Perrault's tale

The Mariinsky Theater will still have a second stage

Full-scale construction work on the second stage of the Mariinsky Theater can finally begin. The experts announced that all comments had been eliminated. And there were about three hundred of them, and mostly they were of a fundamental nature, since they concerned the stability, safety of the future building and the possibility of its operation in northern climatic conditions. It was these comments that became the reason for the negative conclusion of the Main State Expertise received at the end of last year and, as a result, the termination of the contract for performing the functions of a general designer between the customer FGU North-Western Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration and LLC Dominique Perrault Architectural Bureau.

Over the four months that have passed since the negative conclusion, specialists from the customer and the new general designer (ZAO NPO Georekonstruktsiya - Fundammentproekt) have finalized the project of the chief architect of the second stage of the Mariinsky Theater, Dominique Perrault, brought it into compliance with Russian building codes and removed the comments of state experts. Architectural and planning solutions were retained during the revision process. The main comments of the experts, including inconsistency between the designs of the dome and the reinforced concrete frame, insufficiently accurate calculation of the snow load on the building, and gaps in the complex of fire safety measures, were eliminated with the minimum possible changes to the design.

And yet, the approved project looks significantly different from the one that won the international competition in 2003. According to the “North-Western Directorate for Construction, Reconstruction and Restoration”, the changes were made by Dominique Perrault himself, who, taking into account the northern climate with its significant wind and snow loads, needed to develop more reliable, but visually heavy, massive load-bearing structures on which the "golden shell"

Since the expert opinions on the engineering preparation of the territory were received back in December 2006, the construction of the new Mariinsky Theater is already underway at the foundation pit stage. The zero-cycle work is being carried out by the contractor General Construction Corporation OJSC. By the end of summer, the state customer must decide on a general contractor - there will be one for the entire construction process, or general contractors will be selected for individual large stages of work. It is also possible to attract a foreign company to manage the construction process.

To date, the estimate of the approved project is 9.535 billion rubles, including the cost of theater equipment - 2.236 billion rubles.

All construction and installation work must be completed by the end of 2009. At the beginning of 2010, commissioning work on theatrical stage equipment should be completed. So in three years, if no new problems arise during construction, we can expect the appearance of a second full-fledged stage of the legendary theater.

Gleb MYSHKIN