По-русски

​Invisible Cities

How do the architects see the perfect cities of the future, and what must be done to achieve that ideal? Below is a report from the exhibition called “Ideal and Norm” and a conference that accompanied its opening with the participation of Scandinavian architects.

Alyona Kuznetsova

Written by:
Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

13 August 2018
Report
mainImg

The exhibition is taking place within the framework of the annual festival called “Cities of the Future / Future of the Cities” organized by “Project Baltia” magazine in collaboration with Committee for Urban Development and Architecture of Saint-Petersburg. The festival’s venue alone – the new stage of the Alexandinsky Theater – is enough of a reason for visiting this exhibition: its light-colored hall, where the old and the new kinds of architecture meet, is the perfect place for such small-scale events. But then again, it is only the exhibition that can be considered “small-scale” – six wooden stands, one side of each displaying an image of the ideal, the other – the norm, the routine, something that we all get to deal with today. As for the conference, the media lounge did not have enough room for housing it – the audience would stand, sit on the stairs and folding chairs, just like they would at a lecture of some acclaimed professor in Sorbonne. After the first few presentations, though, one could definitely feel that it became easier to breathe, but still, such a surge of interest to the urbanist futurology is nothing but remarkable.

"Ideal and Norm" exhibition © photo by Alisa Gil
"Ideal and Norm" exhibition © photo by Alisa Gil


The ideas presented on the stands vary from down-to-earth and familiar things to the starry-eyed search for the absolute good. For example, Sergey Tchoban presented a pair of opposites – modern versus traditional city – showcased in the form of architectural graphics. Stepan Lipgart, on the other hand, presents the antithesis of the down-to-earth city as soaring space structures in the spirit of Kalatrava, which were shown at the conference to the accompaniment of The Poem of Ecstasy by Scriabin.

The sketch-board for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © Sergey Tchoban. Image courtesy by the "Project Baltia" magazine


The sketch-board for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © Stepan Lipgart. Reshooting the sketch-board by Alena Kuznetsova


Between them, there are more specific questions: the perfect plan of a city, a district, or a house.

The sketch-board and the presentation by the architects of the Saint-Petersburg office of MLA+ caused a lot of controversy: they proposed that a city should be made as dense as possible. 
According to their estimates, today’s urban environment of Saint-Petersburg is quite capable of housing about 77 millions of apartments, which will make it possible to refrain from expanding the city boundaries for another decade.

“Urban densification”, however, is not quite the appropriate term. Rather, what we should speak about here is making the existing environment healthier at the expense of pinpoint introduction of multifunctional buildings that will help to form new streets and blocks and generally make a more efficient use of this or that city neighborhood.

The sketch-board for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © MLA +


The city was broken down into districts (about 300), and the construction was subdivided into morph types: the historical center, the gray belt, Stalin-time houses type M, Stalin-time houses type S, Khrushchev-time houses, Brezhnev-time houses, post-Soviet construction, and small privately owned cottages. The Stalin-time houses, the architects believe, almost do not need to be densified at all – they are a comfortable place to live as it is, and it is Important to keep it that way. And as for the gray belt, Khrushchev and Brezhnev-time houses, these are definitely in need of being densified because in those areas the land use efficiency index can be raised from 1.44 to 2. The problem of the absence of large vacant chunks of land is easily solved – by grinding down the typology of the “injections”. The authors studied their predecessors (от Christopher Alexander to Alexander Vysokovsky) and created something very much like a manual for working with each of the morph types.

The sketch-board for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © MLA +


“Studio 44” showcased their project of an ideal micro town that, regretfully, was to remain on paper – it is a housing project situated on the alluvial land next to the settlement of Gorskaya, “a model of New Amsterdam”, that Peter the Great once tried to create. One can get here by boat as well as by car, the diverse types of construction – from high-rises to low-rise residential houses and villas – creating a vibrant living environment conducive to establishing new social ties. According to Nikita Yavein, this project breaks all of the existing regulations but this is exactly the type of city to live in. In addition, “the real estate possibilities are virtually endless”, but “there is no implementing the idea proposed by Peter the Great without Peter the Great around”.

zooming
Project for the alluvial territory near Gorskaya Settlement © Studio 44


The reality is represented by the housing project situated on the alluvial waterfront of the Vasilyevsky Island, where the city-approved project of land demarcation and various rules and requirements that the architects were to meet “left no room for planning maneuvers”, while the architects’ work ended up turning into an “endless mathematical hassle”. At the same time, meeting the requirements does not at all guarantee a great result – most of the time, it’s the other way around: for example, the preceding project complied to all the norms and specifications but, instead of a park, the waterfront got a four-lane highway running through it.

