The new Moscow: clean n mean

All summer I saw photographs on the internet, as I’m sure you did - of people telling horror stories about ‘Moya Ulitsa’ / ‘My Street’ - a Moscow City project to improve the cityscape. Until last month, Moscow was at a standstill as streets were closed to allow reconstruction including pavement widening, new paving stones, lampposts, traffic lights and planters. The results are radical - dramatically altering the experience of being in Moscow. On the one hand it is an incredible achievement, allowing the architecture of the city to breathe again, and to be enjoyed by pedestrians – on the other, it reveals Moscow to be a primarily Stalinist-era city, a fact that had been hitherto softened by urban chaos. 

Tverskaya Street, looking towards Red Square

Within Moscow, opinions are divided, partly because the city lost the love of its citizens over the course of several months of hot and sticky traffic jams due to the street work. 

To a Londoner’s eye, it is incredible and a little frightening to witness the results of these centralised decisions.  Where is the chaotic, organic, ecology of the city? Where is the teeming street life – the expressions of commerce: adverts, neon, kiosks? How is it possible to simply make them disappear? A whopping 1.4% of the city’s total annual budget was used to pay for the work, evident in the high quality of stone used for paving. It is said that all the quarries of Russia were emptied by the work, causing delays. This kind of fact harks back to the time of Peter the Great, who exhausted ready supplies of stone in Russia while building St Petersburg.

Widened pavements on the Garden Ring, the American Embassy in the distance and the Shalyapin Museum in the foreground

A friend drove me from the airport and decided to show me the centre. I’d been away for two years - my eyes were on stalks. The pavements of Tverskaya Street had been widened - but more extraordinarily there was a set of arches at every main axis, that had been lifted straight from a Stalin-era book on architectural design. They were cheerfully painted like something from a 1940s fairground, framing whatever happened to be behind them - Pushkin, Tverskoi Boulevard, the entrance to Red Square, and most absurdly, Karl Marx. 

Karl Marx in the frame

Pushkin Square

Maroseika and Pokrovka were dotted with peculiar iron poles, curved into long ’S’s and topped with hanging baskets like wreaths that light up at night. Why? What were these for? Why clear the city of kiosks and widen the pavements, only to replace them with decorations? The Novy Arbat was crowded with benches 20 metres long, and there were swings too – on Triumfalnaya Square, designed for adults and children. In addition there were letters spelling out MOSCOW. These additions were added by the City government after the main street work was completed – a nostalgic throwback to Soviet and pre Soviet street decorations and an irresistible urge for Moscow to proclaim its own greatness.

The strange S's on Pokrovka

Moscow! Moscow! 

Most striking are the new vistas: Moscow’s main streets and main dominants were constructed in neo-classical style in the Stalin era. Until now, it was possible to balance that out in one’s mind with other, older streets, for example the area that escaped mostly unscathed around Ostozhenka and Prechistenka. This balance is now tipped towards the imposing grandiosity of the majority of the main streets, that are Stalin-era. For the first time, I left Moscow disliking this architectural period. The buildings were designed to impose, to intimidate; the ‘seven sisters’ were intended to make the average soviet citizen feel small: this was softened and leavened by the human chaos at street level. That has now been removed.  Much of the centre of Moscow now looks like an architects’ drawing: restrained and containing a vision of an ideal, orderly world. Town planning decisions of this kind can only be made in a centralised power structure like Russia’s. 

On the other hand, the buildings on the re-profiled streets look magnificent. The pavements are broader and it is more pleasant for pedestrians. I am aware that I was seeing it before the trees were introduced: now 30 year old trees are being planted all around the Garden Ring, bringing it in line with its name once more (it was widened under Stalin and the trees were cut down).  This will soften the formalising effects of Moya Ulitsa. 

Since I wrote this, trees have been planted - for example here on Tverskaya Street

A trip on the metro revealed that all the advertising had been removed. A well-coordinated graphic design campaign has led to an elegant reconfiguration of the Moscow metro map by Artemy Lebedev’s studio and other graphics including long lists of rules/Правила использования. ‘Навели порядок’ – ‘Order has been imposed’ – is what I kept thinking to myself. This is a mantra for Russia today, with its increased militarisation. There is a feeling that more aspects of people’s lives are being controlled and manipulated: in Moscow today this is embodied in the newly designed cityscape, and in the metros, cleared of adverts but full of rules. 

