Digest Spring 2014 £1.00 observations about attitudes towards spatial Contents design in Russia. Gorky Park and the Challenges for Park Back at the end of 2012 LDA Design was Regeneration in Moscow 1 delighted to learn that we’d won an SCRSS News 6 international competition to undertake a Soviet Memorial Trust Fund News 8 conceptual masterplan to regenerate Deciphering the Cultural Allusions in Moscow’s most famous park. Our approach, Spoken Russian 9 which won us the commission, was a simple Crisis Year in Russian Ballet 11 one: restore the surviving aspects of the Book Reviews 12 park’s historic fabric and create areas of newly designed park where, over time, the original remnants had been obliterated. Simple, but according to the Head of Kremlin Museums our approach was the Feature only one to recognise the historic significance of the place and use the words ‘heritage’ and ‘restoration’, as well as new design, in our bid. Gorky Park and the Challenges for Park Regeneration in Moscow By Sally Prothero, LDA Design Great cities have great parks. New York has Central Park, London has Hyde Park. The name Gorky Park is known across the world – it’s synonymous with Moscow – and it can tell the story of Russia’s history over the last 400 years. Its two distinct halves are the product of the two distinct time periods of its Aerial view of entrance to Gorky Park, Moscow, 2009 creation: one pre- and one post-1917 (© Gorky Park Archive) revolution. So why is this fascinating history not better known? With such potential you The southern half, the Neskuchny Gardens, would imagine it to be one of those ‘top ten originated as six private villa gardens. They places to visit’ in the guidebooks, but sadly were developed between the seventeenth this still seems a long way off, despite and nineteenth centuries by Russian nobility recent efforts and cash injections to and wealthy merchants as an outward revitalise the park. LDA Design’s experience display of taste and fashion in landscape of working on Gorky Park’s revitalisation has design. The Trubetskoys’ late seventeenth- led to further fascinating projects restoring century formal garden with clipped parterres some of Moscow’s other great parks, but sat alongside a dramatic ‘wilderness’ and this has also led to some interesting gorge created from the natural topography. 1 only new machinery, production techniques and culture from the new Soviet states, but to celebrate the nation’s new freedoms and new way of life. The architectural collection of pavilions “epitomised early forms of Soviet architecture”1, and later developed into modernism in the West. Ivan Zholtovsky’s exhibition ground was transformed into a public park in 1928 by Konstantin Melnikov. With the private estates of Neskuchny Gardens having passed into public ownership following the 1917 revolution, the two halves were united and named the Central Park of Culture and Leisure. In addition to retaining and enlarging the central pool, main axis and some of the pavilions, Melnikov’s plan was to accommodate some more ‘park-like’ features. Two Lily of the Valley walks were commissioned by the first park manager, Betty Glan, who also proposed to turn the park into a ‘mill of culture’, organising theatre, sports and other activities. Visitors were encouraged by ‘herders’, a persuasive Historical map showing the Neskuchny Gardens in form of park ranger employed to encourage Moscow, 1838–1852 (© Photo Archive of the Museum of Architecture, Moscow) people to partake in the various cultural events or healthy pursuits on offer. In 1938 it was named Gorky Park to commemorate Adjacent were the Golitsyns’ eighteenth- th century French-style garden and Count the 70 anniversary of the writer’s birth. Orlov’s English-style rococo landscape. Prokofi Demidov established his garden as one of the first botanic gardens in Russia. Importantly, the form and structure of most of these landscapes still survive, despite being totally covered by trees in the post- war years. The land to the north was marshy and contained one private estate and the Golitsyn Hospital on higher ground, but its use was mostly agricultural until the Communist state was founded. So while Neskuchny Gardens forms the southern part of Gorky Park and consists of a series of Ivan Zholtovsky's Hexahedron pavilion, built for the historic landscape designs, the northern half 1923 exhibition, as seen in 2012 (© LDA Design) reflects twentieth-century Soviet and post- Soviet design. Gorky Park’s next major transition was in the 1930s with the addition of various In 1923 this site was chosen for the first ornamental park structures. After a brief great All-Russia Agricultural and Artisanal- stint by El Lissitzky, better known for his Industrial Exhibition. This morale-boosting constructivist graphic design, AV Vlasov exhibition was planned to demonstrate not oversaw the most significant park 2 construction programme here until the management team and financial support for 1950s. This was supplemented by an revitalisation. While bringing in welcome amazing