The concept for building on the alluvial lands in the west prt of the Vasilyevsky Island © Studio 44


At the conference, Nikita Yavein also showed the project of a “micro district” in the town of Pushkin, located in the Saint Petersburg area, that was inspired by the “coppiced layout” of a regular park – which is essentially a “compromise between normal city blocks and the existing rules and regulations”.

zooming
Master plan. A residential area in Pushkin © Studio 44


At the stand of the Swedish office Semrén & Månsson, the pair “ideal/norm” turned out slightly offensive to this country: the ideal was essentially presented by a housing project in Goteborg, while the norm – by Skandy Klubb, recently built in Saint Petersburg. On the other hand, it’s certainly a relief to know that the principles of Swedish housing architecture have long since become “the norm” in this country: the detailed and diverse façades, the hierarchy of private and public spaces, as well as the multifunctional character of the latter. The owner of the firm, Magnus Monsson, admitted that, although a conflict with the Russian norms did take place, the architects still were able to implement everything that they intended to. Construction norms, he says, are mandatory to comply with, albeit they are by definition doomed to always lag behind the real life.

The sketch-board for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © Semrén & Månsson. Image courtesy by the "Project Baltia" magazine


zooming
The sketch-board for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © Committee for City Planning and Architecture. Image courtesy by the "Project Baltia" magazine


A little apart stands the stand of the Committee for City Planning and Architecture that displays its achievements: a program of preserving the historical center of the city and reforming its “gray belt”, coordinating the issues of maintaining the architectural image of the new buildings and improving their quality, and a program of integrated development of Saint Petersburg and the Leningrad region. Judging by this project, all one has to do in order to achieve the ideal is to impose the appropriate regulations upon the height of the construction, thus “repairing the omissions in the city’s silhouette”.

zooming
Part of the presentation of LEGENDA Intelligent Development for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © LEGENDA Intelligent Development. Image courtesy by the "Project Baltia" magazine


The theme set by the exhibition was also explored by the guest expert speakers.

The marketing director of LEGENDA Intelligent Development, Vsevolod Glazunov, claimed that we all would get closer to the ideal once the standards of the municipal environment get closer to those of advanced developer companies. What we are getting most of the time is “city turned inside out” – there are plenty of examples of great urban environment but all too often they are inaccessible to city people, being of a resident-only quality. Currently, the developers cannot even begin to design the non-barrier environment because by the beginning of the construction the city cannot do so much as specify the height of the level of the future streets.

zooming
Helsinki 2000. Part of the presentation of Uusikaupunki for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © Uusikaupunki. Image courtesy by the "Project Baltia" magazine


The architect Miia-Liina Tommila, who works for three offices at once: Tommila Architects, Kaleidoscope, and Uusikaupunki, shared about the project of the perfect residential areas of 2100 that her team did in collaboration with futurology scientists for the municipality of Helsinki. What they ultimately got was a utopia that ruled out just about any threat or difficulty – just as the client wanted.

The city of the future consists of flexible “branded” districts: people who now have more free time on their hands, and whose work is not tied to any specific point in space, can now choose the district that best fits their tastes and lifestyle. The central square is covered by a “cloud” bubble of nanoparticles that maintains a healthy climate. All the new buildings are living organisms that exist in symbiosis with their users. They react to environment changes, control the water and power consumption, can independently “grow” a balcony on them should such need arise, and even prompt an elderly person where to find company. The traffic is predominantly vertical, the elderly people move around on hover boards, while reindeer roam the now-unused parking lots.

"Ideal and Norm" exhibition: Stepan Lipgart, Nikita yavein, Alina Chereiskaya © photo by Alisa Gil


In reality, the Uusikaupunki architects are practicing “design sprints”, i.e. intensive workshops, to which they invite experts and active citizens who are related to the future construction in one way or another. After the discussions, the architects create visualizations, giving shape to the ideas in question. In this process, the ideal is molded by the city people themselves, the architects getting a great chance to “get out of the ivory tower”.