Ad-free metro

Bicycle lanes and widened pavements on Bolshaya Nikitskaya

‘Moya ulitsa’ has democratic roots and aspirations: it was conceived as a civic project in which ordinary citizens could take part by expressing their wishes for Moscow, their likes and dislikes. The emphasis has switched away from the car-user to the pedestrian, cyclist and scooter-user, now supplied with bicycle lanes on many central thoroughfares. One of the reasons that pavements have been widened is to reduce road space for cars in order to solve the city’s chronic traffic problems by discouraging people from driving. This is a radical decision that few cities dare to make, in thrall as they are to road users. 

There was a street-art biennale in the Manezh during my visit to Moscow that also reflected the current trend. The untrammelled spirit of illegal street art had been contained and sanitised by being removed from the street. The work, although much of it visually arresting, had lost its power out of context. 

work by Lena Shubentseva at the Moscow Street Art Biennale in the Manezh, Sept 2016

In short, while impressed by these changes to Moscow, I’m not so keen on the Moscow that it has revealed. Was I living in a fantasy before? I think not - it could be argued that this controlled cityscape is more of a fantasy city than ever but one of little joy, despite the gaudy arches and street swings. 

[ An original version of this appeared in Russian as a blog on the BBC Russia website here. ]

Narkomfin - the future of the house from the future

Narkomfin was one of the buildings that called out to me and enthused me to campaign for buildings in Moscow -  little did I know when I first beheld it that it is the true child of international modernism: it was created by Russians (Soviets), modelled on Le Corbusier's ideas with original interior colour schemes from Bauhaus. I was walking home from work at The Times office on Kutuzovsky Prospekt one autumn evening in 2003 when I came upon what I thought was a ruined fragment of a once large complex. There were a couple of skips and building cabins in front of the building and I assumed it was mid-demolition. Despite the large chunks of plaster that had fallen from the facade, I was transfixed by its proportions: my eye was carried along by the straight lines of ribbon windows - I fell in love. 

view of the communal block from the main block

What I was beholding was the first building to be constructed according to Le Corbusier’s five rules of architecture, by another architect. It was constructed between 1928 and 1930 as semi-communal housing for the workers of the Soviet Union’s first Commissariat of Finances. It was commissioned by the then Commissar of Finance, Nikolai Milyutin, a trained town planner with radical and experimental ideas. To realise his ideas he turned to leading Constructivist architect Moisei Ginzburg with the project, who worked with young architect Ignati Milinis and structural engineer Sergei Prokhorov. In line with Le Corbusier's five rules, the building stands on pilotis, has a free internal plan unconstrained by load-bearing walls, a free facade that does not necessarily reflect the internal functions or layout, ribbon windows stretching across the entire facade, and a flat roof terrace that provides a garden for the building’s inhabitants. Concrete bricks were made on site and traditional materials were used in experimental ways.

archival pictures of the building shortly after completion

the rear facade showing Le Corb's principles: first floor raised on pilotis, free plan facade, flat roof, ribbon windows, free internal plan

Narkomfin today

I wasn’t entirely wrong about witnessing an incomplete complex - it was originally to have had two more buildings, including a kindergarten and a further building to add to the communal block and laundry. 

However, the building fell out of favour before these plans could be implemented. In 1932 socialist realism was declared in all the arts including architecture: constructivism and other buildings of the avant garde period were subsumed into a rapidly stalinised city, not least by the gigantic residential 'seven sister' beside Narkomfin. Once new dominants in a new socialist city, the monuments of constructivism became all but invisible, and the ideas behind them forgotten. 

The reason that the facade of Narkomfin looks so appalling, it transpires due to fresh research, is that the bedding troughs on the facade, intended to hold plant pots, were filled in with earth and their drainage holes blocked up. This led, obviously, to damp being held in the facades - thus large chunks of render have fallen off the facade, giving the building an air of ruination that doesn't reflect its actual condition. This amplified negative perceptions of the building creating a spiral of neglect. In fact, repeated surveys have shown that it is structurally sound. 

In addition, within a generation of the building being completed, the ground floor, originally free standing pilotis, was filled in, to create more space.

