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Renovation of Kaliningrad center

Part 2 Project 2009
Michael Beilin
Sergey Pomelov
Varvara Domnenko
Olga Yatsyuk
Evgeniya Yatsyuk
Moscow Architectural Institute | Russia
One of the most disputable issues in the architectural world is a problem of renovating cities that were wiped off the face of the earth during the war or fully destroyed because of the freak of the nature. Each city has its own history and local peculiarities, therefore there are no universal methods showing how to raise destroyed city from ashes and answer to the question if it's necessary to make it one-to-one as it was before is not exists nowadays, as soon as it can happen to be a fake finally.
The project focuses on renovating the Köenigsberg city. A place itself was the embodiment of beauty and intricate idea of planners with its cozy narrow streets, dense built-up, quiet yards, low-rising buildings with sloping roofs. The poetry of this place was emphasized by its location. Therefore the main aim of the architectural proposal was on the one hand to restore the romantic spirit of the place, now partly abandoned and partly filled with the buildings from the 50th; on the other hand it was necessary to keep its identity and to integrate it into the existing plot.
Survived drawings and pictures of the city were the starting point in designing. They ought to be a spiritual connection between past and future planning. Thus new plans of the buildings were based on several features borrowed from the past such as height of the buildings, sloping roofs typical for that period and historical outlines with their angles, curved lines and intricate net of streets but at the same time, to avoid creating a fake architecture of the past,
the body of the structure differs very much from the architecture which had been there before.

Michael Beilin
Sergey Pomelov
Varvara Domnenko
Olga Yatsyuk
Evgeniya Yatsyuk


Köenigsberg is a city of prominent people with a great history. Unfortunately its prosperity ended in a World War II. Ruins and separate part of the city are the only remains left from the bright and flourishing city in former times. The more years passed the more survived buildings became older. It was necessary to make a proposal how to save existing buildings and to recover the spirit of the former city to avoid total extinction.
Many analysis were made to sort out what exactly might be on this place, how to connect it with a new city appeared in 50th, where to find point of contacts between two epochs. As a result an elegant proposal based on self-made researches proved its justifiability. Students took a judicious approach to a problem, they made a carefull study of pre-war architecture to feel the spirit of the town and later, while designing breathed it into the project.
Delicate approach to the history and integrating new technology made it possible to make a settlement with past and present-day reality.

Andrey Nekrasov

Tutor(s)
Prof Andrey Nekrasov
2009
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