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From: "Architexturez." <admin-in@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:27:20 +0530
| neat article, discourse befitting an
| emerging or newly developing city...
| is russia now officially in the third world?
Building Moscow’s Future
By Paul Abelsky
Russia Profile
Architectural Preservation at Odds With Development
Few subjects of public debate cause as much hand-wringing and righteous
indignation as the issue of architectural preservation. Moscow today
faces the intractable problem of safeguarding its architectural past in
the midst of an unprecedented construction boom, when evolving tastes,
profit-driven projects and the insatiable demand for space are often at
odds with the measured approach required for an effective and
far-sighted preservationist policy.
....
A high-profile international conference called “Heritage at Risk”
convened in Moscow at the end of April to outline strategies for
preserving 20th-century architectural monuments at a time when the
situation in Russia is reaching crisis proportions. ....
The conference was largely preoccupied with countering the notion that
the general public is lukewarm toward the avant-garde projects of the
early Soviet period. Experimental in spirit and devoid of ornate
detailing, these buildings privileged the functional elements of design,
defying the surroundings and repudiating what were judged to be outmoded
architectural concepts. Constructivism, the movement that arose in the
early 1920s and thrived until the ideological reversals of the Stalin
era, is often considered to be Russia’s most lasting contribution to
world architecture. Around 300 buildings went up in Moscow alone between
1925 and 1932, and as many as two thirds survive today. Only a few of
these structures have the status of protected monuments, however. Even
the iconic designs often languish in neglect and obscurity, subject to
arbitrary conversions and ill-conceived repairs.
cont'd....
http://www.russiaprofile.org/culture/2006/6/6/3822.wbp