The public space of Moscow, the Zaryadye City Cultural and
Educational Center, is an object in the historical district of Moscow of
the same name, created on the site of the Rossiya Hotel demolished in
2006. It is located on an area of 13 hectares between Kitaygorodsky
Passage, Varvarka Street and Moskvoretskaya embankment.
It was
built in 2014-2017 according to the project of a consortium led by the
New York architectural bureau Diller Scofidio + Renfro with landscape
architects Hargreaves Associates, also from New York, and Moscow
urbanists Citymakers, who won an international competition in 2013 to
develop a landscape architectural concept of the territory. The project
was fully funded from the city budget and, according to 2017 data, was
estimated at 22-27 billion rubles. The park was inaugurated on City Day
on September 9, 2017 with the participation of President Vladimir Putin
and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
Time magazine included Zaryadye
Park, the only facility from Russia, in the list of the best places in
the world in 2018.
In 2018, the Zaryadye complex was recognized as
the "project of the year" by the world's leading architectural
publication Archdaily in the nomination "Public Architecture".
In
March 2019, the park received the grand jury prize of the international
MIPIM Awards in Cannes.
The area got its name from the area that was located "behind the
rows" of retail shops — meaning the Lower shopping malls behind the
Moscow Kremlin, which stretched from the Moskva River to Varvarka along
Moskvoretskaya Street.
The first mention of Zaryadye dates back
to 1365, but settlements of merchant people appeared here already in the
XII century. In the XVI—XVII centuries, Zaryadye was a fairly
prestigious area that was inhabited by artisans, clerks, Russian and
foreign merchants. The layout of the area developed by the XVII century.
Under Ivan the Terrible, a Washing yard appeared on Varvarka Street in
1555, which included a complex of buildings, including an English
courtyard — currently it is a restored historical monument, since 1994
it has been a museum, a branch of the Museum of Moscow.
In the
19th century, the area was mainly built up with stone buildings, in
which ordinary people settled — craftsmen, longshoremen who worked on
the pier, merchants, clerks, innkeepers. Also, this area has become a
kind of Jewish ghetto due to the large number of Jews. In 1891-1892,
about 20 thousand Jewish families were forcibly evicted from Moscow,
Zaryadye began to decline, gradually turning into a kind of slum.
In Soviet times, the territory of Zaryadye was allocated for the
construction of the Rossiya Hotel, the largest hotel in the world at
that time. It started operating in 1967, but by the 1990s it began to
make losses and was closed. For several years, there was a plan to build
a new hotel complex on this site, until in 2012, Vladimir Putin proposed
to organize a park on this site.
A space of 13 hectares on the
site of the demolished Rossiya Hotel with a long history and the best
panoramic views has become the largest wasteland and the most expensive
piece of land in Moscow. According to Mikhail Lurie, Dean of the EUSP
Faculty of Anthropology, after the demolition of the hotel, the area
again turned into a suburb right under the walls of the Kremlin:
"Zaryadye was both a commercial and residential area, which by the
beginning of the XXI century had become almost a slum. A paradox arose —
a fragment of the periphery in the very center of Moscow. And today we
can observe it — such wastelands and eternal construction sites are more
typical for the outskirts than for the city centers."
Initially,
the Moscow authorities considered two scenarios for the development of
the territory: the construction of a parliamentary center or a business
center with a hotel. One of the initiators of the creation of the park
in Zaryadye was Andrey Grinev, CEO of the development company State
Development. On January 20, 2012, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited
the site, after which he proposed to Sergei Sobyanin to set up a park
area on the site of the wasteland. Soon, the lease rights to the land
plot in Zaryadye and the preserved stylobate part of the demolished
Rossiya Hotel were transferred to JSC GAO Moscow (private property, the
organization was liquidated on 02/20/2016), 100% of which belong to the
Moscow City Hall.
The idea of creating a park developed largely
due to a public initiative. In 2012, the public movement "Friends of
Zaryadye" was created, created by Andrei Grinev and Peter Kudryavtsev,
who actively defended the idea of creating a park. The movement held a
number of seminars and round tables, as well as organized an exhibition
and discussion platform "Moscow is a city for people" within the
framework of the III Moscow Architecture Biennale, where the future park
was discussed. On the official website of the movement it is noted: "We
studied Zaryadye together. Together we proved to the city that there
should be a park here. We put together an international consortium and
won the competition."
