Yu. T. -
How would you define the nature of your architecture yourself?
Alexey Bavykin -
Yes, perhaps, it is really difficult to classify me according to the concepts accepted now - I do not fall into either modernists or neoclassicism. I would say that my theme is the intersection of both. The first piece on this topic was done 20 years ago for the Style of the Year competition. It was a glass prism into which the stone imprint of Adolph Loos' column was inserted.
I've always thought the Loos Tower was the most interesting design in the 1922 Chicago Tribune competition for which it was made. Gropius's project, made for the same competition, is fashionable, modernist, but weaker. Anyway, I think that Loos Tower is the most dashing and advanced project of the 20s.
Why?
Because Loos was a very forward-thinking man. He was the father of all this modernist architecture, which he spawned after moving away from modernity. But already in 1922 he made his own column. Have you read Loos's explanatory note, which he attached to the competition project? It says there: maybe not me and not here, not in Chicago, but somewhere else - but such a thing will definitely be built. And sooner or later there will be people who will understand this topic and it will be from them that a new line in architecture will go.
So when Aldo Rossi asked me a direct question - what do you think about the style of 2001? - I gave this answer. Received some kind of second prize, which was not the only one. According to rumors, Aldo Rossi dragged this project in every possible way, as a European man, and the Japanese did not understand anything.
Did you have such a connection before “style of 2001”?
No, before that I was a pretty tough postmodernist.
As a matter of fact, everything else, my most successful pieces, is a continuation of that theme. How to define it, I do not know, I am not a critic and sometimes I get confused in definitions. But in my opinion, this is a continuation of the search of the early 30s. It was a phenomenal surge, but it was not fully realized, because everything remained in ideas and paper projects, and very few buildings from this direction remained.
You once said that you see your task in continuing the formal search for the rationalists of ASNOVA …
Naturally, because these people came to talk about pure form. But a lot of the guys made fuss and all sorts of squabbles and fought among themselves for a long time. Then Comrade Stalin told them how to draw - and everyone was delighted, they said, oh, how great!
It is believed that the turn that happened in the 30s was forced …
This is the point of view of Khan-Magomedov, I do not agree with her. I think that a more accurate approach to this topic is in the book by Vladimir Paperny "Culture two" - he believes that for Russian culture in general, starting from Ivan III, and maybe even earlier, there was a cyclical alternation of two, relatively speaking, “Cultures” - “culture one” and “culture two”. One culture he, in particular, refers to the avant-garde of the 20s, culture two - to the Stalinist classicism that replaced it.
Therefore, no one forced anyone to do classicism instead of avant-garde - just tired! In addition, it was very profitable to make Stalin's “culture two”. The system of paying architects in the Soviet Union was one-sheet. Can you imagine how much money Chechulin made? This refinement of the form is a bunch of blueprints that were sold on sheets. They were so happy! The more drawn, the more we earn - and earned.
And what about the constructivist blueprint when it was on one piece of paper? It does not fit into "culture two". Work hard, boy. Melnikov turned out to be too rude for them. He could not draw filigree things the way Alabyan did. Too rude and too orthodox.
Paperny says it is correct - there is culture one and culture two. You just need to take what we have good from culture one and its adherents and all the good that culture two gave. And these people should live peacefully.
What are you doing then?
And I'm hanging out in the middle.
Do you clash or reconcile?
For example, I collide. I sometimes cook both cultures in the same facility.
But you don't really respect culture two
I do not like recklessness. Today we run to that side, tomorrow to this one. I don't want to run in any direction with anyone. I do not want. It's not interesting to me - to run in a herd, here and there.
There are people who consider you an eclectic
No, this is completely wrong. The principle of eclecticism is an arbitrary mixing of styles at the request of the customer. Eclecticism appeared when the rich bourgeoisie appeared and architects appeared who said: Do you want to mix Rome with Byzantium? - you are welcome. In this sense, I am absolutely not eclectic. My topic is not mixing, but the intersection of two cultures. And there is no other topic anymore.
