Irina Markina Biography

Irina Markina Architect, member of the Presidium of the Academy of Architectural Heritage, curator of the Festival “Architectural Heritage” “Cultural Heritage is a colossal resource that can play a significant role in the revival of small cities and historical settlements”. The curator of the “Architectural Heritage” Irina Markina gave an interview with the “Building Gazeta”, in which she talked about how the festival is selected, who and how forms his program, who will be among the invited speakers of the event and which is made up of the work of participants in the competitive program.

Irina Markina: Historically, our festival is held every year in a particular region of Russia. The theme of the festival that sets the vector for the entire forum program is determined annually. The theme of this year is “Historical Heritage and a Comfortable Hail”. Kaliningrad region is one of the most attractive and advanced in terms of involving architectural monuments in cultural and tourist space.

For more than four centuries, many significant events related to the history of the Russian state have occurred on this earth. In addition, in the year the region notes the summer of its education. What managed to achieve over the past years? For many years of working with design and production firms, developments on restoration and adaptation of history and culture monuments and culture, it became clear that it was difficult to achieve high quality projects and their implementation.

Consideration of the projects for the preservation of heritage objects was and is purely prohibitive. The refusal of approval takes place on the principle of legal compliance with the norm and legislation. The creative and scientific aspects remain with brackets. In this regard, the festival system for selecting the best projects by a professional jury allows you to identify the quality of development, skill of the author’s team and scientific novelty.

The groups marked by the awards of the festival become known, customers of work are more often addressed. Weak and methodically unreasonable projects remain unclaimed. There is a natural and fair selection. The Union of Architects of Russia holds a lot of all kinds of festivals regarding modern architecture and its directions-these are “architecture”, “golden section”, and “eco-bereg”, and many others.

However, up to a year, organizations and departments, in addition to the Moscow government, did not conduct full-scale contours and festivals regarding the preservation of the architectural heritage. Since the year, the Moscow Restoration contest began to be held, and work on the restoration and adaptation of architectural monuments of the capital began to be evaluated in a completely different vein.

The quality of the work of reversal architects, restraint engineers, the creativity of the approach to solving creative and technical problems, and the talent of their execution received a professional assessment. Of course, the Moscow competition organized by the Moscow government is important and significant at the regional level, but this is not all of Russia. At the same time, there were no sites where it would be possible to learn the new, gain experience, discuss current problems to the specialists of one “workshop”.

In the year, we organized and held the first competition of such works in the arena at the All -Russian level with international participation. This has become a certain milestone in the system of preserving the domestic architectural heritage. For the implementation of the idea and hard work in the organization of the festival, I want to express great gratitude to the President of the Union of Architects of Russia Nikolai Shumakov, the Directorate of Competition Programs, as well as the leadership of the Department of Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

Within the framework of the festival, four shows-competitions are held: “The cultural heritage of the regions of Russia”, “The best object of preservation and development”, “Best student work”, “The best printed legacy publication”. For example, if we take the “Best Student Work” nomination, it is worth noting that this competition reveals not only the giftedness of the student, but also the level of training for the teaching staff of the university.

It is important for us to teach future specialists to think, explore and embody scientific innovations in projects. Traditional technologies in the field of restoration - the restoration of the plaster layer, brick and masonry, wooden structures, other work - have already been worked out. To breathe a new life into the old building, to identify all its valuable elements and at the same time give people the opportunity to carry out activities there in accordance with our sanitary and firefighting standards - the issue is much more complicated, restorers study all their lives.

As part of the festival, scientific and printed works are also evaluated. We receive a lot of scientific papers annually to us - in periodicals, monographs, collections of scientific papers and articles. And it is very important to consider these works at the competition and mark the merits of the people working on them. A large scientific and practical conference has been formed.Work is underway with speakers to discuss innovative technologies, tools for preserving objects of cultural and architectural property.

Cultural heritage is a colossal resource that can play a significant role in the revival of small cities and historical settlements. Housing houses, merchant mansions with original facades, old parks and boulevards-all this is a monumental and artistic reflection of the past forms the unique appearance of cities and is undoubtedly an asset for the development of cultural leisure and urban economy.

