Round Table "Prospects of planning and development of the Hermitage Storage Center in Staraya Derevnya"
Degree works of the Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering

24 July 2008, in The Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre a Round Table, devoted to prospects and methods of development of the Hermitage Storage Centre took place. The meeting is organized by the State Hermitage, the Worldwide Club of Petersburgers and the news agency Interfax.

The state Hermitage finishes construction of a multi-functional complex - The Staraya Derevnya Restoration and Storage Centre - in Primorskiy district of St. Petersburg. The first stage of the Centre accepted in 2003 already became a significant cultural and educational center. On the basis of modern means and wide application of a principle of open storage it became possible to transform a classical museum and exhibition presentation to other forms of showing, considerably having expanded a subject line of exhibits from store-rooms.

Now the Storage Centre complex of buildings in the certain limits has appeared isolated in the context of pedestrian availability and weak transport infrastructure provision and limited in the area and development in the city environment (from the South there passes an operating branch line, from the North and the East it borders with Serafimovskoye Cemetery, from the West the trade and recreational center "Gulliver" adjoins). Traditional design in the given situation is impossible.

Thinking over the further prospects of development of the Storage Centre, Administration of the State Hermitage has come to conclusion, that it would be useful in all aspects to offer such model which could more fully include the Hermitage in the urban environment. Director of the museum Mikhail Piotrovsky has addressed with a letter to the rector of the Saint-Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering Yevgeniy Rybnov to make this theme a degree project for a group of graduates of 2007-2008. The problem has appeared fascinating for the future experts. Seventeen graduators of the Architectural faculty have participated in development of the theme (architecture chair and urban design and city environment design chair) and The Automobile and Road-Building Faculty (bridges and tunnels chair): M. A. Vorobieva, N. V. Repina, O. V. Trunova, N. K. Yanovich, Ye. V. Gogunov, Yu. V. Samarkin, M. Ye. Galperin, M. V. Kharlamov, O. V. Pavlova, E. I. Sorokina, P. V. Khmelev, E. M. Makhanova, E. V. Muratova, V. S. Komisarenko, M. V. Andreyev, K. S. Bazitov, Yu. A. Agafonova.

A fresh view of experts which are not burdened by normative vision has presented not simply "imaginations on a theme", but practical ideas of transformation of city space. Certainly, the basic complexity became an operating railway St. Petersburg - Sestroretsk, but and there were also more than enough solutions. Considering prospects of development of the complex, there was chosen the only possible direction with an exit to Shkolnaya Street and creation in the aligning buildings of the Storage Center as a transitive block through the railway - station "Hermitage". The station with concert and exhibition halls will connect by a gallery the Storage Centre in Zausadebnaya Street and the additional storage buildings leading out of Shkolnaya Street. Thus, in the area of Staraya Derevnya a magnificent concert and exhibition centre with a good transport infrastructure can be created. Taking into consideration that up to open water of Yelagin Island is only 400 meters, and the existing development in this interval generally is low-rise and low-cost, it appears a prospect of creation of an elite inhabited complex with bridges and channels attractive from investment point of view.