You started building early …
Yes, I have always dreamed of building something and have built a lot, but not everything I like. Like Melnikov has a series of clubs. One good - the undoubted masterpiece of Rusakov's club, and the rest are worse, much lower in level. I have something similar. There are many buildings that I never even publish.
But there is an interesting Blue House on Vernadsky Avenue. Even Ikonnikov has already published it in the history of Russian architecture. Although from somewhere it looks good, and from somewhere it looks bad, I haven’t gotten it into town planning. I didn't have enough volume. I pulled it, pulled it, added a tower, but still there is not enough. When you go to the center, it looks good. When you go from Moscow, he stands in a pit and is almost invisible.
Is the town planning significance of your objects very important to you?
This is, if possible, the restoration of the city-planning meaningful fabric of the city. In the arch-house on Mozhaisk highway, I believe I managed to achieve this effect.
For me, this object is a fundamental starting point, because it reacts to the city, and is very active. This is a fragment of the Stalinist scale of Kutuzovka, pushed to the periphery, and at the same time - a paraphrase of the triumphal arch of Beauvais standing 10 km closer to the city center. If you go here, you see that arch; if you go from there, you see this arch. In addition, in my arch, the intersection of the classic form and the fashionable glass nose that goes through it is accentuated, literally stringing it over itself.
A play has been staged - and I hope that in the next few hundred years this thing will influence what will appear around it. She herself will already dictate, just as Bryusov will dictate what will change there on Bryusov. Since the correct answer to the urban planning problem has been given.
However, the arch on Mozhaisk highway has no cornices, columns, straight classical details. This piece is, on the whole, very modernistic in terms of its plasticity. But it has a subtext. Rethought, necessarily rethought, not directly in any way. Direct classicism - you know how it ends.
And how does it end?
Plastic curtain rods. All this computer stucco molding - now you can simply scan the same Palladio and they will bring you the same cornice made of some rubbish. The small capital, in my opinion, is valuable because it was made by hand, and only then does it have an intrinsic value.
But Moscow has never had Roman arches and aqueducts …
Why wasn't there? And the whole Moscow Empire style? The arch of the same Beauvais is excellent, in Rome there is no such. We kicked Napoleon out of here and put up such an arch. And there is no such arch in Paris. It's worse there. This one is better. Cast iron and good. Cast-iron empire, you know - you can break hell!
Let's develop the theme of the cultural empire …
The topic is wonderful, only it is very complex. This is a topic for a separate conversation, but the essence of the question is that our cultural empire is an endless intersection of culture one and culture two in space and time. The binary system, which, I am convinced, is a characteristic distinguishing feature of the Russian cultural space.
But you don't particularly look at foreign magazines, do you?
Why? Of course I do. It all depends on how you look at them, these magazines. Much of what we see in foreign magazines comes from our 20s, and I can prove this with numerous examples. I look at the source and at the interpretation, I see both at the same time - therefore, looking at another project of Rem Koolhaas, I see where his legs grow from.
It is worse when the magazines are viewed, and the original source is not known. This is our national trait - to spread rot, so that strangers are afraid. In a word, the topic is very simple - you need knowledge of the history of architecture, and the more thorough it is, the better. Redrawing from fashion magazines is nonsense.
This is what pisses me off lately - everyone is crazy about commercial architecture. Do, they say, we are nine by nine like in Europe. What makes you think that these 9x9 are Europe? or America? who told you that?
You don't really like commercial architecture
There is no commercial architecture! It is an invention of those who cannot do anything. Any thing can be done well and correctly, or you can simply say - leave me alone, I am doing commercial architecture. This means that a person has no artistic program. For the last 25 years I have been implementing an art program. If people like it and if people are going to approve and build it, I tell them - more thanks to everyone who helps. Whoever bothers me - with that I have a very tough relationship.
When in this city and in this country there is a huge number of people who have no program at all - neither artistic, nor any, then excuse me, move over, I am the first, you are the second. And in terms of money, too. Pay for art. Palladio was paid huge royalties for the artistic program. And in our time it is possible to achieve such a situation that big money is paid for the implementation of an artistic program, and not for commercial architecture.
