The main architectural festival surprises with the paradox of the interior space of its main exhibition. The entrance to the Manege is greeted by an oval structure on legs, red outside, with the inscription Union of Architects of Russia, inside white, with pictures of projects - laureates of "Crystal Daedalus", since the establishment of the award in 2001. On the left, everyone could stomp on the plan of the Moscow region, taken away with durable plastic and illuminated from the inside - an extremely attractive attraction, everyone took pictures on it. On the right - from the inside, illuminated stands about foreign architecture, one per country. Ahead, behind these three percussion ventures, the entire Manezh is blocked by a red wall (the floor is also red) dotted with quotes from various celebrities, with only one passage in the center. Having leaked, we find ourselves in a complex and cramped (this is in the Manezh), although in its own way a cozy labyrinth, filled to overflowing with a variety of architecture: regional stands, candidates for Daedalus, for the Young Architects Prize, the results of the Perspective competition, children's schools and studios … Having wandered through the labyrinth, we unexpectedly fall into an open space in front of the stage, from where the only way is back, to fight the inevitable suspicion that something has not been seen or understood. Built this year, somehow especially bizarrely thin walls of the labyrinth, as usual, are densely dotted with pictures of different sizes and contents. There is no doubt that there is a lot of architecture here and, if you wish, you can see exceptional things.
For example, it is easy to make sure that not only Moscow, but the whole of Russia is now well acquainted with the European achievements. Calatrava is especially popular. A bridge across the Volga, for example, we may have - almost the same as the one in Valencia. And next to it there is a house, almost like MVDRV's, only a little more cunning. But Russian celebrities are also popular. Cooper house, for example, has spawned a whole crop of copper houses, and they continue to appear. Perhaps soon we will have more of them than in Europe, despite the high cost of the material, and it is possible that it is precisely because of it. It is also popular as a role model for the "penguin house" built by A. Skokan for Capital Groups.
And where else, if not at Zodchestvo, can you see a giant memorial temple being built in Magadan on the structures of an unfinished house of the Soviets? Moreover, in a wonderful style - the Vladimir-Novgorod one, it is written just like that: it probably hints at the fact that Magadan and Vladimir residents have been, and Novgorodians. With good, by the way, capitals. Although such a memorial temple itself is probably needed in Magadan. Only "Zodchestvo" fully allows itself to imagine how wide our native country really is and what it lacks - both good, and not so, and simply wonderful.
Much is mixed here. At Zodchestvo, for example, every year you can see several reports about a good restoration: now it is the St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky Theater and the Kremlin Palace of Patriarch Nikon. And again, children … Traditionally, children's works are one of the strongest places in the exhibition, at least pleasing to the eye and understandable to a mere mortal. True, they were usually collected in a heap, a sort of cheerful flock, and now they dissolve in the labyrinth of stands and they are somehow less visible.
Among the contenders for "Daedalus" there are several calm and pleasant Nizhny Novgorod houses and simpler, but also calm ones from Yekaterinburg. House-"puncher" by Dmitry Alexandrov, an original variation on the themes of constructivism. Finally, the charming synagogue of M. Kryshtal and the sculptural and plastic projects of A. Bokov. The glass, streamlined volume of his "glider school", the middle tier of which is shifted at an angle like the edge of a Rubik's cube, is not entirely new, but very capaciously presented - probably the most vivid impression from the exhibition. On which, however, there are not very many Moscow architects. So many that those who are present seem to be the exception and not vice versa. The exhibition turns out, with some exceptions, dedicated to "all of Russia" almost without a capital.