Despite this, the original integrity of the building’s design shines through - thus its ability to hypnotise me on my way home from work that evening in 2003. At that time, it was not, as I imagined, being demolished, but was being used as a building site for the construction of the next door marble-clad, high-kitsch Luzhkov-era shopping centre, Novinsky Passage.

As The Moscow Times recently reported, it has just been taken on by a new group of owners, following several years ownership by Alexander Senatorov, a property developer and yogi. Senatorov bought the property in 2006 and slowly bought up the private flats. He introduced a new generation to the building of yogis and hipsters. The building began to live again. Parties were held on the roof, yoga was practiced everywhere. It could be argued that this was good for the building, as a new generation got to know it and positive associations replaced the old negative ones. However, this new burst of life was not accompanied by thoughtful conservation. On the contrary, high levels of ‘evro-remont’ that took place - ie wooden windows were replaced with plastic ones, albeit made to measure, original doors, windows and other details were simply thrown out, as were original building materials; the original radiators were stolen. In addition a purple cord carpet was laid in the corridors, transforming it into an interior of a dull office block to be found anywhere in the world. 

evidence of yogis

inappropriate carpeting. NB the black and white doors to the left, leading in turn, up or down into the apartments that are set over 2 levels

I met with the representative of the new group of owners , Liga Prava when I was in Moscow last week, Garegin Barsumyan. In conversation he agreed with me that restoring and retaining texture - faktura - is the most important thing and it is essential for it not to be (further) eroded. This was hopeful. I was concerned, however, that he said that they intend to replace all the wooden windows with plastic ones, as a temporary measure. There is nothing as infinite as the temporary, as they say, so I say no, this is not a rigorous approach nor is it best for the building. The rooms and apartments are small: if the wooden windows are done properly it will be possible to retain heat efficiently. 

evro remont: plastic flooring and skirting

evro remont bathroom

evro remont windows and light fitting: all this should be replaced during the restoration process

an apartment pre 'restoration'/ 'remont' photograph by Richard Pare

The project is to be a commercial one - flats - for sale. This is fantastic news and would remove the building from the danger of a single capricious owner, even if this leads to people making their own changes to their own flats. There can be a covenant in the deeds for each apartment, preventing people from changing essential elements such as windows and doors, or making changes to fittings, as there is in the Grade 2* Listed Barbican Estate in London, whose inhabitants are passionately proud of the integrity of each flat individually, and the ensemble.

looking out from the communal block. It is hoped that these glazing bars can be saved. 

the roof of the communal block: this block has been acquired from the City Government. The new owners plan to remove the top floor, which was a later addition, to reveal the original pure cube of the block. 

Happily, architect Alexei Ginzburg, grandson of the original architect Moisei Ginzburg, is back in the frame. He has been invited to oversee the restoration. I have never seen him so cheerful and hopeful about the future of Narkomfin in the 12 years I have known him. He is confident that wooden windows will be installed, and original details such as doors, door handles, flooring and light fixtures can be copied and made. The ground floor is going to be cleared away to allow the building to stand once again on pilotis. 

Another good piece of news is that the communal block, originally the refectory, has been acquired from the City Authorities by the new owners, something that had previously proved impossible. The top floor extension is to be removed revealing the original cube; the roof will be mended. The glazing bars (metal) appear to be in good condition so hopefully can simply be cleaned and repainted. In the spirit of its original use the block will contain a restaurant. However, there is a lot of work to be done: Liga Prava still has to buy 4 of the apartments that remain in private hands and the restoration project has to be carefully devised and implemented.

Penthouse and roof terrace pre 'remont'. Photograph by Yuri Palmin. 

post 'remont'

post 'remont'

Two essential elements will make this an outstanding restoration project: the restoration and, where needed, reconstruction of original elements throughout, and secondly the creation of museum-flat that is open to the public. The Isokon Building on Lawn Road in Hampstead, London have successfully provided public access by creating a gallery and shop in the garages. There is a permanent exhibition dedicated to the history of the building and its restoration, and a rotating design-related exhibition. 

Narkomfin needs something slightly different - a Type K apartment fully equipped as it would have been when the building was first completed. It will keep the wonder of the building alive and safeguard it for generations to come. 

This is the most hopeful moment in all the years of campaigning for this building, and eyes are being kept on it by The Constructivist Project, Docomomo Russia and the Avant Garde Centre. 

interior of communal black: curious corinthian capital: evidence of socialist realism in constructivist building, almost certainly added later