“Okhta-center” business district under construction in St Petersburg

Work continues into winter on the Okhta Center in St. Petersburg. This is a new commercial centre being built by Gazprom, the Russian natural gas company. When it’s finished the Okhta Center will have all the mod-cons necessary for a major commercial centre like monuments, desks and a large glass tower which will stand around 400m tall looking over St. Petersburg. No one is complaining about the desks and monuments, but there is a controversy about whether a large glass tower is really necessary. The tower will be over twice as high as anything else in the city. St. Petersburg’s current spires are a World Heritage listed site, but UNESCO has threatened to withdraw that listing if the skyscraper is built.

There are archaeological digs at the site, like the one photographed above, but I’m not sure what they’ll find. The centre is built built over part of a 17th century Swedish fort and an earlier 14th century fort. I don’t know how extensive those ruins are or if there’s anything else. One of the reasons for building the city was the Peter I wanted a blank canvas to build a city on at the start of the 18th century. Since then St Petersburg has been at the heart of most of Russian modern history. The early years showed Peter at both his most Great and most brutal. The current city might be magnificent, but it wasn’t to begin with, so unsurprisingly a lot of aristocracy were not eager to move to the middle of nowhere. Peter was determined to mould Russia into a major European power, and not the type of guy to tolerate insubordination. Peter II returned the capital to Moscow, but Anna moved it back to St Petersburg, which became a showcase for imperial power. It’s the urban planning combined with the wealth of baroque and neoclassical architecture that makes St Petersburg so special. There’s power in the fabric of the buildings along with the bricks and mortar, and it’s no surprise that the October Revolution started here.

St Petersburg might be a young city in European terms, but it has a huge wealth of heritage. What’s interesting for me is that this is one of those cases where Heritage isn’t the same as History or Archaeology.

From a Heritage point of view, it’s obviously a disaster. The old city will be dominated by the headquarters of an industrial giant. Rather than being the city of lost imperial power, it will make St Petersburg a city under the shadow of a commercial élite. Something has been lost, which is why some many citizens are against With my historian hat on it’s slightly different. The old city will be dominated by the headquarters of an industrial giant. Rather than being the city of lost imperial power, it will make St Petersburg a city under the shadow of a commercial élite. It’s a change of tyrant. St Petersburg was a city that was ruled under the Tsars that made the law to their own advantage. Now, written with glass and steel, Gazprom is writing the rule of a new unelected power in the pages of Russian history.

There’s all sorts of anthropological and architectural questions too. For example, below is a video of the proposed building. Bearing in mind the old city is on the opposite bank of the river, see if you can spot how the tower will fit into the landscape.

There’s a few impressions I get from the video. One is that that woman is far too young for that man (4m15s). Also, the tower is designed with little or no thought as to its context. You could see glimpses of St Petersburg, if you didn’t blink. The video looks up to the heavens, and the height is central to the project. That has all sorts of connotations when start thinking about command and control. The video camera spirals up and around the tower, but there’s nothing showing how it will look for the average person on the ground. And that’s also on the ground many miles outside the city. Finally, hey, it’s a big thrusting tower. That might be the most important part of this project.

It’s easy to say that heritage should be preserved, but heritage is expensive and it’s an ongoing expense. Dresden recently had to make a choice between a new bridge across the Elbe, or continued World Heritage status. UNESCO said that if the new bridge was built near the historic centre of the city, then the city’s heritage would no longer be unique and the listing lost. The decision was made. The bridge was deemed an economic necessity and the listing was revoked. St Petersburg has had a rough time since the fall of communism. It’s still one of Europe’s great cities, but maintaining that costs a lot of money, money that the local government might not have.

It’s possible that the administration simply doesn’t have the virility to maintain St Petersburg’s unique heritage, and a giant phallic building might be a poor compensation. Or else a monument to Putin’s impotence in defending his home city. Looking from the outside that’s another chapter in St Petersburg’s story but, for the Russians who have to live it, it’s an unnecessary tragedy.

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…and everybody above knows far more about the Okhta Center than I do, so if you’re interested I strongly recommend visiting them.