The Zaryadye Concert Hall, opened on September 8, 2018, is a unique architectural object. From the side of Kitaygorodsky Passage, the building is glass to its full height, while the opposite part of the facade from the Zaryadye Park seems to be built into a hill, which has become part of an open Large amphitheater for 1.6 thousand spectators. The shape of the concert hall creates perfect audibility from any location. The floor covering of the stage is made of cedar of a special breed, which provides high—quality acoustics and the necessary reverberation - the process of gradually reducing the intensity of sound with its repeated reflections. Concerts, balls, receptions can be held in the concert hall — all thanks to the transformer hall. With the help of mechanization, it is possible to transform the orchestra stalls, orchestra pit and stage. For example, the auditorium chairs rise to a height of up to 2.5 meters, and are also removed to the floor, creating a flat space. It will take only 40 minutes to complete the transformation. All the equipment in the hall is hidden behind the ceiling. If necessary, mechanisms for suspending the necessary elements are lowered from more than 200 hatches. The hall is also notable for its unique organ — it is the largest in Russia and Europe in terms of the number of registers. A total of 85 registers are rows of organ pipes of a certain diameter forming a chromatic scale. The brass organ was assembled by hand using ancient technologies and designed individually for the Large Zaryadye Concert Hall by specialists from Muhleisen (France). The sound tests were led by Yasuhisa Toyota, president of the American division of the Japanese company Nagata Acoustics. Under his leadership, the acoustic design of the best concert halls in the world took place: the Performing Arts Center named after him. Richard Fisher in New York State, Concert Hall named after Walt Disney in Los Angeles, the Mariinsky Theater Concert Hall in St. Petersburg, and others. The Zaryadye Music Hall is one of the few halls in Russia and in the world with its own recording studio.
In 2012, Moscow Architecture announced the first competition for park
ideas on the site of the Rossiya Hotel. The jury of the competition
received 118 projects, but none of them was subsequently implemented due
to the poor quality of the submitted works. The expert group of the
competition noted that for a long time no new parks were designed in the
country, so it was initially difficult for the participants to create
such a project.
Since no winning project was identified during
the first competition, a second competition for the landscape and
architectural concept of Zaryadye Park was subsequently announced. The
competition has become international, and its launch was announced on
April 19, 2013 by the chief architect of Moscow, Sergey Kuznetsov. The
organizer of the competition for the development of the concept of a
modern park with a developed infrastructure was the State Unitary
Enterprise "NI and PI of the General Plan of Moscow". The project was
supported by Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, the Moscow Building Complex, the
Committee on Architecture and Urban Planning of the City of Moscow, the
Association of Landscape Architects and the Union of Moscow Architects.
Strelka Institute of Media, Architecture and Design acted as a
consultant to the project, having developed a technical task and a
functional model of the park.
The main idea of the terms of
reference, according to Denis Leontiev, General Director of Strelka
Design Bureau, was the concept of the park as an open—air museum, "where
the city, the buildings around — the Kremlin, the Stalin high-rise on
Kotelnicheskaya Embankment, St. Basil's Cathedral - will be exhibits."
The contestants were faced with the task of creating a unique landscape,
a kind of attraction interesting to the townspeople, 70% of the park
should be occupied by greenery.
The competition was held in two
stages: from April 19 to June 17, 2013, the jury considered applications
from applicants from 27 countries, from 420 companies united in 90
consortia. Six consortia headed by the following architectural bureaus
entered the second stage of the competition (July 1 — September 27,
2013):
Diller Scofidio + Renfro (USA), 1st place in the final
stage
TVET "Reserve" (Russia), 2nd place in the final stage
MVRDV
(Netherlands), 3rd place in the final stage
Gustafson Porter (United
Kingdom)
Turenscape (China)
West 8 (Netherlands)
Each of
the six teams received a fee for the preparation of architectural and
landscape concepts in the amount of 80 thousand dollars.
The
technical task for the second stage of the competition was to develop a
project for a park with a developed infrastructure of 13 hectares and
the ability to receive up to 15 thousand visitors at a time. The
priority task of the final project was indicated as "the preservation of
the naturally and historically formed composition of the relief with a
gradual elevation difference, that is, a system of terraces." The
project should be designed for year-round operation, have a central
pier, underground parking for 500 places, take into account the
historical context and the proximity to the Philharmonic; distribute
pedestrian and traffic flows.
