Everyone has become accustomed to considering "Arch Moscow" the most noticeable architectural event of the year - while maintaining its image, it grows and is reformed, sometimes more or less radically. This year, the changes hint that the enterprise is going to develop into the Moscow Architecture Biennale, which was directly told to journalists - although it is still unknown whether it will become a biennial or not.
The reform of Arch of Moscow, carried out this year by curator Bart Goldhoorn, founder of Project Russia magazine and head of the Project Media holding, pursues at least two goals: to bring the exhibition closer to European ideals and to rationalize the fact of its expansion in breadth. It is very noticeable that Arch Moscow has enlarged - the stands have become larger - and began to master the CHA in a new way. Two "main" floors, the second and the third, are entirely devoted to the so-called "commercial" expositions, but among them stands of architects prevail, occupying about two-thirds of the most representative space, displacing the traditional part, consisting mainly of interior decor and lighting. On the second floor, they opened, usually curtained, large tape windows - the sunlight in the hall became noticeably better, and the outer round from the crowded and fractional became almost ceremonial. The lower tiers, including the basement, and the courtyard were assigned to special expositions, including the Arch Catalog, which occupied almost the entire first floor.
Since its appearance in 2001, the catalog has been the semantic core of the exhibition and its own rating by the Arch of Moscow. However, for six years, everyone exhibited the way they wanted - and more conceptual stands alternated with more informative ones. Bart Goldhoorn made an attempt to show its catalog essence in the architectural exposition - firstly, the participants show one project at a time, and secondly, this is done according to a single format: a picture with what it was - a picture with how it became or will become after architectural intervention - plus general plans of the site before and after. Next to the catalog is an excerpt from the curator's manifesto, imbued with light sadness, it says that there is no urban planning in Moscow, and therefore the catalog's task is to comprehend how, in his absence, the city spontaneously changes by individual buildings. There are buildings at the stands, of course, very worthy and already well-known. However, if you try to extract from them the answer to the question posed by the curator, then based on the general feeling it will be something like this - the city is sad and panel, but the architects will transform it. Nearby - a more optimistic town of layouts - all very different, partly honest technical, partly artistic sculptural, partly informative architectural.
Previously, Arch Moscow was like a puff cake: inside there is commerce, a ring around the “non-commercial”, partly conceptual and sometimes funny projects, another ring outside - smaller commerce. Everything was in one room, in the "non-commercial" round it was possible to relax, take a deep breath before the next plunge into the "business" part. Then, in the middle of this pie, architectural stands began to appear, growing and multiplying - which certainly speaks of the success of the profession. However, the "culture-oriented" part has moved outward and to the periphery, in particular to the basement - and it is difficult to get rid of the feeling that the filling has leaked out of the pie. Special projects, scattered, have partly lost their value as an outlet in the viewing process - and this role of entertainment of citizens “inside” was inevitably assumed by the expositions of architects.
The most spectacular and professionally made exposition is the personal exhibition of the architects of the year by the Project Meganom bureau. Again, at the suggestion of the curator, in this case definitely successful, a place was allocated for her, well known to everyone as the main entrance of the Central House of Artists - the exhibition occupied the area of the stairs in front of the entrance. Megan approached the task extremely thoroughly, fencing off a good exhibition pavilion here, in the white wall of which one ribbon window was made - through it, those passing through it can see beautifully illuminated models from the inside, a town of paraffin houses that together make up the Krasnaya Polyana project: city, or quarter. At the moment of opening, in the neighborhood, one could see a mountain of cardboard forms, from where these miraculous models hatched - and if you recall the recently held exhibition in the VKHUTEMAS gallery, where Meganom showed one similar wax cube, you might think that we have before us a brood of children of a project that successfully bred in "RodDome". The rest of the items - and the exhibition consists of some models and projections - are made of openwork metal sheets, I must say, made masterly. The little people inhabiting these models are especially impressive - they are flat and have two shadows - one from the light falling from the window, and the second - metal, equal in everything to the figure, only lying. Somewhere these shadows are superimposed on each other, somewhere they fall on different sides.
I must say that Meganom is an obvious trendsetter of Moscow model fashion: a couple of years ago, architects showed models made of rusty iron - now, entering the main halls, one can observe that the idea has been picked up - in the meantime, the authors are already developing new material, and it is possible that in the next year something lace will come into fashion.
