Revealing the Planning Specificity of Moscow in Gutnov’s 1986 Perspective Development Conception

Abstract

This article is devoted to the urban planning of the Russian capital presented in “The Conception of the Long-term development of Moscow and Moscow Region”. This project was developed at the Moscow Genplan Institute under the leadership of Alexei Gutnov and preceded the unapproved general plan of 1989. The Conception was forgotten after perestroika, but in its methodology it made a fundamental transition from a "normative" city to an "evolutionary" one and opened the way for the system of urban planning regulation which became part of the master plan of Moscow in 1999. The Conception tested the hypothesis that the structural and planning specifics of the city are most clearly manifested under the influence of the mechanisms of its self-organization. In a formalized way, these mechanisms were expressed in terms of the carcass-fabric urban model, determining the specifics of Moscow. The article discusses the methodological foundations of planning urban structure of the city in The Conception. They are analyzed from the point of view of identifying the prerequisites for the formation of design solutions ensuring the evolutionary nature of the development of the city. The role of modeling of urban planning systems using computers in planning for the spatial structure of Moscow is also revealed.