What will be the new INION building?

On August 5, 2016, the Schusev architectural museum was presented with the sketch projects of the new Wion RAS building. The event came out in its own way funny, but stupid in the same extent: everything seems to be done for us, and we, instead of rejoice, make some complaints.

The problem is that the Fano has already been solved by the issue of our new building on the principle of "for the people, but without a people." Suffice it to say that we learned about the signing of the state contract for design by chance in mid -July (“we” is the whole institute, including the leadership). This state contract was signed on July 1, the tender was held in late June - just on those days when we once again changed the acting Director. The tender “Gipron” “won” is the one that “won” and the previous tender in the spring, only at that time the competition was recognized as failed due to violations during its conduct. It must be assumed that in July there were no violations.

The technical assignment for a new building was compiled without the participation of INION specialists and, obviously, under the auspices of Fano, who is primarily preoccupied with the most “effective” use of “gold” meters on the trade union. The result was appropriate. The area of ​​the book storage, for example, is proposed to reduce three times compared to how it was before the fire (in Fano, obviously, it is believed that since there are computers, it means that books are no longer needed).

From our point of view, such a decision is categorically unacceptable, we barely placed in the former storage; The fire did not so much remove this problem as it pushed back its solution to a later date. The question of building an additional storage in another place, apparently, was not even considered. So far, we were only offered to use the former warehouses of Akadsnaba on Kantemirovskaya Street for storing books, which are completely unsuitable for this.

But in terms of reference, the equipment of the Data Center, television studios for the production of popular science films, the Museum of the Scientific Book, etc. are provided. What for the data is supposed to be stored in the Date Center is incomprehensible. It seems that digitized books are meant, although in reality the digitization of books is work for decades, not to mention the inevitably accompanying legal problems.

We expressed our comments on all this to the representatives of Fano back in May, they promised to take them into account and, as it is now clear, really took into account, but in a very peculiar way: we conducted a second tender quietly and actually secretly from us. At the same time, in the new text of the technical assignment, all our requirements safely ignored.

At the presentation on August 5, one could see the results of this approach. In total, 14 projects were submitted, of which seven were prepared directly in the Giprone; The organizers referred to some rule by which the general designer should present as many options for architectural solutions as they will also come from independent participants (competition). Moreover, it was evident that the work options of all seven are no more than two. The rest were simply not worked out in detail, it seems that they were made exclusively for an even account.

It is also possible with a high degree of probability to assume which of the two “workers” options will be pushed in the future, since a picture was used at its stand and in the presentation, which we were shown for a completely different reason back in January. From the same, by the way, it follows that Giprocon was actually engaged in our building in the winter, a few months before the first tender, when even the terms of reference did not officially exist.

In terms of quality, all seven Gipronov projects are equally weak. It can be seen that the authors relied mainly on the terms of reference (obviously inadequate) and some general standards, despite the fact that they themselves are very remotely imagined how the scientific institution of the socio-humanitarian profile works, especially as specific as INION, combining the library and scientific analytical units.

As a result, no matter how hard they tried, at the exit, a purely speculative solution is still obtained, which is absolutely not consistent with our needs: the bookstore is small, but there is an underground parking lot, a mysterious “point of receiving books” (in size comparable to the repository), “public zones” to perform “public function” (in which it consists is unknown) and recreation with the ottomon (each of the seven) causes associations with a shopping and entertainment center, and not with a scientific library. The word “laboratories” constantly sounded, that is, a scientific institution for designers-this is something completely abstract and is associated more with the natural sciences.

Of the other seven projects, three are more similar to student work; In the meaningful plan, unfortunately, they are not much better than the Gipro. There are only four more or less interesting projects. Alexander Kozhevnikov proposed to restore the building of Ya. B. Belopolsky as close as possible to the original, but according to modern technology and with partial redevelopment of the interior. Its development retains the previous size of the book depository; Moreover, it is proposed to equip another compartment of the book depository in the basement and add several underground floors under the yard, also mainly for the book depository.

Another interesting project came from Gipronia of the Russian Academy of Sciences and, characteristic, was not even officially nominated for the competition, since it was fundamentally contradicting the terms of reference: the authors proposed
In about three times, increase the size of the building. Two projects were presented by Azamat Takhtarov from the Moscow State Construction University.