Meganom's exhibition, as it was noticed, avoids the traditional exposition with renders and plans - it is devoted not to the result, but to the process - only here it has isolated itself into a separate semi-sculpture genre - it is more correct to call such models objects, they are not auxiliary material, they are in and for themselves, individual works of art. Looking at layouts of this quality, you might think that the authors grow their houses, sequentially making them in different scales and techniques: they make a small, for example paraffin, embryo, then a house larger and in detail, then even bigger, then a full-size layout, then a real house. This kind of biology is not in form, but in time. And apparently, there are a lot of embryos.
Another genre traditionally presented at Arch Moscow is the genre of architectural fun. It should be noted here the "Tsereteli Museum", shown in the Arch Catalog by Boris Bernasconi, who still found how to hide the hated Peter. The most interesting project on the second floor is the foam tower of V. Savinkin and V. Kuzmin. This structure is made of polystyrene packages up to the ceiling, in places not completely processed, but in places growing to a high relief depicting the main character of a good still life - a bottle, with inclusions in the form of small models and other foreign bodies. It looks like a Hindu temple and a skyscraper. Moscow as a skyscraper. Students of the Moscow Architectural Institute, who participated in the construction of the Penoplarkh-a (this is the name of the tower), are walking around, dressed with fragments of foam plastic boxes, apparently left over from production. This tower definitely attracts attention, it can be said to be the main attraction in the main hall.
Another attraction - many architects participated in its creation, is dedicated to chairs painted by different authors. It has an interesting entrance - three white planes imitating perspective, onto which the cinema is projected - if you look at it for a long time, your head may spin.
Two similar projects show art objects, mostly wooden and very funny and intended for installation not here, but far from Moscow - this is the well-known Nikolo-Lenivetsky Arch-standing, which takes place twice a year in the Kaluga region on the Ugra River and a student expanse of the same kind that is just being prepared - "Shaman-city", which is to be built in the summer on Lake Baikal. The first one on Strelka, accompanied by cheerful music and treats with a swing, overshadowed by a wonderful two-headed rooster, shows ready-made objects of many venerable authors. The second in the Central House of Artists exhibits layouts, which are difficult to pass, if only because the first is the "tree of desires", on which an unsteady student hand says "tired of studying."
The main theme of "Arch-Moscow", set by the curator - urban planning, noticeably echoes in the motto of the last Venice Biennale, which was seriously focused on the problems of cities, mathematical calculations and aerial photography. In Moscow, the topic has developed in its own way - an echo of the European understanding of the problem is borne by two expositions - the stands with the materials of the Project International magazine located in Art Play, and the exhibition brought by the CSA in "Red October" dedicated to Barcelona - marked last fall in Venice as a city that successfully solved their problems.
I must say that there are two types of urban planning in Moscow. One, boring and overregulated, was inherited from late Soviet times. It is based on laborious and complex scientific considerations and seeks to preserve the environment, including the horizon lines and the rules of insolation. This is what architects encounter on councils when approving projects. Anyone who has attended such councils will confirm that rumors about the absence of theoretical urban planning in Moscow are greatly exaggerated.
The second is real, it deals with getting around the limitations of the first and making as much money as possible - it gives work to architects. His achievements are visible everywhere, especially well from afar - for example, on the road to the Central House of Artists from the Oktyabrskaya metro station, two towers of Moscow City under construction are clearly visible. The two main themes of the second type of urban planning are the skyscraper and the quarter, and they were developed in architectural expositions, the authors of most of which considered it their duty to show their most ambitious, city-wide projects.
Sergei Skuratov showed two blocks at once - one, the area of elite houses on the site of the Kauchuk plant behind the Luzhniki Stadium, represented on the second floor by a huge model made of different types of wood. The second will be built north of the wall from the Donskoy Monastery. The ABV group exhibited an object hanging over the intersection of Aminevskoye Highway and Michurinsky Prospect. The already mentioned installation by Savinkin / Kuzmin and the competition organized by A. Kochurkin for the "Triumphal Mark", which from year to year arranges notable projects - the results of the competition will be announced at 18:00 on Friday.
It must be admitted that this year the curator managed to reorganize the exhibition much more strongly - the themes of the past years were superimposed on top as an addition, but here the problem is serious, and the innovations are obvious. The disclosure of the topic turned out to be ambiguous - European analytics remained on external sites, and in the Central House of Artists, urban planning was shown through the eyes of practicing architects. The legislative-theoretical part and the scientific part of Moscow urban planning remained outside the framework - however, it is very difficult to show them. The topic "Arch of Moscow" in 2008, announced at the press conference, sounds less definite - "How to live", and it is not known, with an exclamation mark or a question mark.