Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development” New century high risers in the core areas of historic cities in Russia Galina Ptichnikova a,* a The Scientific Research Institute of the Theory and History of Architecture & City Planning, 107031, Moscow, Russia Abstract This article is an attempt to trace the changes made to the Russian city silhouettes new high-rise buildings constructed in the last ten years, to identify the conflicts that they have generated in the collision with the historical cultural landscapes Numerous examples of regional and metropolitan skyscrapers revealed the birth of a new system of high-rise building in the Russian cities © 2016 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license © 2016 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a Urbanisation as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development Prerequisite for Sustainable Development Keywords: high rise building, historical urban landscape, historical cities, contemporary Russian architecture, urban development Introduction The long-lasting process of urbanization in Russia created harmonious unique ensembles in many historical cities and towns containing outstanding universal value Urban development during the centuries was gradual, based on traditions Continuity and consistency with the existing spaces and stock were the norm Currently urban development is often abrupt and ill-conceived, enlarging in scale, and thereby in impact The last ten years marked, on the one hand, by the domestic economic reforms and, on the other hand, by the inclusion of Russia in the external processes of globalization, influenced the forms of high altitude arrangement of the historic cities as well as the appearance of the new types of high risers (Fig.1) * Corresponding author Tel.: +7-902-650-85-27 E-mail address: ptichnikova_g@mail.ru 1877-7058 © 2016 The Authors Published by Elsevier Ltd This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 15th International scientific conference “Underground Urbanisation as a Prerequisite for Sustainable Development doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2016.11.940 1904 Galina Ptichnikova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 Fig 1: New century high risers in Moscow (Photocollage: O Prokofieva, 2006) Historically the cities’ altitude dominants have always been the buildings socially important for the citizens – temples, town halls, assembly halls Globalization, that has covered Russian cities, changes the correlation between the social and the private in favor of the latter [1-10] New century high risers in the core areas of historic cities in Russia The social space of the city has always been considered public domain that sets the priority of collective values over individual interests The reduction of the state intervention in the economy makes national governments gradually transfer their historical privileges of power to the transnational corporations These organizations mark the territory with the signs of their power – corporation temples – towers of skyscrapers By the beginning of the new century office buildings of different companies or residential houses of special elitism had become the main verticals of the cities The stage of high-rise building in 1990s in our country has not accidentally begun with a thirty-five-storey (over 150 meters high) tower of the “Gazprom” headquarters in Moscow, a monopolist corporation striving to become a leader among global energy companies Piece by piece and very soon new high risers have appeared in Moscow to be scattered across the city without any clear town-planning reasoning Among them is, for instance, the fifty-seven-storey residential building “Triumph-palace”, situated in the historic district “Sockol” Nevertheless, we must admit that at that time there have been attempts to use the elements of the”Moscow style“- spiers and pinnacles However, new times require new form The spirit of globalization materialized in the form of skyscrapers MIBC (Fig.2) Fig.2: “The Moscow City” (Moscow International Business Center – MIBC) (Photo: A Fatkulina, 2011) Galina Ptichnikova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 1905 At present the desire to realize the global ambitions of the city authorities in the new architectural forms as the Business district (the City) were realized in three Russian cities - Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Groznyy This “island of skyscrapers” has defined the north-western business area of the capital by its vertical composition Nevertheless new high risers boldly invaded the established historical panorama of the Russian capital One of the main sights of Moscow – The Kremlin on the part of Zamoskvorechye – now is seen not against the backdrop of a clear sky as before, but against the backdrop of towering over it with a left-hand block of glass and concrete business district ”Moscow-City” The historic urban landscape is the urban area understood as the result of a historic layering of cultural and natural values and attributes, extending beyond the notion of “historic centre” or “ensemble” to include the broader urban context and its geographical setting Under processes of market exploitation of heritage conditions have changed and cities are subject to development pressures and challenges Not only in the capital, but also in other Russian cities there are plans of constructing new high risers In the first decade of the twenty-first century, attention is focused on urban places as dynamic historic environments continually being reshaped and renewed Most frequently the high risers of “regional value” are buildings not as high as in Moscow or Saint-Petersburg Their height is from 100 to 150 meters Among them are a building called “ChelSy”, an A-class office centre founded