Say goodbye to the good old TsUM, a Soviet-era department store in downtown Kyiv.
Earlier
this week, Donetsk-based ESTA Holding, a company owned by Ukraine’s richest man
Rinat Akhmetov, started to dismantle the historical building on Khreshchatyk
Street, the capital’s main thoroughfare. When the renovation ends, scheduled for
2015, the only thing that will remain of the 1939 landmark will be its two trademark
façade walls.
The
developer has promised to use the latest technologies in the $100 million
renovation of TsUM, an abbreviation for central department store of the city.
To reduce noise and vibration, the company will use expensive dismantling
methods such as diamond cutting, for instance.
“Our main
task is to conduct the reconstruction as imperceptibly as possible for Kyivans
and visitors of the capital because TsUM is located in the very heart of the
city,” said Maksim Gromadtsov, ESTA Holding chief operations officer, according
to the company’s official web site.
Metal
structures will be mounted underground to hold the red granite facades over the
entire period of reconstruction. Others parts of the building will be gradually
demolished and a new building will be built from scratch.
The total
area of the department store will almost double to some 38 thousand square
meters by incorporating the courtyard and additional underground space. A
parking area and supermarket will occupy three underground floors, which are
set to be built. Men’s, women’s and children’s clothing shops and household
stores will be located between the ground level and sixth floor. The seventh
floor, which also will be added, will house a panoramic restaurant with a glass
roof.
“In fact, the reconstruction of this
building is a positive thing because it became outdated and lacks many things
that a modern shopping mall needs for its operation,” said Andriy Myrhorodsky,
an independent Kyiv architect who did not take part in the project, designed by
famous UK design bureau Benoy in partnership with Ukrainian architects from the
Larysa Skorik bureau.
Myrhorodsky also said the technique
of supporting the old historic facade with metal constructions while dismantling
the building is widely used all over the world and is especially popular in old
European cities. The method was also used to renovate the landmark building on
Yaroslaviv Val Street that the Radisson Blue hotel occupies.
Others experts, however, would prefer
to keep the entire building intact.
“I am strictly against such an
approach when only a wall or part of wall is left from the building,” said
Olena Mokrousova, an architectural historian and expert in the protection of
monuments. “Even if façade walls are indeed preserved as promised, TsUM, a
unique monument of pre-war Khreshchatyk architecture and a symbol of Soviet-era
Kyiv, will be lost forever.”
Oleksandr Bryhinets, former Kyiv city
council deputy and current member of parliament, shares this opinion.
“Of course, TsUM should have been
preserved in the way it is now, including its inner space since the building is
a monument,” the lawmaker said.
According to Bryhinets, current
Ukrainian legislation does not allow the reconstruction of monuments, which can
only be restored. But for TsUM the law was bypassed. Shortly before
reconstruction began, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture made a decision that only
the facades, not the entire building of the department store, should be
protected as a monument. No one can appeal this ruling as all decisions by the Ministry
of Culture on monuments are final.
To prevent the same happening with
other historical buildings, Bryhinets is working on two amendments to the
current law. The first one states that all buildings over 70 years old
automatically become monuments. Another one presumes that both governmental and
municipal bodies can veto each others’ decisions on monuments to avoid monopoly
rulings in this sphere.
“In this case both governmental and
municipal bodies will compete in saving monuments, not destroy them,” Bryhinets
said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Faryna can be
reached at [email protected].