The winners were chosen by an
international jury consisting of 16 leading Russian and foreign experts:
Sergey Kuznetsov — Chief Architect of Moscow, First Deputy Chairman of
the Moscow Architecture Department
Alexander Kibovsky — Minister of
the Government of Moscow, Head of the Department of Cultural Heritage of
Moscow
Natalia Sergunina — Deputy Mayor of Moscow in the City
Government on Property and Land Relations
Sergey Kapkov — until 2015
— Minister of the Government of the capital, Head of the Moscow
Department of Culture
Mikhail Posokhin — CEO of SUE Mosproekt-2,
President of the National Association of Designers
Yuri Grigoryan —
Head of the Meganom Project Bureau
Anton Kulbachevsky — Minister of
the Government of Moscow, Head of the Department of Environmental
Management and Environmental Protection of the capital
Anthony Vives
y Thomas — Vice Mayor of Barcelona
Gaetan Royer — Head of the
Department of Regional Planning, Parks and Environment of the Vancouver
Metropolitan Area 2011-2013.
Ken Smith — Landscape architect, Head of
the Workshop Bureau: Ken Smith Landscape Architect
Keith Kerr is the
head of The Development Studio Ltd.
Martha Thorne is the Executive
Director of the Pritzker Prize
Martha Schwartz — Architect, Head of
the Martha Schwartz Partners Bureau
Peter Walker is a landscape
architect, Head of the PWP Landscape Architecture Bureau
Saskia
Sassen is an expert in urban sociology, professor at Columbia
University, Chairman of the jury of the Audi Urban Future Summit
Heather Diehl is a member of the Vancouver City Council, Chairman of the
Vancouver Parks Board in 2002-2003
Immediately after summing up
the results of the competition for the development of the architectural
and landscape concept of the park on November 11, 2013, the finalists'
projects were seriously criticized by public activists, architects, and
Muscovites. The main criticism is that the concept of the park
construction does not take into account the history of the site, its
archaeology, ancient street layout and preserved foundations, including
the objects of the Kitaygorodskaya Wall.
The winning project of the consortium led by the bureau Diller Scofidio + Renfro provides for the organization of space according to the principles of natural urbanism (wild urbanism), according to which the natural and urban environment coexist with each other, forming a new type of public space. Four landscape zones of Russia have been recreated in the park: tundra, steppe, forest and swamp, which descend in terraces from the upper level of the site to its lower part, from northeast to southwest, intersect and overlap each other. 752 trees and 7 thousand shrubs have been planted in the park, in total 120 species of plants are represented here.An important element of the project is that the routes are not prescribed, and visitors will be able to move around the park as they wish. An artificial microclimate has been created in different parts of the park — with the help of temperature regulation, wind control, and imitation of natural light. The park should become a zone connecting the pedestrian part of Kitay-Gorod with the territory of the Kremlin.
On November 15, 2013, the urban protection movement "Arkhnadzor"
published a statement that "the solution proposed by American designers
and approved by the Russian jury does not take into account the factors
of the historical development of Zaryadye, its role in the system of the
urban planning ensemble of the center of Moscow, visual and landscape
connections with neighboring historical districts. Such a project can be
implemented anywhere else, and the quarter near the walls of the Moscow
Kremlin requires more thoughtful and responsible approaches." At the
same time, the statement notes that Archnadzor supported the idea of
creating a park zone in Zaryadye from the very beginning, and considers
the fact of holding an international competition and a wide public and
expert discussion of the submitted projects to be positive. Archnadzor
also stated that the authors of the winning project "offer a fantastic
relief," whereas the legal regime of the Moscow Kremlin Ensemble's
security zone, approved in 1997, provides for the regeneration of not
only historical urban planning characteristics, but also historical
relief. The lower parts of 23 objects demolished in Soviet times have
been preserved underground — but even these materials were not used as
the basis for the design. Full-fledged archaeological work has never
been carried out in Zaryadye.
Archnadzor proposed the following
actions in the development of the park project:
To bring the
project in line with the legislation and regulations of the Government
of Moscow defining urban planning regimes in the territory of the Moscow
Kremlin security zone.
To provide visualization when implementing the
project of the historical foundation of the district: while in the new
park, the visitor should not forget that he is in the Moscow Zaryadye.
Prior to the start of any construction work, it is necessary to conduct
a full-fledged archaeological survey of the territory of Zaryadye in
order to preserve and, if possible, exhibit all the archaeological
heritage.
To mark the route of the former Mokrinsky Lane, which ran
parallel to the Moscow River, with landscape tools.
The initial budget of the project for 2014-2016 was estimated at 5.08
billion rubles, of which 2.77 billion were spent by the beginning of
2014. Sergey Kuznetsov, in an interview with the Echo of Moscow radio
station, voiced the "working figure" in the range from 4.5 to 9 billion
rubles. By November 2014, the estimate had increased to 12.8 billion —
an additional 7.7 billion was spent on demolishing existing buildings,
laying communications and building new facilities.
