UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 7, 2018. Zaha Hadid Architects apparently knew that their proposal for a new concert hall for Sverdlovsk Philharmonic in Yekaterinburg would interfere with a lived-in apartment building at 40 Karl Liebknecht St, the company’s Associate Director Christos Passas said during his presentation of the project at 100+ Forum Russia.

Passas said they were aware there were still home owners living in the building, but this was an issue that could be better dealt with by their customer. It was the customer who set out the project specifications. The company provided a concept rather than a ready design, and it was probably too early to speak of the implementation stage. Besides, Zaha Hadid Architects was not the company to make the decisions there.

Interestingly, Passas said earlier that the customer’s brief on the project did not actually mention the apartment budding.

Now the apartment building at 40 Karl Liebknecht St could now get pulled down to make room for the new concert hall. The apartment owners are now concerned that the developer might try to get the building officially classified as substandard and hazardous to live in.