in 2008 in Chelyabinsk as well as the buildings of the residential complex “Volga sails” and the office complex “Volgograd-City”, which had been finished by 2010 in Volgograd (Fig.3) Fig 3: The residential complex “Volga sails”, Volgograd (Photo: G Ptichnikova, 2012) Altitude is the pure expression of the concept of excellence New dominants, being several times higher than the existing building, show their urban superiority and unwillingness to fit into the historical shape A separately situated tower at the background of the low, horizontally sprawled buildings stands out of the architectural line of the city silhouette The last decade has seen a real surge in the demand by city governments for high risers as iconic architectural works to boast image of city This often regardless of the city’s existing character and inherited values Computergenerated towers with different names are springing up all over the place The most striking example of such glaring discrepancy between the scales of the vertical, trying to intrude the city borders, and the existing historical building with its laws of construction was the idea of constructing the Gazprom skyscraper “Ochta-centre” in SaintPetersburg The conflict between the new high-rise buildings and the existing silhouette takes place not only because of the scale mismatch, but also due to the peculiarities of the new building forming Among the historical shapes of the city dominate steeples, domes, arches and curved shapes of walls and towers Characteristic of the architecture of the modern high-rise buildings are straight facade lines, large areas of facade glazing, visual lightness of the buildings The threat to the historical shapes can be seen in their overlapping and stratifying by new dominants Random forms overlap historical silhouette, distorting its time-tested shape and proportions An example is the effect of the appearance of the 165-meter hotel “Swissotel/Red hills” in the historic panoramic views of Moscow center (Fig.4) 1906 Galina Ptichnikova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 Fig 4: Panorama of the Red Square from north to south or from the History Museum in the direction of the Moscow River Background - the 165-meter tower Swissotel “Red hills” (Photo: G Ptichnikova, 2006) Due to its radial-circular layout this skyscraper appears in the city silhouette in the most unexpected places The tower, which top reminds of a control block of an airport, rises above the towers of the Kremlin, and on the Red square it wedges between the St Basil's Cathedral and the Spassky tower This classical view, which opened to the side of the hill Borovitsky Zamoskvorechye, is now blocked by the huge tower of the Swissotel/“Red hills” Its technical and mechanistic form of execution completely kills the nature of the historic city The problem of stratifying the new dominants on the historical silhouette of the city is extremely acute in other Russian cities as well In Saint-Petersburg a number of buildings, distorting the historical panorama, have been erected For instance, in the centre of the Petrograd district a residential complex “Silver Mirror”, rising high above the historical horizon, has almost been finished by now The complex "Silver Mirror" broke the historical panorama of the Peter and Paul Fortress from a view from the arrow of Vasilevsky Island Two high-rise buildings of the Exchange complex "Financier" destroyed the city silhouette with critical points: the English Embankment, the Admiralty Embankment and the Troitsky Bridge In Volgograd as a result of the new high-altitude building the panorama of the memorial architectural-landscape complex Mamaev kurgan, perceived from the central part of the city, is almost blocked, and the scale of the various plans of building is lost (Fig.5) Painted in flashy blue, red and white colors “candles” pushed into the background the silhouette of the famous monument The scale is lost between the various plans for development Fig.5: The memorial complex Mamayev Kurgan lost its role of the natural landscape and urban dominance, Volgograd (Photo: G Ptichnikova, 2015) Yekaterinburg faces another problem, connected with the high-rise building Entire neighborhoods of the valuable historical buildings have been demolished to clear the space for the construction of new verticals For example, the high-rise building “Antaeus” has been erected on the place of the demolished old manor, among the low-rise buildings typical of the centre of Yekaterinburg (Fig.6) Galina Ptichnikova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 1907 Fig 6: The high-rise building “Antaeus-3”, Yekaterinburg (Photo: A Antyufeev, 2012) New high risers suppress not only monuments but the historical urban landscape (HUL) as well The core of the successive development of the HUL is the observance of the traditional principles of its formation that accounts of the nature of the landscape and the drainage of the city The features of the Samara relief, for example, are characteristic slopes, which start from the Volga embankment and end along the Kuibyshev Street They formed green terraces, covered with turf, and the natural “amphitheater” of the city Nowadays high-rise buildings, erected on the Gorky Street, cover the whole panorama Samara’s silhouette is crossed by random houses with random number of floors, erected in random places Rapid and frequently uncontrolled development is transforming urban areas and their settings, which may cause fragmentation and deterioration to urban heritage with deep impacts on community values Numerous examples of uncontrolled construction of tall buildings in historical cities (Novosibirsk, Saratov and others) lead to the transformation of urban landscapes, to confrontation, rather than harmonization (Fig.7) Fig.7: The tower “Cobra”, Novosibirsk (Photo: