What could Moscow become?

In the museum. Shchusev on Vozdvizhenka there is an extremely educational exhibition “Greater Moscow XX century” . It is timed to coincide with the competition for the best project “Concepts for the development of the Moscow agglomeration”, about which PublicPost has already written .

The organizers of the exhibition, which visitors flock to completely in vain, remembered architectural ideas that could greatly change the appearance of Moscow in the 20th century. None of them has been fully realized: modern Moscow is the result of a chaotic mixture of many ideas and sudden government decisions.

Here are the most unexpected projects that Moscow happily avoided or unfortunately lost in the 20th century.

1918-1923. The first reconstruction plan "New Moscow" I.V. Zholtovsky and A.V. Shchusev.

Under the leadership of the inventor of the “great Stalinist style” Zholtovsky: the city is cut through by green wedges and surrounded by a ring of green spaces. The center is unloading at the expense of satellite cities and garden villages in the suburban area. Next to the Kremlin, another administrative center is being built between the Moskva River and Varvarka.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

Under the leadership of Shchusev (Kazansky Station - Mausoleum - Lubyanka): the administrative center is moved further to the Leningradskoe Highway. A single central station is being built on Kalanchevskaya Square to replace five of the eight Moscow stations. The bypass canal is filled in and turned into a public garden. As a result, the city expands to the second Ring Road, which passes through Tomilino, Pushkino and Odintsovo.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

Shchusev personally designed and decorated the title page of the project with initial letters.

1921-1925. Reconstruction plan "Greater Moscow" by urban planner S.S. Shestakova

Rings of satellite cities are being built around the capital. The first is at a distance of 40-80 km, the second – 90-120 km. The cities closest to Moscow are being reconstructed (Dmitrov, Sergiev Posad, Zvenigorod, Bronnitsy, Podolsk, Bogorodsk, Klin, Volokolamsk, etc.) and garden cities are being established. 3.5 million people live in them, and transport infrastructure is developing around them.

1922 Garden city in Ostankino - project of VKHUTEMAS graduate G.P. Goltz , better known as a theater artist.

A city-wide transport highway approaches the garden city, and there is a transport hub on it. The center of Moscow is located at a distance, but within walking distance, surrounded by a green park belt on one side and cottage-type houses on the other.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

This plan by Goltz almost completely repeats the scheme of Letchworth - the first garden city in England, built

in a London suburb in the 1910s.

1932 "Parabola" - a competition project for the reconstruction of Moscow by the chief urbanist N.A. Ladovsky.

The city's development pattern is a parabola, where the center expands along the main axis, and residential, industrial and green zones sequentially surround it. The rings of Moscow are opening to open the city from the west.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

By the way, the basis for the 2011 decision to expand the borders of Moscow was precisely Ladovsky’s “parabola”.

1935 Plan for the Stalinist reconstruction of Moscow, created by Russian competitors of Le Corbusier V.N. Semenov and S.E. Chernyshev.

A whole system of new streets and a park ring is being created connecting Ostankino, Sokolniki, Izmailovo, Leninskie Gory, Luzhniki, Krasnopresnensky Park, Petrovsky and Timiryazevsky parks. The Volga-Moscow canal is being built to water the city. The embankments of the Moscow River are turning into the main thoroughfare of the city. All squares and streets are covered with asphalt.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

The park ring did not work out, but by 1935 the borders of Moscow had expanded significantly: in 1931, neither Izmailovo, nor Perovo, nor Tekstilshchiki belonged to the city.

1935 Reconstruction plan of the Central Park of Culture and Culture named after. Gorky.

The boundaries of the park reach the spit of the Moscow River on one side and the ring railway on the other, capturing the Luzhnetskaya floodplain on the bank of the river opposite the park. In the floodplain there is a huge pool of 75 hectares. This is a whole park on the water with pavilions, an amphitheater, bridges over the river. The coastal strip on the right side of the river turns into stands and gatherings (opposite the central parterre) and a green embankment with cascades of waterfalls, systems of pools and fountains (opposite Neskuchny Garden).

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

At the entrance to the park, a composition of a fountain system was conceived, in the middle of the main one the same girl with an oar should have stood. Kapkov would be jealous.

Post-war architecture

In 1947 (on the day of the 800th anniversary of the capital), all eight Moscow high-rise buildings were laid.

But after 1955 (then the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR “On the elimination of excesses in design and construction” was adopted), architects begin to design according to the requirements of standardization and typification.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

5 buildings connected by a two-story service block - the project of the "Residential complex of a new life for 1500 people" by Nathan Osterman. Several similar projects were nevertheless implemented. For example, DAS (House of Graduate Students and Interns) on Shvernik Street was planned as housing for low-income families, but became one of the worst dormitories at Moscow State University.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

But what could appear on the site of GUM is the design of the NARKOMTYAZHPROM building by architect Leonidov (1934). There were many projects “symbol of the new industrial era”. Golts, Shchusev, and even Alabyan himself took part in the competition.

Photo: Mila Dubrovina/Publi cPost

And this is a watercolor sketch of the Paveletskaya metro station: a lot of light, a mirrored floor, ladies in hats arm in arm with their gentlemen. Go to Paveletskaya and find 10 differences.