Predictably, we're not going to get Foster's orange: the Central House of the Artist will be demolished to make way for a "presidential centre", something like New York's Lincoln Centre, and a nearby lycee will be the site of a rebuilt House of the Artist, I hear.
An interview with Zurab Tsereteli (Vechernyaya Moskva, in Russian).
Today at Somerset House in London wise people from Russia, the USA and Europe assembled at the behest of genius architect Rem Koolhaas to discuss his project for expansion and remodelling of the Hermitage (Koolhaas also designed the short-lived Las Vegas Guggenheim Hermitage). I wasn't there but one of the participants, Svetlana Boym, tells me it is an attractive minimalistic project. But we've seen several big-name projects in Russia now, especially by Norman Foster: will one soon be built?
UNESCO, meeting in Quebec, is considering including St Petersburg in the "blacklist" of historic sites threatened by new development (Interfax, in Russian).
The struggle between old cultural institutions and property developers in Moscow (Times).
A look at negotiations behind the Moscow Architecture Biennale, which opens on 27 May (Kommersant, in Russian).
A new building of 100,000 square metres will be constructed for the Russian State Library (still known familiarly as the Leninka); it will be connected to the existing building by a tunnel or a bridge (Lenta.ru, in Russian).
The Minnesota Zoo izba has arrived (Star Tribune).
More on the the Cemetery (ABC Australia).
