The new magazine ‘SPEECH:’ is a massive, massive tome, filled with illustrations as well as tight text. It is filled, and it would be even more accurate to say - it is overflowing with information, which justifies the English decoding of its name. Speech, as you know, is speech. Two dots after the word in the logo of the magazine emphasize this meaning: a speech is written on the cover, then we open it and the story itself goes, detailed, logically built, very “collected” and purposeful. No ads (sic!). And there is: a detailed introduction to the topic, revealing this topic, articles about Russian and foreign buildings, a full English translation along the way, at the end of the publication of historical texts.
The main feature of the 'SPEECH:' magazine is that it was founded by practicing architects - the heads of the workshop of the same name, formed two years ago by the merger of Sergey Tchoban's bureau and the SPProekt workshop of Sergey Kuznetsov and Pavel Shaburov: the aforementioned colon is also intended to distinguish logo of the magazine 'SPEECH:' from the workshop 'SPeeCH'. You might think that with the appearance of the magazine, the combination of letters in the name of the workshop seemed to have finally realized the meaning inherent in it.
And this is the most interesting thing, because the establishment of a professional magazine by the heads of an architectural workshop is an unusual thing, quite rare, I would even say out of the ordinary. Its second peculiarity, which is obvious when reading the first issue, is an application to talk about plastic, almost about "pure form". The third feature comes from a combination of the first and the second: the theme of the magazine is ornament, one of the main ones in the Russian architectural practice of Sergei Tchoban. It cannot be said that there were no ornamental motives here before Tchoban, but it was with his appearance in Russia that ornamental facades became a theme. The best known are St. Petersburg's Langensiepen and the Benois house, but SPeeCH has already designed two such houses in Moscow - an office center on Mozhaisky Val and the Byzantine House.
The magazine examines the topic widely: the milestones in the history of ornament in Russian architecture are noted by Professor Vladimir Sedov in his article, Bernhard Schultz discovers a "secret ornament" in the architecture of classical modernism. At the end of the issue, the text of the famous article "Ornament and Crime" by Adolf Loos is published. It is likely that the expulsion of patterns from architecture was the result of a misreading of this essay - and thus the publication of a key "source" for the topic resolves a long chain of controversies that began a century ago. The discussion, however, continues - and the magazine seeks to involve both Russian and foreign architects and practitioners in it. So, in the heading "Pros and Cons", two outwardly very similar architects with different, although not opposite positions - Christoph Langhof and Nikolai Lyzlov argue about ornament.
The main content of the journal is an overview of ornamental tendencies within the framework of neomodernism. This is, if not an anthology, then at least a reader of the latest ornamental modernism. The topic, as they say, is disclosed according to the classical canons - the phenomenon is described, illustrated, the dotted line shows the tradition to which it belongs, and the vicissitudes of its development over the past century are indicated. I would like to give such a volume to students - it professionally closes some gap in knowledge.
Thus, the architects developing the theme of ornament in their projects initiated an art study of this topic and calmly stood in a row, not sticking out (only one of the works of Sergei Tchoban is considered in detail), but also not embarrassed by the neighborhood. This situation is also unusual, because, as a rule, Moscow architects are not very fond of comparisons. A true modernist radical seems to have to constantly come up with something fundamentally new. New things come out extremely rarely, which in itself is completely normal, but the majority of today's authors still do not like comparisons. Although there are exceptions, and more and more of them. The ‘SPEECH’ magazine is an exception in the box, here architects not only do not shy away from comparisons, but much more than that - they create a professional publication in which art historians and critics study topics relevant to architects.
First of all, this speaks of a firm confidence in the usefulness of one's creativity - the confidence that, being put in a row, it will take its rightful place there. On the other hand, this approach is a sign of a non-modernist (maybe post- or neo-modernist) attitude to the situation - it is not for nothing that the introduction says about the need to restore a long-interrupted tradition. The tradition of finding roots and determining one's place in a number of modern trends. That - and this must be emphasized - has nothing to do with traditionalism or conservatism as such; here we can rather talk about the search for a new reading of an old topic.
The theme itself is an ornament, inexhaustible and you can talk about it endlessly. Starting, for example, with the fact that ornament is the first form of fine art and at the same time writing, it has a rhythm and a high degree of abstraction - generalization. Therefore, it is not surprising that it was the ornament that turned out to be the simplest and most natural form of introducing pictoriality into modernist architecture. And saturation of this architecture with meaning. Strictly speaking, there are three main ways of "comprehending" modernist architecture - to look for meaning in simple forms as such, to create a large "speaking" form (to something similar) and - to cover surfaces with drawings. The last way is the least plastic, it works in terms of surface dematerialization (along with the glitter of glass), but it is the most saturated with information.
It certainly looks very solid. But the most interesting thing about this magazine is that it is part of the comprehension of a living creative process, for some reason I want to understand it as a kind of manifesto made with German thoroughness, French elegance and Russian passion.
The magazine will be published twice a year. Not all issues will be devoted to the analysis of such "formal" topics as ornament. Probably, next will be followed by a magazine devoted to the relationship between modern design and architectural monuments - says the editor-in-chief of ‘SPEECH’ Irina Shipova. However, the main features of the publication will remain: each issue will strive to reveal as much as possible one topic that is relevant to modern architecture, consider the most interesting incarnations of the topic in Russian and foreign architecture, and the topics will be associated with that part of the profession of an architect that gives reason to consider it art (and not just a part of the square footage trade).
Such an approach is in demand by professionals - it is noticeable if only because famous Moscow architects and German architect Christoph Langhof were present at the presentation of the magazine at the Museum of Architecture. The presentation was accompanied by a "teleconference" - a lecture by architects Astrid Klein and Mark Daytem, working in Tokyo. An exhibition of photographs by Yuri Palmin, organized by the Format photo agency, was also opened.
The exhibition is called Ornamental Facades of Moscow and features 9 of 12 photographs taken by Yuri Palmin for the first issue of ‘SPEECH’ magazine. The photographs, as always, are good and represent a selection of typical examples of facade ornamentation for different periods - from eclecticism through Art Nouveau and further up to the "hidden ornament" of classical modernism. In the magazine, Palmin's photographs become another, alternative way of presenting the history of architectural ornament. In the museum, they become a "second facade", which is a pity to remove.
The photographs were placed right in the courtyard of the museum (there was also a presentation there) - they were printed on a plastic mesh, which is used to tighten scaffolding and stretch on metal structures more than two meters high. Thus, a plane appears in front of the wall of the Talyzins' house, bearing an exposition dedicated to the facades - the second facade, the double facade. This is spectacular and unusual for a museum, so it is worth taking a look at the exposition. The exhibition is part of the Moscow Architecture Biennale and will run until June 23.
The first issue of 'SPEECH:' can be purchased at the Moskva bookstore on Tverskaya Street, the bookshop of the Museum of Architecture, at the Moscow Architectural Institute, or send an electronic application for the purchase of the magazine to the address: [email protected]