Resonant to these ideas was the presentation by the editor in chief of RBC Saint Petersburg, Elena Krom: a city of common sense must welcome the opinion of active citizens (or the “perfect” citizens, for that matter, like Alexander Karpov), on whose behalf the architects can manage the city. The public opinion forms the demand, and the developers form the offer.

The architect and partner of SA Lab Alina Chereiskaya presented a concept of an adaptive city, in which the architecture is also sensitive to the information inflow. According to the architect, there is no more need to build “for ages to come” – the buildings must learn to quickly react to people’s needs: grow bigger or “shrink” without affecting the landscape, changing their image or even function.

zooming
Part of the presentation of Knight Frank for the "Ideal and Norm" exhibition © Knight Frank. Image courtesy by the "Project Baltia" magazine


For solving the problem of extensiveness of the modern cities, the General Director of Knight Frank, Nikolai Pashkov, proposed “radical architectural futurism”, as the moderator of the conference Vladimir Frolov termed it: a huge ball with a 1.5 kilometer diameter. It is capable of hosting virtually everything, and it will only have one point of connection with the surface.

"Ideal and Norm" exhibition © photo by Alisa Gil


The director of the ECOM expertise center Alexander Karpov was surprised that all of the speakers presented their version of the perfect city that was all about human beings but none of the projects provided for either waste disposal or any industrial facilities. To him, an eco-friendly city is the one that consumes little resources and occupies little territory. Meaning – compact and so comfortable that people will not want to go beyond its confines and infringe upon nature, which in his project exists independently as a biological shell that supports the existence of the human beings.

“Ideal and Norm” exhibition © photo by Alena Kuznetsova


There was only one speaker who spoke in favor of all the norms and standards unreservedly, and that was the chief architect of Saint-Petersburg, Vladimir Grigoryev: “Ideal and norm are not at odds with each other, when the norm serves as the basis – skillful hands will turn anything into ideal”

A separate part of the exposition displays the best land improvement projects prepared for the competition of young architects named “North Valley – the Future of the Vyborg District”, organized by the magazine “Project Baltia” and the company “Glavstroy SPB”.




13 August 2018

Alyona Kuznetsova

Written by:

Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov
Headlines now
New “Flight”
Architects from “Mezonproject” have developed a project for the reconstruction of the regional youth center “Polyot”(“Flight”) in the city of Oryol. The summer youth center, built back in the late 1970s, will now become year-round and acquire many additional functions.
The Yauza Towers
In Moscow, there aren’t that many buildings or projects designed by Nikita Yavein and Studio 44. In this article, we present to you the concept of a large multifunctional complex on the Yauza River, located between two parks, featuring a promenade, a crossroads of two pedestrian streets, a highly developed public space, and an original architectural solution. This solution combines a sophisticated, asymmetric façade grid, reminiscent of a game of fifteen puzzle, and bold protrusions of the upper parts of the buildings, completely masking the technical floors and sculpting the complex’s silhouette.
Architecture and Leisure Park
For the suburban hotel complex, which envisages various formats of leisure, the architectural company T+T Architects proposed several types of accommodation, ranging from the classic “standard” in a common building to a “cave in the hill” and a “house in a tree”. An additional challenge consisted in integrating a few classic-style residences already existing on this territory into the “architectural forest park”.
The U-House
The Jois complex combines height with terraces, bringing the most expensive apartments from penthouses down to the bottom floors. The powerful iconic image of the U-shaped building is the result of the creative search for a new standard of living in high-rise buildings by the architects of “Genpro”.
Black and White
In this article, we specifically discuss the interiors of the ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh. Interior design is a crucial component of the overall concept in this case, and precision and meticulous execution were highly important for the architects. Julia Tryaskina, head of UNK interiors, shares some of the developments.
The “Snake” Mountain
The competition project for the seaside resort complex “Serpentine” combines several typologies: apartments of different classes, villas, and hotel rooms. For each of these typologies, the KPLN architects employ one of the images that are drawn from the natural environment – a serpentine road, a mountain stream, and rolling waves.
Opal from Anna Mons’ Ring
The project of a small business center located near Tupolev Plaza and Radio Street proclaims the necessity of modern architecture in a specific area of Moscow commonly known as “Nemetskaya Sloboda” or “German settlement”. It substantiates its thesis with the thoroughness of details, a multitude of proposed and rejected form variants, and even a detailed description of the surrounding area. The project is interesting indeed, and it is even more interesting to see what will come of it.
Feed ’Em All
A “House of Russian Cuisine” was designed and built by KROST Group at VDNKh for the “Rossiya” exhibition in record-breaking time. The pavilion is masterfully constructed in terms of the standards of modern public catering industry multiplied by the bustling cultural program of the exhibition, and it interprets the stylistically diverse character of VDNKh just as successfully. At the same time, much of its interior design can be traced back to the prototypes of the 1960s – so much so that even scenes from iconic Soviet movies of those years persistently come to mind.
The Ensemble at the Mosque
OSA prepared a master plan for a district in the southern part of Derbent. The main task of the master plan is to initiate the formation of a modern comfortable environment in this city. The organization of residential areas is subordinated to the city’s spiritual center: depending on the location relative to the cathedral mosque, the houses are distinguished by façade and plastique solutions. The program also includes a “hospitality center”, administrative buildings, an educational cluster, and even an air bridge.
Pargolovo Protestantism
A Protestant church is being built in St. Petersburg by the project of SLOI architects. One of the main features of the building is a wooden roof with 25-meter spans, which, among other things, forms the interior of the prayer hall. Also, there are other interesting details – we are telling you more about them.
The Shape of the Inconceivable
The ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh brings to mind a famous maxim of all architects and critics: “You’ve come up with it? Now build it!” You rarely see such a selfless immersion in implementation of the project, and the formidable structural and engineering tasks set by UNK architects to themselves are presented here as an integral and important part of the architectural idea. The challenge matches the obliging status of the place – after all, it is an “exhibition of achievements”, and the pavilion is dedicated to the nuclear energy industry. Let’s take a closer look: from the outside, from the inside, and from the underside too.
​Rays of the Desert
A school for 1750 students is going to be built in Dubai, designed by IND Architects. The architects took into account the local specifics, and proposed a radial layout and spaces, in which the children will be comfortable throughout the day.
The Dairy Theme
The concept of an office of a cheese-making company, designed for the enclosed area of a dairy factory, at least partially refers to industrial architecture. Perhaps that is why this concept is very simple, which seems the appropriate thing to do here. The building is enlivened by literally a couple of “master strokes”: the turning of the corner accentuates the entrance, and the shade of glass responds to the theme of “milk rivers” from Russian fairy tales.
The Road to the Temple
Under a grant from the Small Towns Competition, the main street and temple area of the village of Nikolo-Berezovka near Neftekamsk has been improved. A consortium of APRELarchitects and Novaya Zemlya is turning the village into an open-air museum and integrating ruined buildings into public life.
​Towers Leaning Towards the Sun
The three towers of the residential complex “Novodanilovskaya 8” are new and the tallest neighbors of the Danilovsky Manufactory, “Fort”, and “Plaza”, complementing a whole cluster of modern buildings designed by renowned masters. At the same time, the towers are unique for this setting – they are residential, they are the tallest ones here, and they are located on a challenging site. In this article, we explore how architects Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova tackled this far-from-trivial task.
In the spirit of ROSTA posters
The new Rostselmash tractor factory, conceptualized by ASADOV Architects, is currently being completed in Rostov-on-Don. References to the Soviet architecture of the 1920’s and 1960’s resonate with the mission and strategic importance of the enterprise, and are also in line with the client’s wish: to pay homage to Rostov’s constructivism.