Subsequently,
the Moscow Civil Engineering Department named the amount of 13.3 billion
rubles, of which 5.9 were allocated directly for the organization of the
park, 5.4 for the construction of the Philharmonic Hall and 575 million
rubles for the improvement of the Moskvoretskaya embankment. For 2017,
the final estimate for the construction of the complex is 22-27 billion
rubles.
According to Kommersant, the main investor of the project
is the mayor's office, the general contractor is the engineering company
Mosinzhproekt JSC. In October 2014, Mosinzhproekt JSC was selected as
the management company for the construction of Zaryadye Park. Deputy
Mayor of Moscow Marat Khusnullin explained that the Moscow authorities
"deliberately refused to attract investors to this project. If you
attract investors, then they will ask for commercial space, and in this
case the idea of the park can be changed."
In addition to organizing four natural zones, the innovative project
includes the construction of the Philharmonic Hall, the largest facility
in the park. The large Philharmonic hall is designed for 1.5 thousand
seats, the small one for 400. The building will also house a recording
studio, a buffet and an outdoor terrace. Two facades of the building are
built into the hill, on the other side there is a glass wall with solar
panels. The Philharmonic Hall and the so-called "climate attraction"
zone will be covered with a glass amphitheater designed for 2.5 thousand
seats. In July 2018, the construction of the Zaryadye Moscow Concert
Hall (MKZ) was completed. In August, it became known that the MKZ will
receive eight pianos and 14 grand pianos. The total cost of the
instruments will amount to 154 million rubles.
Another
large—scale facility is a hotel complex, which will be built on the site
of the Rossiya Hotel. The chief architect of Moscow, Sergey Kuznetsov,
announced at the Moscow Urban Forum that there will be a living tree in
every room of the five-star hotel. According to him, the hotel will be
"an exhibition of special trees of different breeds that grow on the
territory of the country." According to the Daily Poster, for the
construction of the hotel, the 12th house on Varvarka Street is
additionally demolished - the last monument to the development of the
19th century Zaryadye.
According to Archnadzor, in 2015, the
Moscow authorities decided to demolish the ownership of house No. 14 on
Varvarke Street, the apartment building of Z. M. Persits (1909,
architect Nikolai Zherikhov), in order to clear a place for the
construction of a new hotel. The building had the status of a valuable
city-forming object, it preserved the rich stucco decoration of walls
and ceilings, the decoration of staircases, as well as the personal
office of the Soviet statesman Anastas Mikoyan. The pre—revolutionary
apartment buildings were destroyed by October 2016 - from Z. M.'s house.
Only a fragment of the facade wall on Varvarka Street remained. The
total area of new buildings in the eastern part of the quarter is
comparable to the area of the demolished Rossiya Hotel.
In
connection with the development of the Moscow River renovation concept,
Sergei Sobyanin decided to connect the park with the embankment and the
pier. It is planned that the roadway will be shifted away from the river
and separated by a wall, and the embankment will be divided into two
levels. In the lower part there will be cafes, shops, benches for
recreation, lawns and flower beds. A bike path is planned to be built on
the upper level. A special underground passage will lead from the park
to the embankment, where a museum with exhibits found during the
archaeological excavations of Zaryadye will open. A "floating bridge"
will be built over the promenade area of the embankment, which will
become the main observation deck of Moscow.
In April 2017, the
construction of an ice cave began in the park area. Marat Khusnullin
said that "all surfaces of the structure will be covered with frost and
ice, which will be illuminated from the inside with built-in LEDs. The
air temperature in the ice tunnels will never rise above minus five
degrees and will not fall below minus 12 degrees." The ice cave has been
open to the public since May 17, 2018. The authors of the project are
artist Alexander Ponomarev and architect Alexey Kozyr. To obtain an ice
relief with an area of 750 m2, about 70 tons of water were frozen on 14
km of curved metal pipes.
The park was officially opened on
September 9, 2017, on the City Day — the 870th anniversary of Moscow.
For the rest of the visitors, the park became available on September 11,
but on the first day of its general operation, it was raided by vandals,
unknown persons damaged the glass dome of the Philharmonic building and
the window of the media center. Over the next 3 days, the park suffered
even more damage from visitors, lawns were trampled, and rare and
ornamental plants were destroyed. Restoration work was carried out,
trampled plants were replaced with new ones. The incident forced the
park administration to introduce fifteen-minute intervals for entering
the park and place additional video cameras.
