Houston Chronicle Cragg Hines Column: As Corncob or Carbuncle, All Architecture Isn’t Local
By Cragg Hines, Houston Chronicle
Feb. 21–The first time I visited what was then Leningrad, I told a friend that all I wanted were the painting and steam cleaning contracts when the Soviet era came to its inevitable end.
The city’s architectural bones were solid, in fact stunning, but its exterior was beyond haggard after more than a half century of Communist neglect, including the 900-day Nazi siege during World War II when mere survival desperately trumped refurbishment.
But now only a relatively brief decade and a half after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the main implement needed by anyone interested in preserving at least the center of what once again is St. Petersburg — and potentially one of Europe’s most elegant cities — is not a paint brush but a protest sign.
Stoked by the energy boom, Russian oil giant Gazprom wants to build a 77-story skyscraper to loom over the baroque and neoclassical core of the 300-year-old metropolis.
The proposed design is charitably described as a 1,300-foot-high flickering flame beside the Neva. (Gazprom. Flame. Get it?) Irate locals see a humongous corncob — and an accompanying bill for development that they will end up paying.
The city’s best-known native, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has attempted, at least publicly, not to get sucked into what is becoming a nasty row.
Suddenly Putin, usually a great centralizer in the style of preceding czars and general secretaries, is all for local officials making the decision — and taking the fall, if it comes to that.
Better that Putin should play Britain’s Prince Charles, whose 1984 intervention brought a halt to a disastrous plan for an addition to the National Gallery in London.
Addressing the 150th anniversary of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Charles likened the initial annex proposal to “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a loved and elegant friend.”
What eventually got built just off Trafalgar Square is no great shakes, but at least it’s not insulting to visitors or even passersby.
The winning Gazprom design, by RMJM of London, could be mistaken for an exclamation point at the end of a massive architectural insult.
Some cities, including Houston, can be gloriously freewheeling when it comes to major urban architecture, especially the vertical thrusts of its high-rises, both in old downtowns and separately emerging municipal nuclei miles away. These cities are relatively new and, by nature, experimental.
Some cities shouldn’t be so loose. They include St. Petersburg, at least anywhere near its historic heart.
The Gazprom plan has alarmed conservationists far beyond Russia’s Baltic reaches. UNESCO’s World Heritage program, which has listed St. Petersburg among Earth’s constructed gems, has voiced concerns.
The Moscow Times earlier this month quoted Francesco Bandarin, chief of the UNESCO program, saying that the Gazprom project is “the most visible problem in St. Petersburg.”
“St. Petersburg is a horizontal city. An architectural solution that goes against this background is unacceptable.”
So unacceptable that the city’s Union of Architects refused to participate in the Gazprom competition. The selection panel’s three architects — Norman Foster, Rafael Vinoly and Kisho Kurokawa — resigned as the short list was being announced.
That left the decision to Gazprom and some politicians.
It’s amazing what a number of well-known architecture firms were prepared to impose on St. Petersburg. Drawings of the buildings proposed by the short-listed firms are available in several places on the Web.
RMJM’s was far from the worst. I’d give that dubious distinction to the parabolic “N” submitted by the Studio Daniel Libeskind.
Each, including the RMJM winner, looks like something that would be wholly at home in one of the nouveau riche compounds that, judging by glistening magazine ads, seem to be springing up in several of the Persian Gulf satrapies.
“Nouveau riche” certainly figures in the Gazprom debate. In the worst way possible.
Hines is a Houston Chronicle columnist based in Washington, D.C. (cragg.hines@chron.com)
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