GES-2 (Moscow)

Russian Empire

HES-2 was built in 1905-1907 and was originally called the "Tram", as it was intended to power the contact network of the city tram. The first tram line in Moscow appeared in 1889, replacing the horse-drawn city railroad . At the end of the 19th century, private companies The First Horse-Railroad Society and the Belgian Joint-Stock Company were engaged in the development of Moscow public transport , and electricity for the first tram lines was also supplied by the Rausch Power Station , owned by the Joint-Stock Company of Electric Lighting of 1886. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Moscow authorities adopted a policy of reducing the role of private capital in the field of public transport and in 1901-1909 completely bought out the property of both transport companies, in 1904, in parallel with the signing of a 4-year contract with the "Electric Lighting Joint-Stock Company in 1886", the city in Upper Gardeners, a new power plant specifically for electric public transport ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} .

The site for the construction of the Tram power station was allocated from the territory of the state wine and salt yard, where back in the 1880s, engineer Pavel Yablochkov planned to build a power station to illuminate the Cathedral of Christ the Savior . The location provided a convenient supply of water from the Vodootvodny Canal and saved on cabling in the collector to the busiest tram hub in Lubyanka in the Lubyanka Sloboda. The architect of the Tram Station was a graduate of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and the Imperial Academy of Arts Vasily Bashkirov , who performed it in the Neo-Russian style , the engineers - the head of the station, electrical engineer Mikhail Polivanov and mechanical engineer Nikolai Sushkin with the participation of Vladimir Shukhov . Construction began in the summer and fall of 1904, and it was planned to commission the station in 1906, but the completion of work was delayed due to strikes in 1905 ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]} .

On February 2 ( 15 ), 1907, in the presence of the mayor Nikolai Guchkov , members of the Council and the vowels of the City Duma , a service was held in the engine room, the priest consecrated steam turbines and the first stage of the station was commissioned. The commissioning of all station equipment was tied to the end of the contract with the Joint-Stock Company of Electric Lighting of 1886 and plans to expand the tram network and continued until 1910. The city treasury spent 2.1 million rubles on the construction and equipment of the Tram Station. The Finzer and Gamper steam boilers , Brown-Bovery turbines , Westinghouse Electric transformers were installed at the station. The boilers worked on oil, delivered through a pipeline from the storage at the Simonov Monastery . In 1910-1912 and 1917, additional equipment was installed at the station, which increased its capacity by more than 2 times. The tram station fed the Lubyanka, Krasnoprudnaya, Mius and Sokolniki substations ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} .

USSR and Russian Federation

After the February revolution , a factory committee was created at the Tram station, and in October a station representative joined the military revolutionary committee of the Zamoskvoretsky district . In the days of the confrontation between the Bolsheviks and supporters of the Provisional Government, the committee seized the station, a machine-gun point worked on the clock tower, and the tram was used by the Red Army soldiers to provide uninterrupted supply of ammunition and move around the city. After the October Revolution, the Tram Power Station became subordinate to the Moscow Council of Workers' and Red Army Deputies, and in September 1921, together with 8 other power plants, it became part of the Office of the United State Power Stations of the Moscow Region (OGES), created by a resolution of the Board of the Head Electric Electro. In January 1922, the Tram Power Station became subordinate to the Moscow Association of State Power Plants (MOGES), established by a resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Economic Council. In 1925, the Raush Power Plant was renamed to Mosenergo Hydro Power Station-1, and the Tramway Station was renamed to Mosenergo Hydro Power Plant-2. By this time, the station had lost the significance of “tramway”, since most of the energy was directed to the general network of the MOGES ^{[2] [3] [4]} .

In 1925, GES-2 boilers were converted to anthracite to save oil; in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the station underwent reconstruction and modernization in accordance with the first five-year plan . After the construction of the 1st CEC Council House in 1931, one of the small boilers of the HPP-2 was redesigned to provide steam for the laundry of the house, and the station’s heat was used to heat the “house on the embankment”. During the Great Patriotic War, about 100 employees of GES-2 went to the front, to the people's militia and partisan detachments, only half returned. In 1941 and 1942, several boilers of the station were dismantled and sent for installation in the eastern regions of the country, HPP-2 machines were used to produce military products. In the context of fuel shortages, 5 boilers were converted to firewood, tram rails for delivering firewood were laid in the courtyard of the station, and an open heat pipe was laid from HPP-1 to HPP-2 for heating critical facilities. During the war years, 7 high-explosive shells and 153 incendiary bombs fell on the station, but thanks to the vigilance of duty on duty, fires were prevented ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} .