A Kuzmichev, 2009) The architectural and urban planning activities, presently performed in our country, have changed the historical urban landscapes in the Russian cities Nevertheless new high risers are built often regardless of the city’s existing character and inherited values It seems that the idea of a city as a piece of a work of urban art has been lost in the professional mind It is necessary to curb this “high-rise fever” by imposing some regulations, on the one hand, and by creating new programs of altitude construction from the point of view of the formation of expressive architectural image, on the other hand We should move from the tasks of the “big money” architecture with its construction of grandiose buildings, breaking all altitude records, to the problems of humanization of the urban environment in the natural tendency for human well-being 1908 Galina Ptichnikova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 For a surviving of historic urban landscapes new development projects should aim to maintain character – the “spirit of place” related to cultural identity of local society (Fig.8) Fig 8: Preservation of HUL for the architectural identity of local society Volgograd, the historical embankment (Photo: V Antimonov, 2007) Conclusion In the first decade of the twenty-first century our attention is focused on urban places as dynamic historic environments being continually reshaped, renewed and refurbished This requires an understanding of transformation processes that underpinned the city’s historic evolution over time and the determination of limits of acceptable change In conclusion, we have to say that the existing planning tools have to be revised so as to integrate these essential aspects in the planning process New century high risers in the core areas of historic cities in Russia presented in Table Table New century high risers in the core areas of historic cities in Russia Problem The appearance of the new types of high risers in the core areas of historic cities Invasion of the historical panorama Comment Visual Evidence The last ten years marked, on the one hand, by the domestic economic reforms and, on the other hand, by the inclusion of Russia in the external processes of globalization, influenced the forms of high altitude arrangement of the historic cities as well as the appearance of the new types of high risers Moscow The Kremlin and MIBC New high risers boldly invaded the established historical panorama Yekaterinburg Volgograd Galina Ptichnikova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 Problem Comment Suppression of the historic buildings New dominants, being several times higher than the existing building, show their urban superiority and unwillingness to fit into the historical shape Visual Evidence Project of the Gazprom skyscraper “Ochtacentre” in Saint-Petersburg Neglect of the urban context Destruction of historic buildings The conflict between the new high-rise buildings and the existing silhouette takes place not only because of the scale mismatch, but also due to the peculiarities of the new building forming Entire neighborhoods of the valuable historical buildings have been demolished to clear the space for the construction of new verticals 1909 Volgograd The residential complex “Volga sails” The hotel “Swissotel/Red hills” in the historic panoramic views of Moscow center The Exchange complex "Financier” in Saint-Petersburg The high-rise building “Antaeus” has been erected on the place of the demolished old manor Yekaterinburg Samara The city’s silhouette is crossed by random houses with random number of floors, erected in random places Passing by the natural landscape New high risers suppress not only monuments but the historical urban landscape as well References [1] E.O.Solovyeva, On the preservation and continuity of development skyline of Moscow [O sohranenii i preemstvennom razvitii gorodskogo silujeta Moskvy] The art of writing a scientific article, AV (105), (2008) web source [http://archvestnik.ru/ru/magazine/av-6-105-2008/osokhranenii-i-preemstvennom-razvitii-gorodskogo-silueta-moskvy](accessed 22.03.2016) [2] V Karkaryan, Silhouette Samara today - this is a random number of floors in the house of a random place In: Samara today: News, 29.10 2007 web source [http://news.samaratoday.ru/news/130185/] (accessed 22.03.2016) [3] G Radovic, V Murgul, N Vatin, Fast urban development of Cetinje - Old royal capital of Montenegro, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 584-586 (2014) pp 564-569 [4] Y Nikitin, V Goryunov, V., Murgul, N Vatin, Research on industrial exhibitions architecture, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 680 (2014) pp 504-509 1910 Galina Ptichnikova / Procedia Engineering 165 (2016) 1903 – 1910 [5] R Alihodzic, V Murgul, N Vatin, A relation between function and architectural form in the observers perception, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 680 (2014) pp 494-498 [6] G Radovic, V Murgul, N Vatin, Development of the capital Cetinje surrounded by of centuries-old coastal towns of the southern Adriatic sea, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 641-642 (2014) pp 634-638 [7] M Penića, S Golovina, V Murgul Revitalization of Historic Buildings as an Approach to Preserve Cultural and Historical Heritage Procedia Engineering, Vol 117 (2015) pp 883-890 [8] I Yamshanov, V Goryunov, V Murgul Architecture of Neogothic Castles, Palaces, Estates, Mansions and Profitable Houses in the Russian Empire XIX Century, Procedia Engineering, Vol 117 (2015) pp 663-674 [9] S Popović, N Djurovic, V Murgul Formation, Development and Issues of Montenegro Rural Settlements in the Case of Village Orja Luka in Bjelopavlici, Procedia Engineering, Vol 117 (2015) pp 832-840 [10] I Yamshanov, 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