Very Tall Building May Be Built on Site of Tithe Church
A very tall building may be built on the site of the Tithe Church. This is one of the options being considered in a competition organized by the city authorities, istpravda.com.ua reports.
For half a year now an authoritative jury of 15 architects has been reviewing ten projects for the future or the Tithe Church site. The models are not shown to the public, but, to prevent any development of the site, archeologists took photos of the possible projects. They include, for instance, a building higher than the belfry of the Kyiv Cave Monastery or a gigantic church designed to house three thousand people.
“They include possibilities like, for instance, a 125-meter-tall church. It is absurd. One cannot build anything new in the place of the monument. All work should be aimed only at the preservation or study of the monument,” said the director of the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Hlib Ivakin.
Such buildings can destroy the monument. A member of the jury, Larysa Skoryk, assured that the competition allegedly dealt only with musеumification and conservation of the remnants of the church: “Many projects do not comply with the conditions of the competition at all.”
Geologists are now testing the soil. In a week’s time, they will define the maximum load the hill can handle.
“The quality of the soil will be of critical significance for future construction,” said the head of the geological expedition, Hryhorii Levitas.
The winner and the project are to be made public next week.
In March 2011, the Minister of Culture Mykhailo Kulyniak assured that a museum and not a church will be built on the remnants of the foundation of the Tithe Church. Before that, the chief architect of Kyiv, Serhii Tselovalnyk, reported that “nothing will be built on the foundation of the Tithe Church.” In November 2010, Deputy Minister of Culture Tymofii Kokhan stated the opposite, namely that the order on the construction of the new church was signed personally by Viktor Yanukovych and that Tselovalnyk, will choose the most appropriate project from among three.
