A team from the Department of Architecture of Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University won the competition to create an architectural concept for the integrated modernisation of the Road of Life memorial and landscape complex. Ten fifth-year students under the guidance of Associate Professor Anton Golovin won the final against representatives of the country's leading architectural universities - the Moscow Architectural Institute and the St Petersburg University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. A total of 25 creative teams from 11 universities of the country took part in the competition.
The competition was organised by the Committee for Urban Planning Policy of the Leningrad Region on the instructions of Vladimir Putin and supported by a grant from Governor Alexander Drozdenko. In January this year, the President met with veterans of the Great Patriotic War and residents of besieged Leningrad on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the breakthrough of the siege of Leningrad. The memorial complex "Road of Life" was discussed in particular. Its monuments are located along the entire 46-kilometre route from St. Petersburg to Ladoga. There is a need to find a unifying architectural solution for them. Besides, the infrastructure of the complex and the level of landscaping obviously do not meet modern requirements.
The competition task was to develop a design code for the Road of Life (lighting, small architectural forms, benches, fences, noise screens, stop pavilions and other elements of improvement) and general branding, including a logo. In addition, the jury had to submit sketch proposals for the Tourist Information Centre on the site of the former road patrol post near the village of Kovalyovo and the memorial to the victims of the Ladoga Lake near the village of Kokkorevo.
"The competition started on 6 September, and all this time our group, which included the best five-year students of the Department of Architecture, was in a mode of almost round-the-clock communication: you are preparing to go to bed at home, and on your smartphone comes another message from a student with a new idea, which is immediately discussed.
Getting to work, we outlined the key points of attraction in the future composition of the project. For each of them a small internal competition of ideas was organised. Whose proposal is more interesting, the one who develops it. There was no shortage of ideas, on the contrary. Sometimes it was difficult to choose the one that would be in tune with the soul strings of the people who will see the renewed memorial complex" - said Anton Golovin.
According to contest participant Polina Kalinina, the project is united, in particular, by the choice of materials: korten (alloy steel with corrosion effect), iron, wood and concrete. They best fit into the landscape and correlate with the military theme.
"The work started with analysing the territory. We identified problem areas and tried to harmonise the space with our solutions. The excursion along the Road of Life gave us the necessary mood for the project. Without careful live inspection of the complex and deep immersion in the blockade history, the project development would have been simply impossible. I was especially impressed by the memorial "Flower of Life", which was created by Leningrad pioneers. Of course, conversations with veterans helped a lot," said Polina Kalinina.
Dinara Nizamieva together with Maria Pauls designed the stele at the entrance to the Road of Life.
"Due to the thickening of the corten rods when travelling along the highway, at some point the silhouette of a traffic controller with a lantern visible in the light as a symbol of the beginning of the road appears to passers-by. This bright accent tunes people to the general tone of the whole composition, which progressively turns towards Ladoga" - said Dinara Nizamieva.
According to another member of the group, Valeria Tkachenko, the main symbol of the memorial to those who perished on Lake Ladoga is the arch by the water, which looks like a wooden arch that actually existed during the blockade. Through it lorries used to drive out onto the lake ice.
"The aluminium structure we have proposed visually seems to dissolve into the air. With the corten cladding, we only show the silhouette of the arch frame, reminiscent of the military prototype, and the flags. Back then they were made of cloth, but in our version they are corten.
In front of the arch we have designed propylaea. In the upper part there also everything is as if dissolved, and at the bottom we placed the lines of "Leningrad Poem" by Olga Berggolts. "For me, these are the main words of the poem, and we proposed them as the motto of the whole project," said Valeria Tkachenko.
The three-part composition of the memorial in Kokkorevo begins with a series of metal sheets depicting representatives of various professions who heroically kept the road running under the most difficult conditions of continuous enemy shelling. Among them were drivers, nurses, divers, regulators, and scientists who measured ice deflection to see if cars could be allowed on a particular section of the road.
To present the project, student Ulyana Stefanskaya made a spectacular video. It starts with historical footage of metronome clicks, as in the siege of Leningrad. As you know, this sound was broadcasted on the radio to alert residents about the approaching bombing. Slow beating meant that everything was calm, and its increase in frequency spoke about the approach of Nazi planes.
Next in the film is a shot of the legendary semi-truck, with which throughout the film the viewer moves from one memorial to another, goes through an archway onto the ice of the Ladoga and moves to the eastern shore, the village of Kobona.
YouTube / Ульяна Стефанская
Two years ago, a group of Mining University architects won a similar competition with a project for a museum and historical centre in Kobona. A stele with an angel was designed there - according to legend, he descended from the spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress to guard the road.
Representatives of the university have a special respect for the blockade theme, as it is inextricably linked to the history of Mining University. Its graduates,
students and staff fought the Nazis in the Red Army, People's Militia, partisan detachments or worked in the besieged city, producing ammunition.
city, making ammunition. As you know, in the historical building, on the Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment, during the Great Patriotic War there was a special production facility.
during the Great Patriotic War - every tenth grenade for the Leningrad front was produced here.
For Hitler's command it was no secret, and therefore Leningrad State Institute of Higher Education, as the higher education institution was called at that time, was among the priority targets of the Nazis.
targets of the Nazis - it was bombed so often that after the war there was not a single whole building left on its territory, all of them to a greater or lesser extent were destroyed.
to one degree or another. And in February 1942, one of the two workshops of special production was destroyed by a direct hit of a landfill. By the way, before the war explosives were not produced in Leningrad. It was possible to establish mass production of products based on them, thanks to the invention of Professor Alexander Kuznetsov of the Mining Institute. Together with a group of co-authors, he offered the military a new explosive substance "Sinal" (Si N Al), created on the basis of an aluminium-silicon mixture. It was this innovation that allowed the City on the Neva to avoid ammunition shortages.
In November 2023, Mining University celebrated the 250th anniversary of its foundation. Along with the installation of a monument to its founder Empress Catherine II, the university timed the anniversary with the opening of a memorial complex after reconstruction, dedicated to the heroism of staff and students during the Great Patriotic War. Students of the Department of Architecture took part in its design.