Regarding which of these developments is better, the opinions of colleagues were divided. The Kozhevnikov project is interesting (although it needs to be finalized) and, of course, impresses those who would like to see the INION building restored in their former form. The presence of a full -fledged book storage is also attracted. But the project is designed to use the old foundation and the preservation of the southern wing of the building not affected by the fire, which raises great doubts. The waterproofing of the foundation is currently definitely violated: when the firefighters, having completed the extinguishing, began to pump out water from the basement to the former pool, she very quickly leaked from there back to the basement. So the building, very likely, will have to be disassembled entirely and dig a new foundation pit, regardless of which of the projects will eventually be approved.

The idea of ​​placing an additional underground book depository next to the reconstructed building is doubtful and proposed by Kozhevnikov. The current building is in the lowland, and the “old -timers” of the institute still remember the time when there was a pond in its place. The underground book depository in such a situation may be by no means as successful as it seems at first glance.

The Giproni RAS project is attractive primarily by the size of the book depository (22 thousand square meters, almost twice as much as it was before the fire) and the fact that the copyright to it is proposed to transfer INION. Otherwise, it, however, is quite raw, from an aesthetic point of view, the proposed decision is in doubt, and it is not clear what to do with the additional premises that we will receive (and who else will “hook” the fano there).

The development of A. Takhtarov is interesting from an aesthetic point of view; In addition, one of its two projects provides for two options and two stages of construction, it may also be useful. It can be seen that the authors really tried to focus on the future functional purpose of the building. But the internal layout was not worked out for them (possibly just for lack of time), and meanwhile, it is she who is the main criterion for evaluating the project in this case. It is also not clear to which the designers took into account the terrain of the area on which the construction has to be carried out. I suspect that any of the two projects can be adjusted without much difficulty. But at the moment, both of them, of course, require serious improvement.

Here we are approaching the most important problem: all of the above inexorably indicates that an adequate project of a new building and even an adequate terms of development cannot be prepared if this does not precede a serious discussion of which exactly
The building requires INION in today's situation. Moreover, this discussion should not take place somewhere in the bowels of the economic units of Fano, but directly at the institute, since only our experts, primarily librarians and bibliographers, know all the details of our “production process”.

Agreeing on a more or less acceptable concept of a new building is not as easy as it might seem at first glance; The size of the book depository is only the most obvious of issues that arise while. Another dilemma requiring a fundamental solution: to preserve or not save the Belopolsky building. The Union of Moscow Architects and many of our colleagues has the exact reconstruction seems preferable, especially since the old building has long been perceived as a unique architectural monument of the Soviet era, and as a kind of “trademark” of INION. But many others (including me) are indifferent to architecture of glass and concrete. Does the style of the 1960s correspond to the library of the XXI century? And how important it is to preserve the original building if, according to the memoirs of the employees who worked in it in the 1980s, on the third floor it was already hot in the summer and cold in winter, although the climate control did not manage to fail?

Another question is the organization of the working space for employees of the institute and readers. Many of the designers were guided by the concept of placing the maximum possible number of literature in the public domain, but in the library community, in recent years, it is disputed not without reason.

Should the system of specialized reading rooms be restored, or is it better to limit yourself to one general? How should the computer infrastructure of the institute (Internet access, common printers and scanners, VPN access for working with the institute network from the house, the library infrastructure)? What areas are required for the placement of servers, book scanners to digitize literature, for printing houses, and service premises of the library? Where will the catalogs be placed (before the fire they occupied a rather impressive area, but meanwhile this issue is not even mentioned in any of the projects presented to us on August 5)? The questions are not idle, but the officials from Fano, who wrote the current technical assignment to the new building, did not even try to answer them and even more so to seek help from the institute’s staff. Unfortunately, it is necessary to state that they are not going to do this. The results of the architectural competition will be summed up on August 16. But, judging by the active position of the Union of Moscow architects, they are unlikely to be final.

P.​ S.​ The final decision of the jury of August 16 was the first place awarded to project No. 1602 of the Giprocon company (which, as mentioned above, is quite predictable), as well as to project No. 1606 of Alexander Kozhevnikov. It was decided not to award the second place, and the third received project No. 1605 Azamat Takhtarov. Visitors to the exhibition of competitive work, held from August 10 to 16, decided differently: according to the results of their vote, the Takhtarov project received first place, the Kozhevnikov project - the second, project 1602 - only the fifth.

The results of the competition, is reported, are not final, there is a consideration in the Moskomarchitecture, for which three “prize” projects will be issued, as well as the development of Yu. Mironova (1601) and three more projects prepared by Gipron.