Project Baltia magazine n37 brick

the passenger terminal building,
erected in 1861 to a design
by the French architect Pirelli.
Destroyed during the war,
the station building was reconstructed
in 1950 to plans
by Petr Astashin (Leningrad
branch of the USSR Institute
of Transport Planning) and later
restored by the well-known
Lithuanian architects Romualdas
Šilinskas (1965) and Vytautas
Čekanauskas (2003).
Liutauras Nekrošius
6
Russia
The conservative option
At the beginning of 2022
we discovered that instead
of realization of the
plan to create a new park,
Tuchkov Buyan Park, construction
of the Supreme
Court complex had resumed
on what used to
be Vatny Island in St Petersburg.
The authorities’ decision met
with fierce criticism from the
public. Despite civil servants’
protestations that the project
will involve the creation of a
green recreational zone as well
as court buildings on the banks
of the Malaya Neva, citizens
were annoyed by the abrupt rejection
of the idea of a large
public space in the centre of St
Petersburg.
The reasons for Petersburgers’
dissatisfaction are clear:
first, the park was a kind of
present to the city in the run
up the elections; second, its
functional programme was
based on numerous surveys
of public opinion. A serious international
competition had
been held, won by Studiya 44,
together with the Dutch landscape
designers West 8 (see:
Project Baltia, 2021, no. 36,
pp. 207-214). Unsurprisingly,
when a decision is taken behind
the scenes without consideration
for the opinions of
local inhabitants, they take a
dim view.
u Zaha Hadid
Architects. Competition
proposal for
reconstruction of the
railway station in
Vilnius. 1 st prize
v Coop Himmelb(l)au.
Competition proposal
for SKA Arena on the
site of the SKK in
St Petersburg. 1 st prize
Yet if we put aside these political
and ethical considerations
and look at this new plan
for urban development of Vatny
Island from a purely professional
point of view and on
its merits, then a more important
and positive circumstance
comes to light.
This is that the city of St Petersburg
has refused to indulge
the public’s desire for the creation
of a landscape attraction
with hills and glass cubes (a local
Zaryadie Park) right in the
middle of St Petersburg’s main
architectural ensemble.
We should remember that
in previous eras St Petersburg
likewise rejected such exotic
projects. A century ago, for instance,
it turned down plans
to build a gigantic stadium on
Vatny Island in the Russian
Revival style and a cyclopic
project for an Art Nouveau
concert hall on reclaimed land
at the tip of the island. So,
there is nothing new in the
city choosing the conservative
option.
Danil Ovcharenko
7
Russia
Deconstructing Leningrad
This summer brought the
results of an architecture
competition to design an
ice arena to replace the
demolished SKK sports
and concert complex, a
recognized masterpiece
of Soviet engineering.
More than 18 months passed
from the moment when the Petersburgsky
Sports and Concert
Complex (formerly, the
V.I. Lenin Sports and Concert
Complex) ‘unexpectedly’ collapsed
– one day before it was
due to be classified as an architectural
monument (architects:
Nikolay Baranov et al.,
1980; demolished in 2020).
On the site of the destroyed
icon of Leningrad Modernism
a new ice arena is being
built at high speed. Construction
work began, locals point
out, long before the results of
the international competition
were announced. The image of
the ice arena evolved from a
‘bandaged tin’ (in the original
sketch by masterskaya Litvinova)
to the aerodynamic deconstructivism
of the project by
Coop Himmelb(l)au (the winner
of the competition), which
was inspired, say the Austrian
architects, by the art of the
Soviet Avant-garde. Concepts
were also submitted by three
other firms of architects: Asymptote
Architecture from the
USA (sources of inspiration:
‘Higgs boson… and the work of
Naum Gabo, one of the leaders
of the global Avant-garde), the
Finnish architects M.A.R.K. Architect
Seppo Mantyla (whose
concept references Yury Gagarin’s
flight into space and is
tectonically close to the look
of the lost building), and Zemtsov,
Kondiayn, and Partners
(‘the image of the starry sky
and the Milky Way’).
The structure and overall
layout of the arena in the winning
project refer to ‘Tatlin’s
Tower’, the dynamics of whose
structures may be compared
with the movement of a man
skating through a stadium. The
Austrian architects also designed
a park with mixed-use
areas for all-year-round use;
the structure of the paths was
inspired by a graphic composition
by El Lissitzky. Despite
the image’s expressionism, the
new design for SKA Arena has
a whiff of formalism about it:
we detect a striving to surprise
regardless of irrationality of
structure, technical complexity,
and expense (the estimate for
construction costs has already
ballooned by 12 billion euros).
The architecture of the original
SKK arena was, by contrast, notable
for its economy and rationality
and use of innovation
to reduce expenditure and simplify
construction.
The simple form, tranquil
lines, austere rhythm, and
symmetry of the lost SKK
building reminded people of
the Apollonian principles present
in the rationalized ordering
of life under socialism with
its planned economy, a system
which subordinated everything
to a single intention.
The competition project selected
by the client and the
jury reveal an image which is
the exact opposite of the latter:
based on Dionysian principles,
it symbolizes the
dynamic equilibrium and controlled
chaos of the market
economy. Like the Soviet Union
during its last years, the
old SKK building fell into disrepair,
began to be used for
purposes other than that originally
intended, and was eventually
knocked down. It took
with it the life of a young welder,
a sacral victim of the grasping
god of the market. The new
project is inevitably becoming
a symbol of everything that
killed off the USSR, even if its
authors set out to laud in architecture
the creative energy
that fuelled the creation of the
Land of the Soviets.
Evgeny Lobanov
8
Latvia
Architecture, death, and
nature
The beginning of 2022
brought the announcement
of the results of the
‘Columbarium: Chamber
of Memories’ competition,
organized by Bee Breeders
Competitions in Riga.
u Coop Himmelb(l)
au. The SKA Arena
proposal and the
authors’ source of
inspiration: Vladimir
Tatlin’s Tower (Monument
to the Third
International)
t The SKK (sports
and concert complex
in St Petersburg).
Architects: I. Chayko,
N. Baranov, F. Yakovlev;
engineers:
L. Yakhontov,
E. Poltoratsky (1980;
demolished in 2020)
u Coop Himmelb(l)
au. Sketch for the
SKA Arena project
The theme of death has worried
mankind over the entire
course of its history and is reflected
in the architecture of
different people and cultures.
Today, when European civilization
is undergoing an unmistakable
spiritual crisis, modern
architects’ quests in the field
of burial structures are of particular
interest. Participants in
the competition were required
to submit plans for a 500-niche
columbarium and a complex
landscape design for a ‘Forest
Cemetery’. The competition
was backed by Riga’s parliament,
which expressed an interest
in realizing one of the
winning projects.
First place and the ‘client’s
favourite’ prize went to Christopher
Taylor, an architect
from South Africa, for his project
Halo. Taylor’s idea was for
a circular burial chamber sunken
into the cool underground
and situated in the middle of a
pond. Its roof will be planted
with flowers which will bloom
at different times, creating a
constantly changing crown of
blossoms and scents linked to
the changing seasons.
The second prize was won
by Mengru Wang and Raphoto:
Yuri Palmin
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