The Northern Thebaid
The central part of Ferapontovo village, adjacent to the famous monastery with frescoes by Dionisy, has been improved according to the project by APRELarchitects. Now the place offers basic services for tourists, as well as a place for the villagers’ leisure.
Brilliant Production
The architects from London-based MOST Architecture have designed the space for the high-tech production of Charge Cars, a high-performance production facility for high-speed electric cars that are assembled in the shell of legendary Ford Mustangs. The founders of both the company and the car assembly startup are Russians who were educated in their home country.
Three-Part Task: St. Petersburg’s Mytny Dvor
The so-called “Mytny Dvor” area lying just behind Moscow Railway Station – the market rows with a complex history – will be transformed into a premium residential complex by Studio 44. The project consists of three parts: the restoration of historical buildings, the reconstruction of the lost part of the historical contour, and new houses. All of them are harmonized with each other and with the city; axes and “beams of light” were found, cozy corners and scenic viewpoints were carefully thought out. We had a chat with the authors of the historical buildings’ restoration project, and we are telling you about all the different tasks that have been solved here.
The Color of the City, or Reflections on the Slope of an Urban Settlement
In 2022, Ostozhenka Architects won a competition, and in 2023, they developed and received all the necessary approvals for a master plan for the development of Chernigovskaya Street for the developer GloraX. The project takes into account a 10-year history of previous developments; it was done in collaboration with architects from Nizhny Novgorod, and it continues to evolve now. We carefully examined it, talked to everyone, and learned a lot of interesting things.
A Single-Industry Town
Kola MMC and Nornickel are building a residential neighborhood in Monchegorsk for their future employees. It is based on a project by an international team that won the 2021 competition. The project offers a number of solutions meant to combat the main “demons” of any northern city: wind, grayness and boredom.
A New Age Portico
At the beginning of the year, Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport opened Terminal C. The large-scale and transparent entrance hall with luminous columns inside successfully combines laconism with a bright and photogenic WOW-effect. The terminal is both the new façade of the whole complex and the starting point of the planned reconstruction, upon completion of which Tolmachevo will become the largest regional airport in Russia. In this article, we are examining the building in the context of modernist prototypes of both Novosibirsk and Leningrad: like puzzle pieces, they come together to form their individual history, not devoid of curious nuances and details.
A New Starting Point
We’ve been wanting to examine the RuArts Foundation space, designed by ATRIUM for quite a long time, and we finally got round to it. This building looks appropriate and impressive; it amazingly combines tradition – represented in our case by galleries – and innovation. In this article, we delve into details and study the building’s historical background as well.
Molding Perspectives
Stepan Liphart introduces “schematic Art Deco” on the outskirts of Kazan – his houses are executed in green color, with a glassy “iced” finish on the facades. The main merits of the project lie in his meticulous arrangement of viewing angles – the architect is striving to create in a challenging environment the embryo of a city not only in terms of pedestrian accessibility but also in a sculptural sense. He works with silhouettes, proposing intriguing triangular terraces. The entire project is structured like a crystal, following two grids, orthogonal and diagonal. In this article, we are examining what worked, and what eventually didn’t.
An Educational Experiment for the North
City-Arch continues to work on the projects that can be termed as “experimental public preschools”: private kindergartens and schools can envy such facilities in many respects. This time around, the project is done for the city of Gubkinsky, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. A diverse educational and play environment, including a winter garden, awaits future students, while the teachers will have abundant opportunities to implement new practices.
Alexandra Kuzmina: “Working is easy when the rules are the same for everyone”
The subject matter of Moscow Region’s booth and presentations at Zodchestvo Festival was the concept of “Integrated Land Development”, and for a good reason: this task is very challenging, very relevant, and Moscow Region has already accumulated quite a formidable experience in this regard. In this article, we are speaking to the main architect of the region: about master plans and who makes them, about where you obtain resources for creating a comfortable environment, about her favorite projects, about why there are so few good architects, and what we should do with the bad ones.
The Cemetery: Inside and Outside
The workshop organized by the Genplan Institute of Moscow scored one of the two first places at the “Open City” festival. Its subject is reorganization of municipal cemeteries. Two action plans were proposed, diametrically opposite: one for the downtown and one for the suburbs.
Our Everything
Who is Alexey Shchusev? In the last couple of weeks, since the architect’s 150th birthday, different individuals have answered this question differently. The most detailed, illustrated, and elegantly presented response is an exhibition held in two buildings of the Museum of Architecture on Vozdvizhenka. Four curators, a year and a half of work performed by the entire museum, and exhibition design by Sergey Tchoban and Alexandra Sheiner – in this article, we take you on a tour of the exhibition and show what’s what in it.
For Mental Reboot
At the architectural competition held in 2023 in Novosibirsk, the project by GORA Architects – a pedestrian bridge leading to the town of Bor – was awarded the “Golden Capital” prize. In this country, more than a hundred pedestrian bridges are constructed each year. What makes the Bor bridge different?
Gold Embroidery
A five-story housing complex designed by Stepan Liphart in Kazan, responds to the stylistically diverse context with its form, both integral and agile, and as for the vicinity of the “Ekiyat” movie theater, the complex responds to it with a semblance of theater curtain folds, and active plastique of its balconies, that bear some resemblance to theater boxes. Even if excessively pompous a little bit, the complex does look fresh and modern. One will have a hard time finding Art Deco elements in it, even though the spirit of the 1930s, run through the filter of neo-modernism, is still clearly felt, just as a twist of the Occident.