Buildings
Foster Redeveloping Island in St. Petersburg, Russia
(archrecord.construction.com - 03/08/2006)
By Paul
Abelsky
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| Images courtesy
Foster and Partners |
In February, local officials in St.
Petersburg, Russia announced the selection of Foster and Partners
to lead a redevelopment of New Holland Island, located in
the city's historical center. Foster's plan won a competition
against schemes by Dutch architect Erick van Egeraat and German
firm Engel and Zimmermann. The decision concludes a protracted
process for creating a scheme to revamp the former military
quarter.
New Holland is a 19-acre artificial
island, formed between the Moika River and the Admiralteisky
and Kryukov canals, near the famed Mariinsky Theater. Five
buildings on the island are listed on UNESCO's World Heritage
Register. Built in the first half of the eighteenth century
to serve as a naval base, it came under increased military
control and remained a closed zone throughout the Soviet period.
In December 2004, the military turned the area over to municipal
authorities.
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The earliest proposals to reclaim the
island date from late 1970s. The most recent developments,
however, complete a process begun in 2002, when Valery Gergiev,
the artistic director of the Mariinsky, commissioned Los Angeles-based
architect Eric Owen Moss to design the theater's expansion
that would incorporate parts of New Holland. Moss's project
was eventually rebuffed, and Frenchman Dominque Perrault won
a separate competition to design the theater's second stage
in 2003 (RECORD, August 2003, p. 36). Plans to redevelop the
island finally coalesced last year. Although the cultural
complex will continue to be state-run, the city has stipulated
a minimal $300 million investment must be made by the developer,
Moscow-based Shalva Chigirinsky.
Foster's conversion plan will integrate
the site's disparate elements around a roofed amphitheater
enclosing a pond. A gleaming cupola will top the star-shaped
structure, which will function as a year-round facility for
aquatic events and open-air performances. The arena will be
complemented by a 2,000-seat concert hall, three hotels, a
two-tier parking lot, gallery space, and retail and office
spaces. Foster enlisted St. Petersburg architectural firm
Studio-44 as consultants for the venture. The team's projected
design costs came to $320 million, the lowest estimate among
the contestants, with an anticipated completion date of 2010.
The plan aims to create a flexible cultural
quarter to bolster a languishing part of the city. Perhaps
Foster's most forceful intervention entails the addition of
eight bridges across the canals surrounding the island. A
single bridge exists today. Some are worried that diminishing
the introverted quality of the island risks undercutting the
aura that is inseparable from its landmark architecture. Surveys
of public opinion have shown that more than half of polled
city residents favor a less intrusive reconstruction of the
complex.
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