The exhibition pursues the same goal as the prize: to link the search for the avant-garde with the work of modern young (under 44) architects and direct them into the future following the futuristic dreams of the avant-garde itself, which means to revive the spirit of the 1920s in the works of architectural youth. An attempt to link together the memory of the architectural avant-garde and modernity is very clearly embodied in the exhibition. In the middle hang the tablets of the laureates - Pierre Antonio Aureli and Martino Tattara, around the original graphics by Yakov Chernikhov, architectural fantasies, and around the walls are projected presentations of ten out of 55 nominees recognized as the best. It turned out to be a kind of spatial roll that makes it possible to assess the similarities and differences between modern modernism and its origins.
Zaha Hadid became the curator of the competition - it was she who selected the composition of experts, including Tom Mayne, Erik Egeraat, Peter Cook, who selected the nominees for participation in the competition. The jury, which selected the laureates, was chaired by British architect Elia Zengelis. It was he who spoke at the press conference in the sense that he considers the Chernikhov Foundation's prize even more important than Pritzker, because it is awarded to mature architects, and here is a prize that looks to the future and seeks to shape this future.
The head of the jury said about the works of the nominees: there were many very talented participants, but many are fascinated by modern computer technologies, and the experts were looking for a bright manifesto, a breakthrough, adequate to the military etymology of the word "avant-garde" - a vanguard that is shaping the future. Against the background of the dominance of formal searches, those were the Italians working in the Netherlands, Pierre Antonio Aureli and Martino Tattara, the DOGMA group.
Young Italo-Dutch people think of themselves as Europeans in a broad sense, they are passionate about ecology and social problems, they are interested in “more cities than buildings”. Their works are mainly urban planning concepts of varying degrees of utopianism. The prize presented at the Biennale was the project of the cemetery of the ideal city of Vem, the “city of the new Jacobins” who, once placed in the cemetery, will oppose the “hegemony of the creative class” and preach a new “way of life based on solidarity, solitude and a willingness to share living space ". It is easy to see that there are much more words than forms, although the words are all very correct. The forms are very simple, the architects, according to them, do not deliberately draw buildings, their presentations and tablets are more like diagrams even when they depict specific things. It would be difficult to wish for a greater detachment from plastic searches, greater dissimilarity with modern venerable "stars", therefore, the choice of experts cannot but be recognized as corresponding to the avant-garde concept of the award, this is a kind of overcoming of the avant-garde heritage by its own means - a manifesto, theory, denial of an obsolete form. This architecture is so immersed in the theory of innovations that one would like to call it consisting of words - manifestos, concepts, theories, from which it becomes weightless, partly elusive, and thus attractive. Such verbal architecture as opposed to our paper one.
The architects themselves said that it is even more important for them to receive a Russian award than an international one, it is very important that the presentation takes place in Moscow, because Moscow for them is one of the most interesting capitals of the 20th century. The subtext here should be that Moscow is one of the capitals of the Russian avant-garde, although if you try to measure Moscow by the standards of urbanism preached by the laureates, then you can understand their joy as the joy of a doctor at the sight of an interesting patient - but this has already remained outside the scope of discussion.
On the evening of November 13, an open lecture was held by the laureates Aureli and Tattar, at which they showed three conceptual urban development projects for Athens, for the science city in South Korea and for the Albanian capital Tirana. At the lecture, the architects once again emphasized their enlargement of public spaces, original ideas and some coldness in relation to the forms of specific buildings. The South Korean project, for example, involves a combination of cruciform houses, the spaces between which should be filled with social life. A bit like the uniform cells of the cemetery of the new Jacobins, the project of which was nominated for a prize and at the same time exhibited at the Venice Biennale. On November 14, a solemn presentation of the prize will take place - the laureates will receive 50 thousand euros and a numbered copy of the work of Yakov Chernikhov.
In addition to the main competition, several additional programs - student and children's competitions - were part of the award, where cash prizes were also awarded (each of the additional nominations - 10 thousand). The student competition is a visualization of Yakov Chernikhov's architectural fantasies, in total designed to show these works of the classic of the Russian avant-garde as not just graphic suites, but three-dimensional spaces. From the visualizations, the competition for which has been held for three years, a film will soon be made, the demo version of which is shown in a separate room and is very impressive. These are beautiful, professional and very modern compositions, comparable to that shown next to the projections of the nominees; you can still argue where is better.
Among the children's stands, a paired mannequin in a suit in the spirit of the Chernikhov architectural fantasies from the studio "Start" undoubtedly attracts attention - a kind of "Collective farm worker", but not so brutal and more fun. Of the first three prizes of the children's competition, one went to Italian children, and the difference is very noticeable: while our children diligently draw more or less abstract compositions, sometimes quite professional in terms of the quality of execution - foreign children have fun, tie cocoons from ropes, ships from cardboard tubes and houses from plastic bags.
