A new body responsible for the appearance of the capital has been created

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin yesterday held the first meeting of the Council on Public Spaces, a new structure of officials, architects and urban experts that will now determine the appearance of Moscow. The council has already proposed turning the Krymskaya embankment into a landscape park with artificial ponds, installing toilets with a glass atrium on the Boulevard Ring, and planting the boulevards with tall grass.

The Council on Public Spaces under the Moscow Government includes 29 people. The number of officials on the council (it included the city’s chief architect Sergei Kuznetsov and vice-mayors for housing and communal services and transport Pyotr Biryukov and Maxim Liksutov) is approximately equal to the number of architects, artists and urban experts. The council was headed by Sergei Sobyanin, and the head of the city department of culture, Sergei Kapkov, was appointed curator. As Mr. Sobyanin explained, Moscow is undergoing “the largest reconstruction in history” and the new structure will have to deal with the appearance of all public spaces - courtyards, streets, squares, parks. The mayor recalled that over the past two years, city parks, which were “specially protected garbage dumps” before reconstruction, have been put in order. Mr. Sobyanin made it clear why the council will supervise the department of culture. Sergei Kapkov, in turn, reported that 3.5 million people visited the parks during the New Year holidays, and 6.5 million people visited the new pedestrian zones in Stoleshnikov Lane and Kuznetsky Most. In 2013, the authorities promise to open three summer cinemas (in Fili, Sokolniki parks and the Hermitage garden), five skate parks, eight areas with children's attractions (for example, in Izmailovo and Kuzminki) and a new park on Rustaveli Street . In addition, it is planned to develop 26 walking areas with a length of 30 km, for example on Bolshaya and Malaya Nikitskaya, Mokhovaya streets and on Volkhonka. However, they are not going to block traffic on these streets.

More bold proposals were also made at the council meeting. Thus, the head of the Wowhaus bureau Oleg Shapiro proposed blocking traffic along the Crimean embankment, turning the territory near the Central House of Artists into a landscape park with artificial ponds, fountains, sun loungers, a wooden terrace and a pier with a cafeteria (removing the moored ship-restaurant "Valery Bryusov" from there). “The park can become the main recreational area of Moscow,” Mr. Shapiro promised. His colleague on the council, the chief artist of Channel One, Dmitry Likin, proposed planting the Boulevard Ring with tall grass of different varieties, placing a new type of toilets along it (with cabins united by a glass atrium) and “time machines” - red steles with two holes, looking into which a city dweller could compare the current landscape with a historical photograph precisely chosen for the location. The general director of the State Unitary Enterprise Mosproekt-2, Mikhail Posokhin, called for approval of the regulations for decorating the city with trees, “otherwise there are some panicles near the Alexander Garden.” Sergei Sobyanin approved the ideas and even instructed Mr. Kapkov to work on the project on the embankment, and Pyotr Biryukov to work on grass, toilets and “time machines.” However, the council’s initiatives may not be implemented - unlike a similar commission under the Moscow City Heritage, which, together with social activists, deals with the problems of historical development, the new structure has only an advisory status.

Nevertheless, the dean of the Higher School of Urbanism at the Higher School of Economics, Alexander Vysokovsky, said that experts “have been waiting for many years” for the creation of the council. He believes that the structure should start developing regulations for public spaces. “Different people come to parks; some need trees and lawns, others need cafes and social life. We need to work out the relationship between activity and recreation,” says the expert. According to the President of MARCHI, Alexander Kudryavtsev, the city should hold competitions for small architectural forms (benches, lanterns, toilets), which will help young specialists to realize their potential.

Alexander Voronov

Moscow is being improved by the council