As you know, the first known labyrinth was built by the architect Daedalus for the king Minos, and the son of this king Minotaur lived in it. For five years now, the Union of Architects of Russia, at its annual festival "Zodchestvo", has been awarding the prize named after the builder of that legendary labyrinth - "Crystal Daedalus".
Zodchestvo's expositions have always been difficult to perceive - because, with rare exceptions, they consisted of stands with many pictures, and some intricacy of corridors into which these stands were built. However, this year the usual confusion has intensified, suggesting that it was sought as a deliberate effect. This is firstly, and secondly, in October, not one, but two labyrinths were arranged, one where everyone is used to, at Zodchestvo, and the other a week earlier at the Central House of Artists at the Lifestyle 2006 interior exhibition, where there was a conceptual labyrinth, all red - especially for hanging the core of a non-commercial exposition, an exhibition of selected interiors. As you know, there are almost no interiors at Zodchestvo, they do not correspond to the scale. It turned out that the two exhibitions to some extent complemented each other, showing different architecture (although not all), in a labyrinth format. Suspicions become stable when we learn that the design of both exhibitions was done by the same people - the architects Vlad Savinkin and Vladimir Kuzmin, thus acting in the role of the mythological Daedalus. It remains to find the Minotaur, in other words - who lives in the labyrinth?
Whoever succeeds lives in the labyrinth. Zodchestvo has fewer and fewer Moscow architects. Among the applicants were Andrey Bokov, Pavel Andreev, Alexander Asadov, Dmitry Alexandrov, workshop of Ginzburg; Mosproject-2, a lot. The rest were not, perhaps because many of them were included in the jury, but the composition of the jury is not known for sure. As always, Nizhny Novgorod keeps the bar, there are quite a lot of Petersburgers.
The list of awardees turned out to be curious. The last year's laureate was Mikhail Khazanov's NCCA, which was unanimously assessed as a very positive shift in the position of the jury. It seems that in the current 2006 Zodchestvo continued its evolution further, turning to the noblest branch of architectural design, namely, restoration. The main prize, "Daedalus", was given for the restoration of the Alexandrinsky Theater, among the "Golden Diplomas" - the restoration of the lower tier of the Kremlin palace of Patriarch Nikon and the Oryol almshouse.
As we know, restorers in their best incarnation do not build anything new, but preserve and preserve what exists, and also dig surprisingly interesting things in the depths of the masonry. All this costs a lot of money for the customer and a lot of his own education, which in modern Russian reality does not occur as often as we would like. Therefore, rewarding good restorations, attracting attention to them, as much as possible, is very necessary in the hope that the situation will change, in Russia they will stop breaking and remodeling monuments, and will begin to preserve them. Although the awarding ceremony at Zodchestvo alone is, alas, not enough for this.
One way or another, to see the restorers at the top of the list of awardees is very, very happy. I must say that the choice of these projects seems more complicated than usual - you need to know exactly how everything is done “inside”, which cannot be fully shown on the stand. After all, they did not give Tsaritsyn, which was served on a terrifying scale, in a pervillon manner, which means they knew what was what. For this reason, the award issued in October appears to be somehow very professional - selected according to professional criteria for which one glance at a tablet is not enough. As this is not enough, and in order to choose from urban planning projects (here the gold diploma was received by the project of Rostov-on-Don).
The buildings and projects awarded by Zodchestvo support the impression of being chosen by professionals. These are very restrained, calm decisions, which are even difficult to find from the first time in the general leapfrog of bending, swelling, tilting forms. One gets the feeling that they were selected according to this principle - the purity and non-ambition of the approach. A little apart - the house on Shpalernaya, an obvious, but Petersburg-style noble stylization under the Northern Art Nouveau, under Lidval.
As a result, the choice of "Architecture" is imbued with some rare humble nobility. The only thing that leads to some embarrassment is this. The main diploma for restoration can be understood in two ways: on the one hand, it is nice that they supported restoration as a sector, on the other hand, this industry is very specific, self-contained, at least not related to the formation of modern forms. It may seem that there is no modern architecture, there is nothing to reward, so they gave it to the restorers. Of course, the jury did not mean anything like that, the jury meant to mark the year of restoration, which was mentioned in passing at the ceremony. However, the fact that modern architecture at Zodchestvo was obviously not all, is also hard not to notice. Now, if they were awarded in the nominations - the best restoration, the best urban planning project, it would be clearer. And so it turns out that it was not the project that was awarded, but, in a sense, the entire industry. Perhaps that is why the impression of Zodchestvo came out somewhat, in unison with the labyrinthine nature of its hall, confusing.
While ours wandered through the labyrinths, foreigners became more active. Things began to be settled with Dominique Perrault's Mariinsky Theater, the Moscow City Council approved the project of Zaha Hadid's two towers for Moscow City, Luzhkov only asked to rearrange them. The most difficult thing was for the English Lord Norman Foster, whose projects for New Holland and Zaryadye were agreed, but with great creak. The St. Petersburg City Council complained that the competition task was too soft, and now it is impossible to save the building, which does not have the status of a monument. In Moscow, on the contrary, they noticed that the conditions of the assignment were not met in Foster's project - the number of storeys of buildings was increased (from 5 to 8), the street routing was not restored. It would seem, why should it be restored in order to lead the street to the closed-up Constantino-Eleninsky gate? It is possible that the point here is that the demolition of the hated and now again beloved hotel "Russia" for many years has become a landmark act, from the category of parting with the past. This ideological symbolism leads to the desire to see something equally fundamental in this place. For example, to restore Zaryadye in the 16th century in the form of a Potemkin village and populate it with guides. The Museum of Architecture keeps many drawings with hypothetical reconstructions of this kind - to put them all together and do it all over again … But then all the useful areas will have to be buried underground.
Real monuments continue to disappear while discussing plans to reconstruct street routes that were irretrievably lost forty years ago. On October 14, citing fire safety, an 18th-century smithy was demolished in Oruzheiny Lane. On the 31st, a criminal case was opened, which may be a step forward in the protection of monuments, but is unlikely to return the original building.
After the October triad, restoration - reconstruction - demolition in November may bring modernity back to life. Several resounding awards are coming: in Moscow, everyone is waiting for the results of the ARX award - a new, but already pretty sensational architectural award, the Chernikhov Foundation plans to solemnly present its international award, the Arkhip interior award will be presented, and it should also be known which of the foreigners will get the scandalous Petersburg skyscraper. In November, the Venice Biennale ends, at which the list of laureates is also to be announced - as we remember, this year everyone, except for the "Golden Lion" awarded to Richard Rogers, will be named before the exhibition closes.
