UrBC, Yekaterinburg, October 24, 2018. Seventeen people took part in the recent public hearings relating to where to put up a new building for Sverdlovsk Philharmonic in Yekaterinburg; all the seventeen hearing participants voted against the proposed location; the ballot results were published on the town council’s website.

‘All the hearing and voting procedures have been carried out properly. It is not possible to take the voters’ opinion into account as far as not pulling down an apartment building at 40 Karl Liebknecht St is concerned, in case the town council goes through with the construction project. The public hearing ballots happen to be of advisory nature,’ states the paper signed by acting Head of Architecture, City Planning, and Land Regulation Department and Senior Architect Andrei Molokov.

Now Sverdlovsk Region’s Construction Ministry decided on September 25, 2018 that London-based Zaha Hadid Architects should be the design office to work on the concept for Sverdlovsk Philharmonic’s new concert hall. Their concept proposal covers the territory where a lived-in apartment building at 40 Karl Liebknecht St is situated. Every version of the proposal starts with pulling the building down. Most of the people living there, however, feel very strongly against getting relocated.