- I have to get from Sheremetyevo to Domodedovo. Please, tell me how I can do it. I’ve never been to Moscow before. I’m scared.
- Don’t worry, you won’t get lost. The world is full of kind people.
Unfortunately such dialogues are not rare in Internet-forums. Even though experts state that Moscow has progress in the sphere of developing its image as a big tourist center, the friendly interface of the capital has not been developed yet. Recently the Moscow Committee on Architecture has published a new concept of address signs and signposts. The document requires division of the city into four zones depending on their location and cultural volume of building situated inside them. However, Ilya Ruderman, Deputy Editor in Chief, RIA Novosti, Art-Director, believes that: “that the project is just outside the field of criticism. All professionals in graphics and design see that it is still a very vague and incomplete work. Absolutely all the ingredients are contested. It does not take into account our potential interest in the appearance of bilingual meanings. All foreigners, people who do not read Cyrillic, will be as puzzled as they are now. I do not think it can possibly be realized. Especially the part that they called “Old town”, simply because the 3D letters in the metal with our climate after the very first winter will be full of dirt and pigeons. Although it has an interesting idea for city zoning and attempts to classify the objects according to their age and interest potential. But this can also be realized and classified in a different manner.”
Irina Rudenko, Deputy Head, Moscow Committee for tourism and hotel business
The position of the Committee for tourism and hotel business is that all the street signs showing streets and tourist attractions should benot only in Cyrillic, but also in Latin alphabet. Street signs in the Latin alphabet will not be enough for foreign tourists, they also need tourist maps that will help them to find their way. Paper tourist maps are one thing. But now internet–technologies are so developed that we have digital versions of these maps, mobile applications. This concept does not have anything like that. It concerns exclusively the external decoration of the city. Further development for foreign tourists should include the opening of tourist information centers where they can get a free consultation. It also includes orientation on public transport. We did not mention the metro. This is an object that is very popular among tourists, but it is very difficult to navigate. As far as I know, the metro already works on the new concept that includes translated metro maps, ways to change lines and exits with signs that help to locate tourist objects and to orient visitors. This system should be developed.
Andrei Bokov, President, Russian Union of Architects
Our city is different from others. First of all, because of the condition of the open spaces. Because of the quantity and quality of communication, because when we talk about navigation we mean some communication system. The city does not have a proper level of interconnectedness that most modern and happy metropolises have. We have a poorly-organized urban fabric that is partly the result of free planning that is very difficult to navigate. Houses that are standing far away from each other, that excludes proper streets. All these endless “house nr 25, building nr 42”. Finally, the deformation of the clear and organized structure of the historical center. Numerous huts and small buildings that are located in the middle of the traditional estates, that are impossible to find, that are blocking traditional walkways. Thus, the creation of a normal navigation system is not only a question of some comfort for tourists, but it is a survival question. It is connected to our attitude to our environment, to the city, to our life. If we talk about an open city, a city for a person, an accessible city, a comfortable city, this should be clear. The information about it should be available. What should we know and remember?
A city lives in two layers – in a visible one, that should have some signals, some indicators, that are completely absent in some parts of the periphery. These problems are problems of the periphery. Today this problem of creating signal buildings is one of the key problems in contemporary architecture. This is a very important topic. The second layer is the level of internet information. You can choose the best way to travel by car or by metro. But the pedestrian does not have a clear system of navigation that is achievable. This service is developing very fast and I believe it will become a locomotive that will lead other types of communication. Inthe system of connections and different logistical structures I really hope that the public transport system will develop, first of all, the metro. And the metro needs to develop a satisfactory navigation system because it is the most popular type of transport.
Ilya Redirman, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, RIA Novosti
The metro basically does not know anything about overground transport. It sometimes has some signs or stickers about public transport but no information about private buses. Unfortunately, the metro does not care about the underground crossings. Once you are out of the metro you are in an informational vacuum and have to move following your intuition: “I was moving from the center, so now I need to turn right because we have a right-side traffic movement”. There can be numerous illustrations. I can bring many examples. It is very bad. We can discuss it, but this is a thing that has to be changed. If we analyze every system, every navigation layer has its shortcomings but also has its advantages. This is a very interesting topic because we have internal sympathy for traditional things. Like the old system of the Moscow metro. It is not very informative, but we like it. We are used to it. The old boards on the buses and trams are also dear to us. They are unreadable, but we like them. So the system has many sides. It can be described in many ways, and when we want to create something unified we do not mean unified design (some new contemporary design) but rather informational unification – meanings, texts, words. Exits to the city can have numerous versions “exit”, “exit to the city”, “exit to the city center” – and all this expressed with different graphical languages. There should be some consistency. In addition, taking into account modern technology, we cannot ignore our gadgets, gr-codes, smartphones, ipads, etc. But we should not forget that not everybody has them, that there are wide groups of the population that for economic or age reasons cannot have this gadget. There are children, and we do not allow them to have smartphones, there are older people, who do not know how to use it. Andrey said that there are two components – one navigation system should be accessible to all without exception, should surround us all without any financial or age qualification. On the other hand, people who have smartphones and this interesting way of getting information - we should give them more information. As a result, we arrived at the idea of an interactive space that is centered around urban navigation, that has gr-codes and a system that reads them and a system that allows us to penetrate this virtual space with different information layers. These gr-codes can be located almost everywhere. Many cities started with transport, because all the schedules and logistics are then connected to it. But in fact even street or road signs that cannot be read from the car at high-speed, can allow us to get more information about this or that building.
