On the 1st December RMJM won the gazprom city competition in St.Petersburg. But an interesting development was that the Architects walked off the jury before the winner was announced.
Norman Foster and Rafael Viñoly walked off the jury that chose RMJM’s designs for the massive Gazprom City development in St Petersburg. The two stars joined Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa in boycotting the competition, leaving the client and politicians to make the choice. (via)
So the competition was judged without any expert advise in the end, but why? Kurokawa is on record as saying the height of the projects compared to the rest of the city was why he resigned, but what about the others. Was it the height of the building or that their choice/advice was ignored? Seeing as this is a giant monument to the powerful who really cares if it messes up a pretty skyline anyway? Personally the whole enterprise seems slightly tainted looking in from the outside, with the whole question of the buildings height , the vetoing of the competition by St.Petersburg Architects Society just to name a few issues, and because of the nature of these buildings how can anyone separate the badly run from the morally culpable, but then that’s Russia all over at the moment. ArchGFX sums up things pretty well, so I’m not going to go on a rant about it any more, but a world class competition that could have been well handled with the buy in of the whole Architectural community got messed up. See the voting here which predicted the outcome. The winning entry is above and the losers are lined up below. Follow the discussion at archinect.
Five losing entries
One Comment
Plain and simple;
this monstrosity should be stopped and the sooner the better.
The “New Russians” already turned Moscow into commercial city, with all the historical charm of the old city gone, replaced by either ugly “Modern” architechture, or architecture of the pseudo-Russian style. Needless to say, that certain buildings of historical significance were destroyed or replaced with replicas, instead of being properly restored. ( Did I mention, the wife of the mayor of Moscow is the owner of the construction company?)
And if that is not enough - now THIS is apparently happening in St. Pet.!!!!!!
Don’t they know that old districts of St. Pet. are under protection of UNESCO?
Well they know, but it’s all the same for them, since GAZPROM is promising to “bring money” in the city.
How can ANY European company ( RMJM from what I’ve heard) participate in this crime?
Simply outrageous.