The best project in the field of public spaces
(winner of the
ArchDaily Award 2018 in the category of Public Architecture). In this
regard, Grigory Revzin noted that this is "the highest international
recognition in the history of post-Soviet architecture."
Breakthrough of the year in the field of audiovisual technologies
(selection of the professional jury of the InAVation Awards 2018 in the
Visitor Attraction category for the high-tech media complexes "Flight"
and "Time Machine")
The first in the field of digital marketing
technologies
(POPAI AWARD Digital Media category for interactive park
screens)
According to the portal Archi.ru , 30% of the park's territory is a
protected historical area. According to the organizers, the park's
project involves the disclosure of individual sections of the foundation
of the historical fortress wall along the river and the conduct of
archaeological excavations at the site of the building.
We
learned about the historical significance of Zaryadye during the
competition: This is a complex area where the new park forms only one of
many – and very rich – cultural layers. We hope to write into the
history of Zaryadye a chapter of the XXI century, equal to the past
layers in attractiveness.
Peter Kudryavtsev, urbanist, sociologist,
partner of Citymakers LL Bureau
A separate issue is the
restoration of unique historical monuments located in the park area. In
July 2015, Alexey Yemelyanov, Head of the Moscow Department of Cultural
Heritage, noted: "According to the contract, the completion of work on
all the facilities of Zaryadye, all our magnificent temples, is the
second quarter of 2016. And this year, the restorers plan to complete
the exterior work, remove the forests and will only deal with the
interior decoration."
There are nine temples on the territory of
the park, which have the status of monuments of federal importance.
Restoration work took place in the Varvara Church, in the complex of the
former Znamensky Monastery, in the museum "Old English Courtyard", the
Chambers of the Romanov Boyars (a branch of the State Historical
Museum), the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki, the temples of
Blessed Maxim and George the Victorious. The Church of the Conception of
the Righteous Anna on Moskvoretskaya Embankment, one of the oldest in
Moscow, was also restored. It was planned to return the historical
appearance to the ancient church of the Nativity of John the Baptist.
Active restoration work was carried out on Varvarka Street, as well as
on the embankment of the Moskva River.
Some representatives of
the Orthodox clergy expressed disagreement with the existing project of
the park area. The rector of the temples of the Patriarchal Compound in
Zaryadye, Archpriest Vyacheslav Shestakov, in an interview with the
online publication Orthodoxy and Peace, expressed the opinion "that the
complex of temples of the patriarchal compound should be considered and
perceived separately. We are against using temples as a park
decoration."
In early 2017, a unique artifact related to the
history of the Old English Courtyard was found on the territory of the
future park — an English medallion dated to the end of the XVI century.
Also in 2017, during the work on the creation of the park, stone axes
belonging to the bearers of the Fatyan culture were discovered. In
general, during the construction of the park, more than 15 thousand
archaeological finds were discovered, the main of which is a fragment of
the Kitaygorodsky wall of the XVI century. A museum located in an
underground space is deployed around the original fragment. In it,
visitors can get acquainted with the history of the creation and
features of this fortress structure, there you can see customs seals,
coin hoards, complexes of weapons and horse equipment, utensils and
shoes of ancient inhabitants, children's clay toys.
The nearest metro station to the park is Kitay—Gorod, one of the southern exits of the station is located almost at the northeast corner of the park. Lubyanka, Okhotny Ryad, Teatralnaya and Revolution Square stations are also within walking distance (from 5 to 10 minutes on foot). There are several public transport stops near the park and three bus routes run along the border. There is a large transport interchange hub on Slavyanskaya Square (Kitay-Gorod metro station), where more than a dozen bus routes converge. The park is a 5-minute walk from Slavyanskaya Square. Zaryadye Park has a paid single-level underground parking with an area of 20 thousand square meters for 430 cars. You can enter the parking lot from Moskvoretskaya Street, and exit it to Kitaygorodsky Passage. There is an electronic scoreboard with the number of available seats at the entrance. Exits from the parking lot lead to different parts of the park: to the northern landscape, large and small amphitheaters, Zaryadye cafe, Ice Cave and the Protected Embassy. Additionally, there are paid city parking lots on Varvarka Street and Kitaygorodsky Passage. To ensure greater transport accessibility of Zaryadye for tourists, there is a parking lot for 18 tourist buses on Moskvoretskaya Street. Private passenger vehicles are not allowed to park there.