Sergey Kuznetsov - We Tried to Make Award with Very Clear Rules

A discussion entitled «In Search of the Ideal Award» was held at ARCH Moscow under the auspices of Moscow Architectural Award (Moscow Award in Architecture and Urban Planning) on May 16. The organizers were Moskomarkhitektura and Architectural Council of Moscow.

Sergey Kuznetsov, Chief Architect of the city and the chairman of the judges of the Award told us how the idea of the event appeared, what the purpose of its organizers was, and how participants, nominees, and winners were selected.

«More than six years ago we were already thinking about Moscow architecture, how we wanted to see it and how we could encourage those who, let’s say, grasped the idea and worked correctly and with good quality. So we created the Award of Architectural Council of Moscow. The Award was getting more and more popular, high authorities paid attention to it. Last year it became the Award of Moscow Mayor and is now handed over by him. The first five winners have already got the Award this year. I hope it will be getting even more honorable and prestigious, and people will compete for this award. Things have been working out well so far. Since we started, I have seen a lot of interest in the Award, its reputation has been growing» — Sergey Kuznetsov said.

According to his words, the Award has become a reference point for architects and customers. «Moskomarkhitektura and my team have not only been working on the development of land-mark sites. Our main efforts are aimed at the competition for ordinary projects. For example, 305 PPT, when we transferred panel housing construction into a new format, it was a very important decision, which affected first of all large scale development. The essence of the Regulating Committee, Architectural Council is the factor that has major influence on large scale construction. The Award is, among other things, an illustration of examples of experts’ attention to quality, and we welcome this. And this is not about any specific architecture — today we don’t have the unified style, (we cannot say we like stone but we don’t like glass, or let’s paint yellow and not green). Projects can be of any kind; this is decided by local contact and many other factors. What matters is that projects should be good. And if you look at the winners, you will see that they are all very different, not cast in the same mold, but they all maintain high standard of quality, and this is the main goal» — Sergey Kuznetsov added.

Let us recollect that the Award was first established in 2017 with support from the Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin, and five years before that, Moskomarkhitektura had been choosing the best projects within the Architectural Council of Moscow Award. This year, as early as on July 1 (on Architect’s Day), the winning projects of 2019 will be announced. This is not only a high evaluation of the professional community, but also a financial prize, as the authors will receive 1 million rubles each. In 2019, 62 projects struggled to be shortlisted for the Award, 21 projects reached the final. More information about the finalists, the nominees and winners of previous years can be found on the official website of the Award.