Appello
internazionale
Per salvare la torre di Vladimir Schukhov dalla demolizione
L’area di ricerca Arte del costruire aderisce all’appello
internazionale per salvare la torre Shabolovka dalla demolizione
SOS
Soviet
Avant Garde at Risk
Schukhov’s
Iconic Tower in Moscow
is in danger of being demolished for the sake of
commercial profit.
The
quintessential symbol of Soviet avant-garde architecture and the first
large-scale monument erected after October revolution may be dismantled in less
than a month.
Built between
1919 and 1922 by the legendary Russian engineer Vladimir Schukhov, the tower is
a unique and innovative hyperboloid structure of the early twentieth century.
Extremely light and featuring a lattice-shell technique patented by Shukhov in
1896, it was a unique self- scaffolding structure, so called Russian Eiffel
Tower. Unlike its Parisian predecessor, however, Shukhov’s construction
was designed as a broadcasting tower with the firm practical function of
transmitting a “new communist vision” of a new state both to the
Soviet Republics and abroad. The tower was commissioned directly by Lenin in
1919 as a strategic military and political object. It was the first time that
the state permitted metal designated for military purposes to be used for the
erection of a non-military structure, which subsequently became a symbol of
early urban planning in post-revolutionary Moscow. It remained an active
broadcasting tower until 2002.
Today, it is
difficult to overestimate the tower’s artistic, strategic, historical and
political role. For many years, it served as a masterpiece of innovative
engineering and an emblem of Soviet television as well as a source of
inspiration for numerous architects and artists. Its iconic silhouette is
captured in film, photos, and poems, and it belongs to both the tangible and
intangible heritage of Russian culture. Models and images of its impressive
structure have been exhibited in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the
Tate Gallery and the Royal Academy of Art in London, and the Venice
Architectural Biennale. Indeed it has come to serve as both a logo and metaphor
of avant-garde thought.
On February 4th
2014, several days after the seventy-fifth anniversary of Shukhov’s
death, the official owner of the monument—the Ministry of Communication
of the Russian Federation— announced the imminent dismantling of the
tower due to its poor condition. The report proposes a rebuilding of the iconic
structure in keeping with its original proportions but with new materials and
on a different site. In other words, the ministry is planning a replica that
will be situated out of context. One of the motives for this criminal
initiative is to free up space for a new multifunctional skyscraper that has
been proposed for the site.
The decision
will be made in less than two weeks. Once dismantled the monument will be lost.
Xenia
Vytuleva
Docomomo Russia,
Visiting Assistant Professor Columbia University, NY