Two-thirds of the history of Russian architecture is written in the Latin alphabet.
Assumption and Archangel Cathedrals, Ivan the Great and the Spasskaya Tower, Ascension in Kolomenskoye and the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Alexandrian Pillar, St. Isaac's and Smolny Cathedrals, Tsarskoe Selo and Pavlovsk, the Hermitage and the Arch of the General Staff Building, the Krasnoye Znamya plant and the Tsentrosoyuz building …
All this was built by foreign architects.
Over the past 15 years, at least 50 foreign architects have been designing in Russia.
And nothing was built.
Let's be correct: something, of course, was built in the 90s. Or at least actively participated in the process. But, starting to list these joint works, you feel some inconsistency with the list with which we started.
International Bank on Prechistenskaya Naberezhnaya, Unikombank on Daev Lane, Sovmortrans in Rakhmanovsky, Park Place on Leninsky Prospekt, Sberbank on Vavilov Street, office buildings on Shchepkina and Trubnaya streets, Smolensky Passage, business center Zenit on Vernadsky Avenue, Sberbank building on Andronievskaya Square and the only fully-fledged "imported" house - the British Embassy on Smolenskaya Embankment.
All of these were high-quality - against the general background - objects, which was largely ensured by the involvement of foreign builders: Skanska, ENKA, Ove Arup have been present on the Russian market since the mid-80s. But there was no architectural breakthrough. The private customer had not yet gained power, and the authorities were not too interested in modern architecture. The Law on Architectural Activity, adopted in 1995, regulated the activities of foreigners seemingly humanely: “Foreign citizens … can take part in architectural activities on the territory of the Russian Federation only in conjunction with an architect-citizen of the Russian Federation … having a license”. But the implementation of the Law was reduced to such a number of approvals that the importance of the local architect began to outweigh, and sometimes nothing remained of the foreign one. As a result, all of the above-mentioned objects bear the stamp of a harsh compromise, regardless of the big names that stand behind them: Wilm Alsop or Ricardo Bofill … …
But these were all flowers.
The expansion began at the turn of the century, and the first real berry was Eric Owen Moss. In 2001, a Californian deconstructivist designed the New Building for the Mariinsky Theater. His extravagant image caused a huge scandal in society, and the fact that he did it out of friendship, without any competition - serious unrest in the professional environment. The project was overwhelmed, but they promised to announce the first international competition in the history of Russia.
In the spring of 2002, Mercury invited the Swiss Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron to design the "Village of Luxury" in Barvikha. The sketch was made, but the customer did not like it. Luxury Village was built by Yuri Grigoryan.
In the fall of 2002, a competition was held for the building of the City Hall and the Moscow City Duma in the City. It was attended by such world stars as Alsop and Moss, Bofill and von Gerkan, Schneider and Schumacher, Neutelings and Riedijk. Mikhail Khazanov won.
In the spring of 2003 there is a competition for the building of the Mariinsky. It features Hans Hollein and Mario Botta, Arata Isozaki and Eric Owen Moss, Eric van Egerat and Dominique Perrault. The latter wins, but the project is rammed, taken away, Perrault refuses from authorship.
In autumn 2003, a PR company for the Russian Avant-garde project by Eric van Egerat begins. Russian architects grumble, Alexei Vorontsov accuses Egerat of plagiarism, nevertheless, the project is in full swing for approval - and unexpectedly gets a shake right at the meeting of the Public Council for Architecture and Urban Planning. The mayor says the project is good, but that's why he needs to find a better place.
In the spring of 2004 it became known that Zaha Hadid was designing a residential building on Zhivopisnaya Street for the Capital Group. A poorly worked out picture, like a secret symbol, wanders the Internet, in the same form it appears on Arch-Moscow, then the project freezes.
Finally, in the summer of 2004, Norman Foster is announced in Moscow and embodies the concept of an "architectural star" for the general public. A full house at lectures, queues for an exhibition in the Pushkin Museum, tons of interviews … The project of the Russia Tower in the City was even approved, but so many Moscow co-authors were involved in the work that the result is incomprehensible. The project that won the New Holland redevelopment competition caused a storm of protests and stuck. The mayor of Moscow did not like the project of the hotel complex on the site of the hotel "Russia", was sent for revision, and then it turned out that the tender for the demolition of the hotel itself was illegitimate.
Let's interrupt the martyrology at this - it is infinite. We can, of course, say that seven years is not a period. However, Berlin has become the architectural capital in ten years, and Dominique Perrault sadly states that in the same five years that the bogeyman with the Mariinsky Theater drags on, he managed to build a university in Seoul - no less complex and much larger.
