What kind of architectural future do you think lies in store for Moscow?

I.V. Moscow’s problems, particularly its ecological problems, need to be solved through social-demographic measures, above all, and only secondarily through architecture and urban planning. There has to be a balance between the quality of life in the capital and outside it if Moscow is to stop drawing to itself, like a magnet, the population of our enormous country and its immediate neighbours.

 

Are the conditions in place for this to happen?

I.V. Telecommunications make physical distances instantly permeable. You can now work in the country and talk to your boss by video conferencing. Bioreactors and solar batteries make it possible to build houses that are autonomous. To my mind, the idea of the city has exhausted itself. Ecology is a matter of caring for the place where you live. This is possible when you feel that your surroundings are on the same scale as yourself – you can say, “This is my house and this is my yard!” But this is not something you could say of the handkerchief of land in front of a 16-storey or high-rise building; the latter is no man’s land; it’s clearly an environment that will be more likely to degrade than improve in appearance or develop. I have always been of the opinion that urbanism is essentially inhumane.

 

Moscowwill empty?

I.V. I don’t rule it out. In fact, we even came up with the idea of putting izbushki [Russian peasant huts] on the roofs of skyscrapers in just such a tranquil megalopolis. For Moscow to turn into a nature reserve, though, you’d have to have some kind of global energy, transport, or social collapse. Even today Moscow is an ‘inhuman’ city. It’s full to bursting, super-saturated.

 

 

What kind of architectural future lies in store for Moscow?

S.R. With transport collapse imminent, Moscow urgently needs decentralization (administrative functions need to be moved out of the Kremlin and offices should be moved beyond the Garden Ring), coupled with development of air transport within the city limits. One of the most progressive forms of urban development in the world today is the ‘aeropolis’ – a city-centre airport that eliminates the problem of accessibility by transport. Here in Moscow we spend more time getting to the airport than actually flying to another country.

 

You propose building an airport in the centre of Moscow?

S.R. At the Centre for Research into Chaos we came up with a futuristic project for an underground airport for the Square of the Three Railway Stations in Moscow. It had a keyhole entrance with airplanes being guided inside onto the runway along a fixed trajectory by strong electric magnets.

 

How does your project for a vertical city connect with ecology?

The project involves the creation of pivot cities, one of which could be built in the future on the site of Moscow. But that’s in the case of the worst possible scenario – the kind of ecological catastrophe, for instance, when all that mankind will be able to do is isolate himself from nature’s revolt (after it has been brought to the verge of destruction) and leave the planet alone to regenerate. Pivot cities will be kept in equilibrium using the centrifugal force of the Earth’s turning. Electricity will be supplied by solar batteries and thermo-nuclear units. All polluting technologies will be moved to outside the atmosphere.