there has been an international competition for renovation again, and in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk renovation is more than necessary, because the five-storey buildings that have been built can withstand 2 seismic points, and there is a nine-point area.
M. Gurvich: There it is a vital necessity.
A. Gnezdilov: It is vital, because there is the city of Neftegorsk, which just lay down in 1992, they did not even begin to disassemble it. The international competition was held by RTDA, a company with extensive Moscow experience, this competition is very professionally done. We see the potential and the request of the Administration, the authorities are very interested in the implementation of this project. This concerns the mayor of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, this applies to the governor of the entire Sakhalin. They see potential in the island itself, in the city itself.
M. Gurvich: That is, you see all this in optimistic colors.
A. Gnezdilov: I'm not really happy, jumping up, applauding that everything is so great, everything is not so great, of course, there is a factor, it is quite insurmountable, this is the factor of distance, but now something has become easier: we are talking on Skype, on Zoom, which everyone is tired of.
M. Gurvich: By the way, maybe it helped somehow, maybe it will help?
A. Gnezdilov: It helped somehow, but we still miss personal communication. And everything must be looked at and touched.
M. Gurvich: You said the word "renovation". Let's then go back to Moscow, let's talk about big projects in Moscow, globally. Let's remember some projects over the past ten, five years, and discuss this project, we will choose one of them. Which of the major infrastructure projects is significant and provides the greatest vector for the city's development prospects?
A. Gnezdilov: Of course, MCC. When we designed it, we called it the Moscow Railway. Of course, the MCC. This is a colossal discovery, I would even say, an acquisition. This iron ring has always been, and the entire Moscow industry has always hung on it. And now those territories where the most active development is going on now hang on it. It should be so. We foresaw this back in the 2012 competition for Greater Moscow. And the fact that it developed according to the predicted, began to work with greater potential development and with a greater return than even the authors of this implementation assumed, predictably. Because this is a colossal bundle of all radii. In our radial city, this is extremely necessary. The second is the diameters. We talked about this at the same time, when we reported that they are also needed as a second city overground metro. And they are included too.
M. Gurvich: All those activities that were included in the master plan.
A. Gnezdilov: They were included in the master plan. But I believe that we also participated in that, sharpened them, focused their importance, and this is implemented. And it had to be so. By the way, they were included in the general plan, in other phases. I do not want to assign myself anything, in any case, except for observation, some kind of interest in these events. Another very serious project is, of course, the Moskva River. Any textbook says that if there is a river in a city, this is the main city axis. And so it was, only in the center of Moscow. And the huge tails of 30 km to the north and south, which were not noticed at all, and the fact that they began to pay attention to this in 2013, 2014, 2015, when the competition was also held by the master plan, this, I believe, is also a colossal potential. Although cunning developers came to these shores before us and began to seize plots for themselves almost for nothing. It later became such a trend, in 2016, 2017, 2018. The banks of the river, not to mention its tributaries, all these rivers and streams that are still waiting to be opened, developed, presented to the world by this large network of blue or blue-green networks, these recreational spaces that Moscow already has, just theirs. must be opened.
M. Gurvich: We talked about what happened. And now, we have the Master Plan Dialogues, the master plan is such a document, which is a tool that allows, we all understand that some document must exist, which regulates. But I would like to at part of the development. We say that in the 1990s, a little back in history, there was a construction boom, they built everything, everything was sold. Then we realized that all this requires infrastructure. We have created it now: MCC, MCD, diameters, all this is an ideal story for the city. What's next? What further directions in the city need to be developed, in your opinion? We understand transport.
A. Gnezdilov: I have already touched on the need to supplement the natural frame with the rivers that are. Moscow lies on hills, if there are hills, then there are valleys, and if there are valleys, then there are rivers. But they are hidden, somewhere they are now in pipes, somewhere they are built up, but they are there. And Moscow, if you look at the map of the Moskva River with its tributaries, is just a blue network. And I believe that this is a colossal potential for the development of the city. Now all cities, from Seoul to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, are looking for a second network, in addition to the transport network, another network is a natural network, a natural frame that people need. People live, move by transport, live, walk, breathe in this green frame. They need it for life, for life. They are looking for him in almost all cities. In Moscow, this is a huge potential, you just have to tackle it. This is a super project in Moscow.
M. Gurvich: Do you think there is a super-transport skeleton of Moscow, and now you need to do the super-natural.
A. Gnezdilov: Because it has the main component - the river. And all its tributaries are necessary to create a coherent frame.
M. Gurvich: You are probably right. You and I talked about polycentricity before. My opinion is that we must develop what is left between what the transport has cut, give it meaning, somehow connect it with nature.
A. Gnezdilov: The map in your office, on which we began to discuss these nodes that arose at the intersections of this transport frame, and the rail, and the new metro, new chords - this is a hyperframe. In Moscow, there is a colossal shortage of a medium-level frame, transport, streets of a local level, of local importance. We do not even have enough streets of regional significance, we know this from Nagatino, from our project. In general, there are simply not enough streets.
M. Gurvich: There are not enough streets, but spaces that would divide this city.
A. Gnezdilov: Public Space Networks.
M. Gurvich: What makes the city pleasant, permeable. Because the framework you are talking about is where the intersections are, I formulated it for myself as a city of nomads, as a business city. It may not be needed by some of the Muscovites themselves, they do not use it. But what is between this frame, inside, this, it seems to me, needs to be dealt with in the near future.
