PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA: To what extent will the pandemic slow down vertical progress and how will new waves and mutations of the virus affect the perspective of high-rise construction?
Julian Chaplinsky: I think that high-rise construction is primarily affected not by the pandemic. Probably, in a few years we will forget about it as a terrible dream and return to our usual life. The pandemic rather formed a habit in us to move less and to solve cases through video communication as much as possible. But this by no means applies to high-rise construction.
Julian Chaplinskyi, architect, urban planner
PM: How justified is high-rise construction in the city center?
Yu. M.: It depends on the specific city. If there is high-rise construction in its tradition, why not? If it is Bruges or Lviv, then most likely there is no need for high-rise construction there. Instead, we see that Brussels and Amsterdam have found places where high-rises can be allowed. In Brussels it turned out badly, in Amsterdam it seems to be normal. Although the panorama of Rotterdam looks terrible, as far as I'm concerned.
PM: Is it acceptable to "stand up for the blue line" and if so, in what cases?
Yu. M.: I don't understand what it is at all, to be honest. In order to make a predictable silhouette, it is necessary to carry out a huge analytical work on creating a spatial model of the city. This cannot be solved simply by drawing blue, blue or purple lines. All the restrictions I have seen in Europe are either very simple, such as the decision to limit the entire city to one mark, leaving an exception for churches and public buildings, or hyper-complex, with analytical works that take years of research and discussion. But our extremely corrupt country cannot handle both methods.
PM: Can the spiraling growth of cities solve such pressing problems as heavy traffic, shortage of affordable housing, deterioration of the ecological situation?
Yu. M.: In no case can not decide - rather stimulate him. Growth in height must occur together with hyper-development of public transport, public space and engineering underground and above-ground systems. In my life, I have seen two cities in which this miraculously works - New York and Chicago. But this is definitely not about Kyiv, where it is impossible to make a normal bicycle lane.
Photo: marina Grynykha / unsplash
PM: Why didn't the predictions of the futurists of the early XNUMXth century, who predicted that the second industrial revolution would lead to the emergence of multi-level cities, come true?
Yu. M.: As they said in the Union, "powers were not enough." Such things require additional resources and uninterrupted financing of maintenance. We see the dream of the futurists come true in Dubai, but I doubt whether everything is good there. Instead, the city of Masdar, according to Foster's project, has a completely different — horizontal development paradigm.
What will be the skyscrapers of the future in 2-5 decades? In developed countries, they will be bolder and more ecological, with even more services and new aspects of comfort. In Ukraine, they will remain as dangerous and aggressive, unprincipled thieves of urban space and killers of the city silhouette!
