Architects square off against authorities over Moscow development plan
Published 14 March, 2009, 10:28
Moscow architects have unveiled a development plan for the Russian capital for the next sixteen years. The project has been ambitiously called ‘Moscow 2025’ and a decision on it will be made in May.
The 2025 plan, also referred to as ‘The Plan of Necessities’, promises a brand new life to its 15 million residents. Better roads, longer subway lines, more green districts and – most importantly – the historic center will stay untouched.
“I would like the centre of the city to develop like Paris, and not like Berlin, that our dormitory districts are similar to those in England. I'm against globalization in architecture. I know for sure I do not want Moscow to turn into a faceless Asian tiger – a city with no historic memory, like Shanghai or Singapore,” says Aleksander Kuzmin, Moscow Chief Architect.
Obviously it's up to Moscow architects to provide a proper facelift without changing the city's identity.
Boris Uborevich-Borovsky is the architect of several edgy projects. Three years ago he built a city within a city with houses resembling a sail, a chessboard and an hourglass. He says architects in Moscow experience constant pressure from developers and not all initial plans come to fruition.
“An architect should run the show – this is what the city authorities keep saying. But in reality a developer decides on everything, including the number of stories. He is desperate to sell more square metres. He says ‘I want a 30-storey house here.’ The authorities say ‘You can't. Only seven are permitted.’ And in the end they agree upon 17,” says Boris.
The sail shaped house by Boris was also a compromise. As seen from the paper model, there was a chink in the construction. The developer decided extra apartments were more important than creativity, so the chink was cemented.
Around Moscow one cannot go without seeing one of Stalin’s famous ‘Seven Sisters’ skyscrapers. They were built in the Fifties to demonstrate the glory of the Soviet regime. Guide books say there’re only seven such buildings in the city, but many have come across an eighth. However, it is a replica and was built just three years ago to demonstrate the glory of Moscow developers.
Replicas which are slowly replacing genuine historic monuments are another big problem for the city. The 2025 plan promises to put an end to this.
Edmund Harris from the Moscow Architecture Preservation Society is skeptical over the pledges and showed some recent examples of how monuments are being demolished just metres away from the legendary Tretyakov Gallery.
“A historic city is a complete organism. You can not put up large areas of it for redevelopment and simply leave individual buildings – in the same way that you can’t put Rembrandt against jazzy, colorful wallpaper. It needs a neutral setting,” said Harris.
A neutral setting can be found in the so-called dormitory districts which were initially planned as satellite-cities, where people would live, work and entertain at the same time.
“The plan looks very good in theory, but we don’t know how it is going to work in practice.
All business is still concentrated in the centre of the city, but it is starting to move out a little bit. The centre of the city is regarded as the most prestigious – so yes, all traffic flows into the centre in the mornings and then out of the centre in the evenings. The infrastructure hasn’t kept pace with the city – particularly true with the metro which needed to be expanded a long time ago. It’s now very overloaded.”
The financial crisis could help to remedy the deconstruction of the cultural architecture. For many, moving out of the center has already become part of their crisis management plan.
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