After Kyiv’s historical Central Department Store shut down for business in February, few details were revealed about the fate of the landmark shopping center better known by its Soviet acronym TsUM.
The picture is becoming clearer now, and not everyone is happy. One harsh critic calls the planned new look “architectural junk,” but its proponents say the new look rescues a beloved center that had fallen out of shoppers’ favor while remaining sensitive to its historical status.
TsUM’s new owner Esta Holding, owned by billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, is going to almost entirely demolish the building – with the exception of three historic exterior walls that form the building’s angle-shaped facade on Khreshchatyk and Bohdana Khmelnytskoho streets.
A shiny new mall – with a spacious atrium and glass walls – will be built in its place. Those and other planned changes will nearly double the new TsUM’s capacity. Three underground levels will be added below the old structure, as will one on top.
The two deepest levels will be used for parking, while the other underground floor will house a big supermarket. Clothes, shoes and household goods retailers will fill the six above-ground floors, leaving the seventh for restaurants. The top floor will also host the new mall’s special feature – a large terrace with a panoramic view of Khreshchatyk Street and its surroundings.
It may turn out all right, and even prove to be popular with the masses, but only time will tell.
For now, some say the new features will cost the TsUM its original look and plans by Esta Holding have upset those who see the 73-year-old building as a precious symbol of the Soviet era.
This sentiment was clear when the owners presented their ideas in the Kyiv City Architectural Council earlier this summer. Now that TsUM is being prepared for demolition at an unknown date, its elevators, paneling, electric and sewage systems already dismantled. Some inner walls have already been pulled down.
The controversial design was developed by London-based Benoy bureau and local architect Larysa Skoryk.
Among those opposed to Skoryk’s concept is architect Heorhy Dukhovychniy, who notes that the TsUM is Khreshchatyk’s oldest surviving Soviet-built building.
“The current look of the facade must be preserved and saved, since it is a priceless monument of Kyiv history,” Dukhovychniy said. “I believe it is enough to make it untouchable. The planned building is typical architectural junk.”
The Kyiv City Architectural Council is most upset by Skoryk’s plan to frame the two upper floors and sides of the buildings’ facade in glass. Architect Viktor Sudorgin said the “intrusion of glass to Khreshchatyk will look foreign.”
Skoryk counters that the glass is meant to cover the unoriginal parts of the building that were attached in the late 1960s.
While the demolition was supposed to happen in August, Esta Holding has recently said it is rethinking some aspects of the project – including the use of glass in the new facade. The company says it will coordinate its plans with the Monument Protection Department of the Kyiv City Administration, a required step since the building has official landmark status.
The issue of whether the historic status prevents grand-scale reconstruction has sparked heated debates at the council. The architects hired by Esta Holding assumed that only the original facade is protected by that status, not the whole building, but others disagree.
“It is not lawful to consider only the facade to be untouchable,” argued Alyona Mokrousova of the Kyiv Scientific Center for Monuments Protection.
However, Benoy said sensitive architectural restoration can ensure the longevity of prized historical buildings. “By improving their viability, we can preserve their past and secure their future,” the Benoy office said in a written statement to the Kyiv Post.
Benoy’s portfolio includes redevelopment projects similar to TsUM, such as the successful restoration and expansion of the historic Renoma Department Store in Wroclaw, Poland, which was built in 1930 and reopened in 2009.
When all the work on the project is finished and approved by city officials, fencing will be erected around the TsUM. A metal carcass will be installed to protect the facade. After that, the building will be demolished. Three underground floors are slated for constructions this winter.
The opening of the new TsUM is scheduled for 2015.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Rudenko can be reached at [email protected].
