Zaryadye Park Project submitted to UNESCO

The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Chief Architect of Moscow, head of Zaryadye Park design team, Sergey Kuznetsov, presented the Park Project at UNESCO’s Headquarters in Paris.

Zaryadye Park is a significant initiative of the Moscow government, which represents a fundamentally new approach to organization of urban landscape, public spaces and city environment in general. The latest achievements, methods, materials, and construction technologies have been used in the creation of this sight, which makes Zaryadye a model park of the XXI century, an open-air museum surrounded by Russian architecture monuments of XVI — XX centuries, a new landmark of Moscow and an integral part of the ‘green necklace’ in its historic center.

The project is implemented in the protective zone of the Moscow Kremlin architectural complex — UNESCO World Heritage Site. As noted by Sergey Kuznetsov, «the issue of consistency with UNESCO requirements doesn’t relate to a certain compulsory expert examination. UNESCO is kind of a club which is subject to voluntary membership and where you can prove whether your city deserves this status or not.»

The Chief Architect of Moscow said that the international experts were shown a detailed presentation about the history of Zaryadye site, the international competition which had been held, implemented concept of the park and the capital construction projects on its territory —Philharmonic Hall, ‘Flying bridge’ observation deck, hotel and pavilions.

Mr. Kuznetsov assured the international community that the quality of the project can be confirmed by the fact that Zaryadye Park is being implemented with the participation of well-known international experts, such as American Architectural Bureau Diller Scofidio and Renfo (DS+R), Commissioner of the Antarctic Biennale (included in UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage) Alexander Ponomarev, who is working on Ice Cave installation project, as well as the best Russian companies —"TPO Reserve" developing the projects of the Philharmonic Hall and the hotel, Architectural Bureau of Timur Bashkaev designing the park pavilions’ interiors.

Interior of the pavilions

Being a project devised by «a strong international team, which values the number of public procedures and discussions, as well as expert participation level», Zaryadye Park, according to the Chief Architect, was given a favourable assessment by experts. At the end of the meeting Francesco Bandarin, Assistant Director-General for Culture UNESCO, said that «every city would dream of having such a project.»

«In General, the reaction of colleagues from UNESCO is positive,» concluded SergeyKuznetsov. «It is certainly very important for us, because this recognition will attract the flow of tourists and create a certain level of dialogue with world experts and historians, and enhance the status of our country. The more such objects we have, the more prestigious it is for the country, the more it demonstrates its history and values in the global cultural dialogue.»

Hotel Project

Let us remind that in 2015 ICOMOS expert Professor Todor Krestev visited the construction site of Zaryadye Park. The purpose of his visit was to assess the construction impact on the UNESCO World Heritage Site — Moscow Kremlin and Red Square.