The history of the presence abroad turns out to be rather dull - while the structure of all these non-accomplishments is marvelously diverse. Designed by a foreigner can be demolished (the building of the US Embassy), built and abandoned (business center "Zenith"), canceled (project for the City of Meinhard von Gerkan), transferred to other hands ("City of Capitals" by Eric van Egerat, "The Legend of the Tsvetnoy" father and son Benish), moved to another place ("Russian avant-garde" by Eric van Egerat), declared illegal (reconstruction of Norman Foster's Zaryadye), it can also be built with major changes (Kisho Kurokawa's "Zenith" stadium) or just move with a big creak (Tower "Russia" by Norman Foster, office building of Zaha Hadid on Sharikopodshipnikovskaya street) …
However, if we analyze the problems that stand in the way of all these failures, we will be surprised to find their presence in the history of those buildings with which we started.
Customers of the Mariinsky and Capital Cities believe that the constructive decision of the authors is difficult and unsafe. In 1830, the Council for the Construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral concludes that the innovative proposal of the Frenchman Auguste Montferrand to erect a building on a grillage (a solid foundation slab on a pile foundation) is "harmful, and maybe even dangerous." In addition, the Council doubts the feasibility of creating a portico of monolithic columns.
A year earlier, the Italian Carl Rossi decided to use iron floors in the building of the Alexandrinsky Theater. A fearful expert writes a report to the sovereign, and the construction is stopped. Offended Rossi replies: "If any misfortune occurs from the construction of a metal roof, then let me be immediately hanged on one of the rafters!"
Dominique Perrault is accused of overstating the estimated cost of the Mariinsky. In 1820, his compatriot Montferrand was removed from the management of the construction budget for Isaac, accused of embezzling royalties for the painting and hinted at a personal interest in choosing a contractor for the dismantling of the predecessor cathedral. In 1784, Ekaterina Dashkova "bargained" with Quarenghi, believing that he was creating too many decorations for the facade of the Academy of Sciences. The architect justifies himself: "Platbant is necessary, since it serves for a large proportion, and as a decoration and the best view of the building, which her Excellency wants to make in the simplest way" …
Capital Group is disappointed in Eric van Egerat's Capital City project and hands over the case to the American bureau NBBJ. At the same time - since the advertisement has been launched - the firm insists on preserving some semblance and continues to use Egerat's sketches. Egerat sues and wins. In 1784, Giacomo Quarenghi began to build the Exchange building on the spit of Vasilievsky Island. And even manages to bring the walls up to the cornice. In 1804, the emperor did not like the project and he hands over the case to the "brisk", according to Grabar, Tom de Thomon, who erects one of the symbols of the city. Quarenghi hates Tomon for the rest of his life.
Italian Mario Botta is designing a Swiss cultural center in St. Petersburg. The City Planning Council states that the project “does not correspond to the spirit of the city” and decides to move it somewhere. They move it back and forth, in the end they push it somewhere behind Okhta, after which the investor, naturally, loses all interest in him. In 1719, Botta's compatriot Domenico Trezzini built the palace of Prince Cherkassky on the Spit of Vasilievsky Island. Seven years later, the emperor gave the command: the palace “to disassemble both the stone and the brick in the building of the Audience Chamber and the Senate for the best view and space of the square” …
In the project of an office building on Sharikopodshipnikovskaya, Zaha Hadid is laying large horizontal roofs. Effective and you can go out of the offices to the terrace. However, in Moscow, snow, which it is not clear how to remove from there, means that the project needs to be changed, and the authors in the contract stipulate that the customer is responsible for changing the project in rubles. The project freezes. In 1928, specifically for Moscow conditions, Corbusier develops a system of "correct breathing" - ventilation and heating between the glazing frames of the Tsentrosoyuz building. But this particular zest is not embodied. Therefore, the building is either terribly hot or terribly cold, but at least it was built …
We see that all these problems did not prevent foreigners from creating the glory of Russian architecture. Moreover, all of its main milestones are associated precisely with their visits: Renaissance and Mannerism, Baroque and Classicism …
This is where the fundamental difference is revealed. Peter and Catherine called foreign architects in order to build something. They were sincerely interested in modernizing the country, in Europeanizing and civilizing it.
New Russian clients call them not at all for this.
The first evidence of this is the strangeness of the competitions. It would seem that the competition is a proven and convenient way to get an original solution. But it is costly, which means it is not necessary. Competitions do happen, of course. But even when they want the best, it comes out as always. Mariinka, Gazprom, Strelna …
Another evidence of the specificity of the order is that the truly fresh Western architecture that Bart Goldhorn (publisher of the Project Russia magazine and permanent curator of the Arch-Moscow exhibition) is so persistently pushing to Russia is categorically not successful. It seems that precisely because its progressiveness is determined by restraint, adequacy, simplicity, purity, rationality and other Protestant values. Which, of course, are not honored in Russia.
Finally - and this seems to be the most important thing - it is not "stellar" enough. After all, the current customers call not just foreigners, but stars. Although the former masters (with the exception of Schlüter and Leblond) were not stars in their homeland. But what can I say, sometimes they were not architects either! Cameron and Quarenghi were known only as draftsmen, Trezzini as a master of fortifications, Galovey as a watchmaker, Chafin as a miner … And only here they became what they would call “stars” today.