array of ‘attractions’, including the additional funding and a reversal of the famous parachute tower and first Ferris decline in several historic buildings, this has wheel in Russia. The park at this time must also brought more chaos to the landscape in have been in its heyday, with a balance of the form of a plethora of temporary buildings high-quality horticulture, cultural activities and structures, making the spaces feel and amusement park entertainment. overcrowded and the underlying landscape cluttered. While some of the buildings have already been renovated, and the park is undoubtedly safer and more popular with the illegal business removed, the new park management realised that an overarching strategy was required to set a new and coordinated direction for the park. The strategy for renewal of Gorky Park was approved in early 2013 by a panel consisting of respected representatives from Moscow’s architectural and heritage world. It proposes a conceptual masterplan, as well as roadmap with costs, for its revitalisation. This is the conclusion of a six- month study of the park, starting with its history, a survey and analysis of its current condition, and an assessment of its significance against English Heritage and World Heritage Site criteria. The strategy sets out a blueprint to meet the needs of a twentieth-century audience, revealing its historic character and landscape structure in order to make it a place of great culture and nature once again. The intention is to Ivan Shadr’s Woman with an Oar sculpture and explore and synthesise the rich, designed Parachute Tower, 1930s (© Photo Archive of the landscape themes and cultural heritage to Museum of Architecture, Moscow) achieve ‘Unity through Diversity’, the aim of its Soviet creators. Over the years the various design intentions, the physical fabric and ecological health of the park have suffered and its physical condition is now poor. The spatial definition of Neskuchny Gardens has been lost by post-war, mono-crop planting of maples. Landscapes designed in various styles, but all with a combination of open lawns, woodland, hedge planting and shrubberies, are now covered with similar- aged trees, creating an area of park with reduced visual, recreational and biodiversity value. Decades of illegal buildings, ad hoc structures and derelict historic buildings dominate the degraded landscape. Recent 2 ‘hipster-fication’ provided the catalyst for Proposed re-opening of Valley Walk Bridge change in the form of a new park (© LDA Design) 3 Unfortunately, the strategy doesn’t seem to Park design and restoration bring very be materialising on the ground quite as different challenges in Moscow, in intended, but maybe it is still early days. comparison to similar projects in the UK. While some of the recommendations such The drive to undertake projects quickly, due as boundary restorations are taking place, to political uncertainties, requires that new primary-coloured play areas and planning applications are avoided. This ‘attractions’ have been popping up in areas means no excavations deeper than 450mm, of historic significance. A series of riverside therefore no landform changes, no tree winter gardens or glasshouses, designed to removals and no changes to water bodies. provide areas of indoor landscape during While design of objects, buildings and the long winters, have been re-allocated for structures is well executed, spatial design temporary buildings, retail and cafes. These seems to be less readily embraced. The ‘fill so-called ‘temporary’ structures are erected it full of amenities’ school of thinking was a in great numbers and at great speed in trend that many of our UK parks are only many of Moscow’s parks – many in just recovering from. It is now more readily insensitive locations to the detriment of the accepted in UK parks that open spaces for landscape they inhabit. informal recreation are an integral and essential component, in a composition with water, trees and woodland, and that space forms the backbone of the design of these parks, providing the setting for all the activities they sustain. However, it seems that Moscow’s parks may be falling into this trend. It needs confidence to trust that a beautifully designed space can work on several levels – aesthetic, ecological and recreational – for so many different groups of people without being full of ‘stuff’. If parks are designed like a well designed stage set, the people will make up the action – no props required! Proposed treetop bridge-walk (© LDA Design) Sally Prothero, CMLI, MSc, FRSA is a Landscape Architect and Director at LDA Design. She specialises in urban park ‘Temporary’ buildings avoid the necessity regeneration and new design, especially in for planning applications. However, filling the context of historic landscapes. Recent the open spaces in parks with them as part projects include London’s Clissold Park and of a regeneration drive appears to Victoria Park, as well as Gorky Park and predominate over a willingness to design Druzhba Park in northwest Moscow.