The Holiday Inn is a simple building, painted in various shades of gray, with horizontal ribbon windows, small metal balconies, a giant glass-striped atrium and a spiraling staircase inside. A large, but extremely restrained example of neoconstructivism, which has been popular in Moscow for a long time already - for five years, and maybe even more. The laureates themselves said so - "the moment of the return of modernism to the architectural life of the city of Samara", and were supported by the President of the Union of Russian Architects, Yuri Gnedovsky, who presented the award, who said that the hotel was awarded because it was in the mainstream of the Russian avant-garde of the early 20th century, in which As it is well known all over the world, this is the real specificity of Russian architecture.
It turns out that the 2007 “Crystal Daedalus” laureate is an example of the promotion of modernism based on the heritage of the Russian avant-garde in the cities of Russia. In the works of Moscow architects, he has already gained a foothold, and now he began his journey further, relatively speaking, to the provinces. It should be noted here that the Samara architectural school in those years that are now recognized as modern, that is, in the 1990s - 2000s, was not provincial, and in many respects - thanks to the current laureates of Zodchestvo Pastushenko and Samogorov. However, earlier they were better known to the capital for their interiors, which received awards, mainly in the house on Brestskaya - it is worth remembering the White Shark restaurant, which received the Grand Prix of the Interior Festival in 2000 or the Iceberg club. By the way, the interior of the atrium of the hotel Holiday, which was awarded yesterday, has already received the first place in the house on Brestskaya this spring.
The house is wonderful, calm, restrained, it inherits a lot of good things from Russian constructivism, complementing it, as it should be in our time, with beautiful high-tech details. And the Samara architectural school also commands respect, like the Nizhny Novgorod one, one of the brightest representatives of which, Evgeny Pestov, was the chairman of the part of the jury that judged the buildings this year. And the jury's decision seems to be very delicate, extremely balanced - but still somehow very politically correct. Architectural and ecological - as if they were not judging the aesthetic merits of the building (which, of course, he has very much), but tried to make the only right decision on the shaky soil of Russian architecture, in which there are still enough different things - and secondary fantasies a la Zaha Hadid, and national identity in the form of temple eclecticism. As a result, the decision turned out to be so correct that you involuntarily begin to calculate in your head how many different - including international - factors the respected "grand jury" of the competition tried to take into account before making your decision.
This logic obviously involved: the choice of a priority style direction, namely modernism, beloved by foreigners and advanced Russians, with reference to constructivism, plus the desire to find the desired sample away from the “big” capitals, plus lack of ambition, plus the stylish “interior” fame of the authors - in general, the decision looks more logically thought out than aesthetically felt - although I repeat, this does not in the least belittle the chosen building, which is really worthy of all praise. Only one thing stands in the way - this wonderful house, full of modest modernist dignity, looks strange as the best building in the country of the last three years (and the competition this time covered the period 2005-2007). Roughly speaking, he is good and charming and the jury's decision breathes nobility, but the house does not pull on the main masterpiece of recent years. But the political correctness of the Zodchestvo jury, on the contrary, is building up into a certain trend with a small but solid history.
Last year the restorers were awarded (Daedalus was given for the Alexandrinka), this year - the successive neo-constructivists-modernists. There is a desire to find a win-win option - kind to everyone, one that no one will pick on, just ashamed. Politically correct, cautious, very "intelligent". And he is - the trouble is that the only thing missing is the decisiveness and brilliance inherent in leaders, including those of architecture, and especially modern ones. And here a contradiction is revealed. On the one hand, yesterday at the awards ceremony, a simple idea was voiced several times, but not realized - that it would be time for Russian architecture to plug the world’s belt, and that this, they say, is not far off. On the other hand - the most correct choice of the jury.
Next, we will name the main laureates of Zodchestvo. I must say that not all of them fit into the aforementioned trend - some yes, some no, some strive, but not very well. The choice is somehow explainable, but rather variegated. Although one can agree with the opinion of the chairman of the "Grand Jury" Yuri Gnedovsky that the "harvest of buildings" this year was greater - especially compared to the previous one.
“Gold” for the buildings were received: President of the Agrarian Academy Viktor Logvinov for the administrative and business center in Karamyshevsky prospect, 68 (this already makes us recall another trend at the Zodchestvo awards that was relevant some time ago) and Boris Shabunin for the business center on Suschevsky Val.
Gold diplomas in the "projects" section were awarded: for the draft general plan of the city of Gorodets, one of the ancient cities of the Nizhny Novgorod region - and when presenting the award, the chairman of this part of the jury Pavel Andreev commented on it as follows - this is "the only work on which there was no dispute in the jury." Two other gold diplomas were awarded to the Aviation and Cosmonautics Complex at Khodynskoye Pole (Andrey Bokov, Vadim Lenok and many others) and - to Nikita Yavein's project for building up the Ladoga Railway Station square. The latter consists of five glass towers, delicately narrowed upwards - according to the authors, this technique should help the towers not to spoil the "cardiogram" of St. Petersburg; some doubts could be expressed on this score, given that the towers are glass, high (about 30 floors) and, moreover, similar to each other.
Silver diplomas in the section of buildings went to the Heritage Plaza center by Sergey Kiselev (which we have already written about), the administrative building in Petrozavodsk (E. Frolov) - a bright, vaguely reminiscent of the Pompidou Center in Paris and the NCCA in Moscow. The third silver diploma was awarded to the Stella Maris house on Krestovsky Island by architect Yevgeny Gerasimov, an elegant house next to the water, made up of four repeating brick and glass blocks, the roof of each of which is topped with a greenish-copper resemblance of a sail.
Among the projects "silver" was awarded to a hotel on the territory of the park. Frunze in the Sochi workshop of Ginzburg - a transparent building consisting of balconies and blinds; it was separately said about him that this small project was highly appreciated by the jury. Also, a silver diploma was awarded for the project for the restoration of the Vladychnaya Chamber of Novgorod and for the general plan of the Sandy Island of the Vladivostok District, the authors of which admitted that they are striving to "revive urban planning in the distant outskirts."
Gold diplomas in the "architectural workshops" section were awarded to: the workshop of Yuri Vissarionov, which arranged a beautiful black-and-white exposition, and the St. Petersburg studio A'Len.
It must be said that in addition to Daedalus, the main prize of Zodchestvo, the festival also presents the highest award of the Union of Architects of Russia, a medal with a ridiculous name "for high architectural skill", named after the great Russian architect Vasily Bazhenov. It was received by Andrey Bokov, Mikhail Kryshtal and Sergey Kiselev.
And I must also say that instead of the previously characteristic feature of the festival of folklore ensembles, the famous graduate of the Moscow Architectural Institute Andrei Makarevich performed at the ceremony - and sang quite a lot, a whole concert.
A complete list of awardees in the Buildings and Projects sections (including bronze diplomas) can be seen here.