The artistic program is implemented, for example, by Skokan, Plotkin and others - they are closer to culture alone. On the cultural side, there are two - Utkin, Filippov, Belov, Barkhin … Brodsky is a completely separate figure. These are people who, besides the fact that they want to make money, also want to actually say something, to convince.
What is your formula for good architecture?
No, I don't. I really love Palladio. He was absolutely the right person. With what he wrote, I absolutely agree. All in the mind.
He has a rather pragmatic treatise …
Absolutely pragmatic. But look how he did everything in Vicenza. His houses shape the cityscape of Vicenza. They are not by themselves, they are very tightly bound to the fabric, they hold it, this fabric. Do you remember what happened? Vicenza lost its political independence and the Venetian bandits arrived there, but already enlightened. Because they are enlightened, they turn to Andrea Palladio. And they say - Andryukha, we wildly like your view of architecture.”Here's a bunch of orders for you, plus you build suburban villas for us. And he, in parallel with the city of Vicenza, is building villas around it, and his customers there freely - and safely - settle down. That is why Palladio is a phenomenon in architecture: he made an amazing city out of Vicenza, set some starting points. And not because there is some special order. He could draw everything differently.
Is High Renaissance architecture your ideal?
Middle … How does Bryusov differ from the Florentine palazzo? Absolutely nothing. Only here is aluminum, some kind of visor. So after all, there is a visor too. Everything is as it should be - a warrant, a courtyard inside. Only in a different way everything is drawn. Because I listened carefully and read a bunch of articles. We were taught this at the institute, we were told - High Renaissance, then we were told - the architecture of Russian classicism. Well, it all remains in the brain.
You are a rare architect who takes the history of architecture so seriously
Well, naturally, I dig into the history of architecture. How about Palladio? He, too, seemed to be digging in some kind of nonsense. Renaissance architecture looked extremely simplified after the most complex Gothic, which was in the 15th century. Gothic master - after all, he built such chic cathedrals that Norman Foster cries there with his designs. But I really don't like these cathedrals because of their task to intimidate people. All the complex constructive techniques there are aimed at giving a person in the head - they say, sit quietly, fear God and turn in your dough. This is a Catholic line that has nothing to do with us. An Orthodox Christian has no right to bargain with God, but a Catholic has. I bought an indulgence - that's all. Although the Orthodox, if they hit him in the liver, also began, of course, to build some kind of chapel. Yes, and I'll probably start.
Could you build a church?
What is now being signed by the Orthodox authorities is completely uninteresting to me. We have not yet reached the point where Russian architects will be allowed to engage in further creative searches in Russian Orthodox architecture.
A cappella in Ronshan Do you like it?
Naturally I like it, because Corbusier, before leaving, nevertheless reported for the work done. Rehabilitated for the city of the sun and the Marseilles unit. Because I believe that it is impossible to build houses for people with such living conditions and a minimum area. After all, the modernists invented them not for themselves (they invented villas for themselves) but for others, for those who were supposed to collectively build a bright future. Although this topic itself - communal houses - is now very fashionable. People come to see them; foreigners, for example, go to the Moscow house-commune of Nikolaev to live there for a couple of weeks. But all this is good as extreme, well, or as the second or third home of the eccentric millionaire. And it is impossible to build such houses so that people would live there permanently.
Is your art program a form of patriotism?
Partly yes. At the same time, I understand that not everything in the fatherland is in order. And it never happens that everything is all right. But the country is worthy and wildly rich. You need to look around carefully, read about Ivan Kalita, about Ivan III, you need to read everything. Now I am happy to restore this chain and it is wildly interesting to me - this mixture of the Horde and Orthodoxy - the Moscow kingdom. I'll open a book - I like it, I'll open another - I don't like it. I would like to be said about me this way - this is a good house, but who built it - it doesn't matter.
Are you building your own direction?
In fact, yes. Now my guys are working, looking at something, who knows, maybe someone will be imbued with these ideas and there will be a game with a continuation. I'm not going to make any school, it's all nonsense - to impose something on someone. I want to do a thing - and for people to look at it. Maybe they will see something interesting there, but if they don’t see it, it doesn’t bother me much.
