The Turn of Evolution
How architectural masterpieces are born? This mystery equally wonders when looking at the architectural monuments of the past or contemporary cult products. This “music in stone” could be as the result of a momentary inspiration, as well as the premeditated offspring of matured ideas and dreams of the architect. But it seems like perfection and harmony of the architectural intent cannot motivate the customer to finance the construction without any changes in full accordance with the initial concept of the author.
In reality all occurs differently, and the masterpiece that is the result of a complex iterative way is a product of conflict of interests, attitudes, styles and preferences of individuals, parties, social and even religious movements. With rare exceptions, each masterpiece of significant number of large urban backbone facilities is the result of many years of work on the way from idea to implementation, including the complexity of the political and economic circumstances, down to the backstage intrigues.
In the course of this work should be taken into account the vectors of divergent forces; be settled the contradictions of different viewpoints, goals and objectives of stakeholders, competed with fellow competitors, debated with opponents, trying to win over the local professional community, architectural councils and mass media representatives. All similar facilities have rather interesting, sometimes almost dramatic story of their design and construction.
Twisted Evolution Tower built in Moscow is one of the most unique buildings in the city with a truly outstanding history of advent. This 241- meter high helix was grown on the drawing board of architects not in half a shake, but as a result of a long way with many iterations, stalemates and delays. The project erected on the plots №2,3 of the MIBC (Moscow City) survived the 1998 default, several economic crises, during which was radically changed the project concept along with its program and functionality, came and went designers, contractors and investors...
For 10 years (from 1995 to 2004) for the plots №2,3 by different architectural firms (which also included world famous foreign companies - Will Alsop, Eric Van Egeraat, Gerkan& Marg, RMJM, NBBJ etc.) in open and closed international competitions and tenders have been developed a huge number of design options. Perhaps no other area in the Moscow City (and even throughout the entire city) had such a large number of competitions, nowhere was involved so much intellectual plant invested in a variety of architectural concepts for the ten-year period at the turn of the third millennium.
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Text by Philip Nikandrov and Alexander Bikin