An example of this is the large -scale program “Main Street”, operating in the United States from the year, which is based on the idea of ​​stimulating economic activity by preserving historical centers of cities. In Russia, the issue of preserving, developing and arranging a historical environment continues to be on the point of problems. This type of activity is considered as a segment of increased risk and is still incomprehensible to investors.

The reasons for this provision and possible ways to withdraw from it will be discussed within the framework of round tables “Capitalization of the Heritage”, “Instruments of preservation and development of cultural heritage objects”. The important accent of the business program will be discussions devoted to the latest approaches and methods in the modern restoration sphere.

And, of course, there will be a lot of other events. I note that long -term business contacts are tied on festival days. People come, communicate, get well -willed with progressive ideas, learn about new trends. This, by the way, is the trend of the event. Of course, we do not discard the best that is in restoration of traditional technologies and materials. And we must understand that these objects still have an underground part, the foundations of the building.

Engineering restoration dictates new technologies. It is important that now the federal and regional bodies of the protection of monuments are guided by the results of the festival, which unites and multiplies our knowledge of architectural monuments and the environment. Foreign experts were frequent guests of festivals, for example, on the topic of the year - “constructivism of the XX century” - historians and architects of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, who seriously study the Bauhaus direction, came.

Festivals show how important it is to unite science and practice, and in the year we continue this tradition. This year we are focusing on an accessible environment. Along with them there are great ancients: Vladimir, Novgorod, Pskov, Vologda. In any case, almost all centers of the regions require the adaptation of historical territories for modern use. And it is very important to find the middle ground in the desire to modernize, to adapt to modern life the central part of the city with a unique heritage.

That is why it is very important to consider these issues both in normative and conceptual. For example, ancient wooden cities, such as Vologda and Vytegra - the Russian North - we cannot imagine without buildings with traditional wooden carvings and mesonins. In this situation, solutions with reinforced concrete forms are inappropriate. If we talk about the symbiosis of the old and the new, then I would not want the centers of the cities to have facility heights.

I see this neglect of the significance of objects of cultural heritage. This use of the historical environment is regarded by specialists as a curtsy of decency, and 5Ily 8-storey buildings become some kind of underlying layer under large modern floor complexes. I would not want to allow this. We must understand that this environment should be formed not only as a result of the new construction of any shopping and public centers and complexes.

This is also the regeneration of historical space, consisting of old buildings, parks and squares, promenade, pedestrian streets and squares. The adaptation of the historical parts of cities for people's life, turning them into an accessible environment, open to society, is an important topic in itself, as well as the theme of the festival of the year. In Europe, large competitions in the maintenance of the heritage are actively working.

There, the Grand Prix is ​​awarded only to already implemented projects. Just a project or scientific concept cannot get a Grand Prix, because the work is not brought to the logical end: there is no production, no restoration work, there is no adaptation of the object for modern use. And we, too, in our positions went in this way. Three diplomas have been established - gold, silver, bronze.

The nominee will be awarded the Grand Prix only if it shows in full a complete restoration object. In past years, not Moscow objects won by no means, but Kazan and St. Petersburg. This year time will tell. At this stage, those projects that do not comply with the legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of maintaining heritage or the requirements of the supply of material in the nomination are immediately cut off.

When the stage of primary wems takes place, the quality of restoration work is evaluated.And I must say that while the architects of St. Petersburg are doing this task much better than their colleagues from other regions. Moscow is pulling up. Tatarstan is largely leading due to the fact that the Tatarstan government pays special attention to this issue. I hope that our work and the festival are contributing to the conservation of the architectural property of Russia.

Without such large nationwide festivals, it is simply impossible to interact with the community, nothing can replace human communication. The status of the festival is high: there are mayors of cities, regional leaders, representatives of federal ministries and departments. I note that not only specialists, but also officials, which is also important participate in our events.

The program of such forums does not descend from above, but is formed precisely by the expert community.