About a month ago the Kyiv City State Administration announced an international contest for the best project on renovating the city’s downtown for the Euro-2012. In other words, Kyiv’s downtown should meet the soccer championship with a new image. According to Kyiv’s chief architect Serhii Tselovalnyk, transportation will be improved, territory will be zoned based on its function (entertainment, calm leisure, walks and sport), and advertising vehicles, city design elements and small architectural forms will be organized. The city’s greenery and quality of illumination will also be improved. The exact plans and expected outcome will become known in May this year. While undertaking the works it is of paramount importance not to destroy historical objects. But is it possible to conform to this principle if the contest involves the territory of Andriivsky uzviz and Kontraktova Square (according to the contest’s terms, architects can submit projects on improving the territory from the National History Museum of World Patriotic War of 1941-45 to Lvivska and Kontraktova Squares)?
These two areas in the historical part of Kyiv belong to a protected territory, where any modi-fications or the construction of modern objects, even small, is forbidden. Only restoration work is permitted, that is maintaining the appropriate state of the pre-sent historical territory.
“Since Andriivsky uzviz and Kontraktova Square are integral parts of the state historical and architectural preserve Ancient Kyiv, a special construction regime works functions on this territory,” says Mykhailo Dehtiariov, an architect, a research worker of the preserve Ancient Kyiv. “Here everything should be directed at preserving the historical and architectural environment that has been created over the ages. Not only ancient buildings that have the status of a monument of architecture or history should be preserved, but also background architecture adjacent to these monuments, because all this comprises the protected area. In developed countries historical centers are like open air museums, where skyscrapers (erected in special business centers) and modern architectural forms are forbidden, which is often not the case in Kyiv. On such areas only the enhancement of underground engineer networks is allowed, and if any large-scale new constructions are admitted, they are accomplished only based on competitions involving international experts. The narrow streets of Podil district are not designed for the amount of traffic we have now, and if the so-called reconstruction, which presupposes the construction of new buildings or objects, is allowed, there will be even less space. Tourists who will come for the Euro-2012, especially persons with disabilities on wheelchairs, will simply not have space to move around.”
Senior researcher at the Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences Vadym Rybin is confident that any construction works, even small ones, endanger St. Andrew’s Church, since is already under risk of dislocation — especially if one begins building new things, or even if one installs billboards or builds underground parking lots. But there is no guarantee the proposed projects will not contain such plans. The organizers of the competition reassure that it presupposes a harmonization of available monuments with newly built objects. However, they were unable to explain to The Day how this can be done.
“Our competition first of all aims at improvement, not major repairs,” points out the adviser to the mayor and contest’s jury member Ihor Dobrutsky. “We will pay more attention to the scheme of placing advertisement constructions, fountains, street nameplates, planting trees and plants in parks, public gardens, and lanes. In addition, Kyiv is to be improved not just for the Euro-2012, but for the future, therefore the opinion of architects from other countries is important for us, so as to refresh Kyiv’s looks. Actually, during the contest we’ll see how to harmonize the available buildings with modern ones, what suggestions architects will have. In May we’ll start to gradually show all received works in big malls, we’ll publish all the works in mass media, and we’ll summarize the contest on Kyiv Day in Khreshchatyk Street, where we’ll display the models offered by the winners. Then it will become clear whether architects managed their tasks.”
Answering the question whether there will be a public discussion and whether any scholars will be involved in determining the winner (experts always emphasize this when it deals with changes in Kyiv’s downtown), Dobrutsky explained that above all they would rely on the jury and technical council, which, in his opinion, are serious and competent. By the way, the contest’s jury consists of Borys Kolesnikov, Oleksandr Popov, Serhii Tselovalnyk, and foreign architects from Denmark, Norway and the US. We do not question the authority of international experts, however, our specialists must be a bit more familiar with the peculiarities of developing Kyiv’s historical downtown. After that, according to Dobrutsky, the winning works will have to be approved by the city planning council and will be subject to a public discussion. But because of the new law on city planning currently elaborated by the Verkhovna Rada, the public discussion in such cases can be canceled. Consequently, no one will control who will implement the changes, where and by what means.