A. Gnezdilov: We just groped with you two frames.
M. Gurvich: Even three.
A. Gnezdilov: It is necessary to supplement that hyperframe with the lower and middle connecting frame of public spaces and streets. And the second frame, which is displaced, or maybe coincides somewhere, the blue-green natural frame - these rivers.
M. Gurvich: The third, in my opinion, is what I did in my publication on Facebook, cities within cities, Moscow contains some centers within itself.
A. Gnezdilov: One hundred cities, as the late Andrei Baldin said: Moscow is one hundred cities.
M. Gurvich: That is, this is the beginning of budding, separate, so that people can stay in the places they love.
A. Gnezdilov: Identity.
M. Gurvich: Yes, urban planning identity.
A. Gnezdilov: The person who lives in Sokolniki is not the person who lives in Nagatino. They are different. One has a drill, while the other has only a grinder.
M. Gurvich: According to the laws of this genre, let's make such a blitz. I will ask you a short question, you answer as you want.
Three best Russian architects. Russians, Russian, Russian speaking.
A. Gnezdilov: Abdula Akhmedov, Alexey Gutnov, Andrey Konstantinovich Burov.
M. Gurvich: You did not name any modern ones. If you could now talk to those who made the 1935 master plan, what would you tell them?
A. Gnezdilov: I do not know, I think we would not agree, we would argue on the main principled topic. They made avenues in Moscow, they demolished the main historical monuments, they created the city center in the form of the Palace of Soviets, from which they cut new avenues with rays and sentenced, among other things, my beloved Ostozhenka to demolition.
M. Gurvich: That is, there are claims?
A. Gnezdilov: I have serious complaints. Although as a compositional statement, of course, this is a textbook of urban planning thought. I find it very traumatic. Although the Moskva River is also declared the main axis there. But the ruthless treatment of the city, of the naturally growing city - it seems to me that this is unacceptable. Corbusier introduced nihilism into urban planning: that everything must be demolished, everything must be done anew. But this nihilism has now ended in disappointment.
M. Gurvich: Is your place of power in Moscow?
A. Gnezdilov: May I answer later.
M. Gurvich: Next question. MARCHI or Strelka?
A. Gnezdilov: It seems to me that all the processes of fragmentation, the collapse of any family into some components, after some round of time leads, on the contrary, to consolidation. It seems to me that the Moscow architectural school is stronger than a separate Moscow Architectural Institute, a separate Strelka, a separate MARCH, and so on. Most likely, it should be some kind of university in which all this is together. And the question is, on what basis it will be created, possibly on the basis of free …
M. Gurvich: We spoke with you, there is still a lack of a couple of people who will help to unite all this into one university.
A. Gnezdilov: It seems to me that the future of any divorce is in some kind of wedding.
M. Gurvich: About the place of power.
A. Gnezdilov: I have several places. I have to name one. Oddly enough, this is the place where the Cathedral of Christ the Savior now stands, and there was, there was another temple, and between them was the Palace of the Soviets, and between them there was generally a pool. In general, it seems to me that in Moscow in this place is the navel, the navel of Moscow, in which a lot of energy gathers. And the late Boris Tombak, a very famous photographer, philosopher, he generally believed that this was an alien cosmodrome, everything is concentrated here, all the forces are in this, and the Chertoriy stream, and this site, everything is not accidental. He believed that this was the mystical center of Moscow. Honestly, without any influence from Tombak, I can say that I see this as a very important place in the city planning in the very morphology of Moscow. And the bend of the river, and the island. If we draw some schemes, then we come to him.
M. Gurvich: We will always come to him.
A. Gnezdilov: By the way, this is where Moscow began, just a step away from that. Borovitsky ford was the main link between north and south. Several roads came here, all roads converged in this place, and what later became willing rows, markets arose. And on this hill, these serious people who guarded this market, now there are other words for this. These people who kept order, they settled nearby on the hill. Yuri Dolgoruky was their senior.
M. Gurvich: And the last question. Is Kuznetsov handsome?
A. Gnezdilov: In youth terminology, I would say yes. But for me this is too frivolous an answer. I would say my fate changed a lot with his participation, he was invited to become the chief architect of the General Plan Institute. And this experience for me is absolutely amazing, invaluable and very important in my life. I would highly rate his success. Because his desire to hold contests, serious contests, very responsible and, I would say, objective, I support him in every possible way and I think it is right. His uncompromising and clear conviction that an architect is an important profession for the city, and in no case should it lose its authority, and the ability to broadcast this position to the mayor and seek her support, I believe, is a great merit and strength of Sergei. In general, I think that he is a very strong person, sometimes I just go numb with admiration, how a person can run 42 km at the same speed and not die at the same time. This characterizes him as a strong-willed, strong and intelligible, clear person. I'm interested in him.
M. Gurvich: Thank. It was interesting for us to talk with you. It's always interesting for me to talk to you. I hope that our dialogue will continue. Maybe there will be some other composition, and we will discuss exactly the issues that have arisen in our field of study, because, it seems to me, there is something to discuss here.
A. Gnezdilov: Because, as I understand it, there is a teaching potential already among adult architects, something can be told. At least each of us knows that each of our lectures or seminars takes place in complete silence and with the full attention of these young people. So they are interested.
M. Gurvich: Thank you, Andrey.