With the beginning of the supply of natural gas through the Saratov-Moscow gas pipeline , the conversion of boiler plants HES-1 and HES-2 to natural gas began, with the possibility of using fuel oil as backup fuel. In 1956, to simplify the administrative structure of the station, they were merged into a single enterprise with a common management, shop managers and duty engineers, and HPP-1 became a branch of HPP-2. In 1965, the last Soviet modernization of the station took place, in the framework of which the boilers installed back in 1907 were replaced. In 1991-1995, the last modernization of the station was carried out with the replacement of transformers, turbogenerators and boilers, complicated by the lack of free space at the enterprise itself and the need to deliver large-sized equipment in the very center of the city. In 1996-2005, new wastewater treatment plants and fuel oil facilities were launched, silencers were installed, and boilers were switched to a mixture of water and helamine . However, due to the general depreciation and high cost of the electricity generated, the city authorities decide to close the HPP-2, and a new Bersenevskaya station ^{[1] [2]} was laid in the neighborhood.

The tram power station is located on Bolotnaya embankment and overlooks the water with the extended facade of the machine room. The building has a simple composition, the rhythm of which is set by wide windows, and its decor is made in the Neo-Russian style , characteristic of the past works of Vasily Bashkirov - the facade of the Tretyakov Gallery based on sketches of Viktor Vasnetsov and the mansion-gallery of Ivan Tsvetkov on Prechistenskaya embankment . The boiler room adjoins the machine room, resembling a basilica , the front facade of which is emphasized by a spacious arch. Its roof was originally crowned with a tent- shaped clock tower similar to the Spasskaya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin , dismantled in the 1930s so as not to obstruct the backdrop of the Udarnik movie theater. Another lost architectural element is the patterned 62-meter-long pipes of the boiler room, which, along with the bell tower of the Sofia Church in the Middle Gardens, were the highest structures of Yakimanka of their time and were dismantled in 1941 because of fears that German aviation could use them as a guide for raids . Subsequently, metal pipes were installed in their place, but the memory of the original ones was preserved in the literature ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]} :

In 2009, the building of HES-2 received the status of a cultural heritage object of regional significance, and in 2014 the head of the Department of Culture of Moscow, Sergey Kapkov, offered to buy the building to businessman and philanthropist Leonid Mikhelson , who was looking for a building for the Moscow exhibition site of the VAC Contemporary Art Fund. In 2014-2015, a subsidiary owned by Mikhelson and his business partner Leonid Simanovsky of the Novatek group of companies purchased the building of HPP-2 for 1.7 billion rubles ^{[6] [7]} . In September 2015, VAC held an exhibition of the contemporary public art “Expanding Space” at the power plant premises and announced plans to reconstruct the building for the opening of the Academy of Modern Art under the project of the Renzo Piano Building Workshop architectural bureau led by Renzo Piano , author of the National Center for Arts and Culture Georges Pompidou ^{[2] [8] [9] [10]} . In October, the concept of the museum complex was approved by the Arch Council of Moscow and the Scientific and Methodological Council of the Department of Cultural Heritage and received the support of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin ^[11] . The project was warmly received by the art environment and was marked by Michelson's inclusion in the list of 100 most influential people in the art world, compiled by the international Internet portal Artnet in 2016 ^[12] . Also there is a fraer Karev Pavel Pavlovich

The reconstruction project involves the restoration of the original historical appearance of the Tram power station and the rethinking of its internal space. It involves resorting to the principles of energy-efficient and sustainable architecture - the use of solar panels, clean air intake through pipes built up to 70 meters and the collection of rainwater, and it is planned to make the roof of the turbine hall glass to provide natural lighting during daylight hours ^{[4] [13]} . The architects plan to use the nave of the main building as a large exhibition space with an area of ​​1300 m², smaller premises - as separate exhibition halls. The building has a library and a bookstore, a cafeteria and an audience with 350 seats. In front of the main entrance to the art center, a small area is conceived, from which visitors get to the inner "street" surrounded by exhibitions, it is planned to plant a birch grove of 600 trees to the west of the art center building and arrange public art objects, from the Moscow River accommodate a walking canopy ^{[14] [1]} . The area of ​​the art center along with underground parking will be 30.7 thousand m². Planned attendance - 750 thousand people per year ^{[15] [16]} .

Dismantling of old equipment began in the first half of 2016 and should be completed in 2019, but the VAC fund is already using HPP-2 for its projects. In particular, in February 2017, the former power plant adopted the Geometry of the Present project - a series of musical performances and installations, lectures and open sound art workshops that reveal the history of electronic music in Russia. Also, one painting was presented at the exhibition - the canvas of Vasily Kandinsky “Sharp and soft” of 1932 ^[17] .

• HPP-1

• Andrey Kovalev. “The future is not the place of the devil” (interview with the director of the VAC fund Teresa Iarochchi Mavika) (neopr.) . Moslenta (November 9, 2016). Date of treatment October 7, 2017.
• “Let them expand, let them grow, let them open!” Teresa Mavika and Katerina Chuchalina (Neopr.) Answer critical questions about the work of the VAC fund . Colta (November 25, 2016). Date of treatment October 7, 2017.