In general, there is a persistent feeling that the PR that arises around all these stories is enough for the customer. That all this, in modern terms, is nothing more than show-off. However, show-off as the driving force of progress in Russia is an important thing. Moving away from the ambitions of the customer, we can assume that even the very facts of the arrival of modern stars in Russia will become milestones in the development of its architecture. After all, even such unimpressive buildings as the Cosmos Hotel or the World Trade Center - built in the 1980s with the participation of foreigners - were such a breath of fresh air in the absence of fish.
“Foreign stars are allowed more than we are,” says the architect Nikolai Lyutomsky, who built Park Place and the Zenit business center together with foreigners, and now works with Zakha Hadid. - "But I will make a restaurant in the Greek Hall of the Pushkin Museum!" - Foster will say - and suddenly it turns out that it can be. That is, they are paving the way for us in a sense, creating a precedent."
The evolution of society's attitude to this invasion is characteristic.
The very first big project (Mariinsky Mossa) caused an ambiguous reaction in the professional community. Everyone was unanimously outraged by the secrecy of the choice, but at the same time, they also supported the project in unison. Considering that “Russia is sorely lacking radical architecture” (Eugene Ass), that “something new must be built in St. Petersburg, otherwise the city will die” (Boris Bernasconi), that “this is a brilliant provocation, very necessary to shake up the stagnant swamp of our architecture”(Mikhail Khazanov) that“we absolutely need the presence of such people and such things to raise the bar”(Nikolai Lyzlov).
That is, at first in Russia they really hoped for the West. We believed that foreigners would push our architecture forward, set the benchmark, and create the competition necessary for development. And then - seeing what is happening in reality, disappointment begins. As keen as the hopes were strong.
It turns out that the stars do a mess, do not bother to understand the climatic and psychological characteristics, do not delve into the historical context, that they view our country as a third world, which can sell a stale product as a source of gold. There is, of course, the obvious fact that the stars are becoming real competitors of local architects, but their annoyance is understandable: it would be fine if the stars were starring, otherwise …
Attitudes towards the stars are changing not only within the shop. Even the press, which so joyfully promoted Western stars throughout the entire beginning of the century, is cooling off. One architectural magazine publishes a characteristic heading "Star under a Microscope" - in which Russian architects willingly debunk the myths that have developed around their Western colleagues …
Catherine II writes: "We have the French who … build shoddy houses, worthless either inside or outside, and all because they know too much."
But we will agree that the situation in which a miracle is first expected from the stars, and then escorted out with a hoot, is largely provoked by the customer.
It's not the stars who formulate the TK, from which it follows that a 400-meter skyscraper can be piled up behind the Smolny Cathedral, and the mystical island of New Holland can be turned into a cheap attraction.
It is not the stars who are demolishing the Frunzensky department store and the recreation center of the First Five-Year Plan.
It is not the stars who invite foreigners to participate in the competition (as was the case with the Gazprom skyscraper); it is not they who are organizing an additional parallel competition to the one that has already taken place (as was the case with the congress center in Strelna).
It is not the stars who do not think about how their super-complex structures will be exploited - the customer is not aware of this.
This is not Montferrand, but Nicholas I proposes to gild the sculpture on the pediments of St. Isaac's Cathedral …
Comparing the events of the last three years (everything is moving in St. Petersburg, everything is stuck in Moscow), one could say that Moscow, unlike St. Petersburg, shows great pride in the stars. But then it becomes incomprehensible: why do we need stars at all? If we are not ready to play a game called "modern architecture" then there is nothing to puff up. To compromise this game and constantly substitute themselves. And if you are ready, then you need to stipulate conditions more stringently (if Peter, then no skyscrapers!) And not put the stars in a stupid position.
After all, what are the stars? They do what is expected of them. This is their sad cross. They no longer belong to themselves, they are a brand. Therefore, in the competition for the Gazprom skyscraper, Libeskind's everything is crooked again, Nouvel's is transparent, and Herzog and de Meuron's has a tourniquet …
It's a shame not for the stars, but for the image of Russia they have there, in the starry sky, is taking shape. And the image is this: in Russia they saw that architecture is cool, and they are ready to pay big money for the brand.
It is possible, however, to assume (as Grigory Revzin wittily did) that the stars make up for the projectivity that was characteristic of Russian architecture during the heyday of “paper architecture”. Today, local architects are inundated with real projects, they have no time for this, but longing for a dream remains! This is what foreign architects are embodying with their stubbornly unrealized projects. Another thing is that no one limited Russian dreamers in the composition of paper locks of the 80s: the order was unambiguously utopian, and therefore the result was so fantastic. Foreigners, on the other hand, honestly try to fit in with local realities, always strive to please, twist nesting dolls in their heads - that's why their projects rarely cause delight.
What can I say. Cameron built Catherine Agate rooms - a masterpiece and a miracle, but the customer is unhappy. “It’s strange that the whole building for the bath is built, but the bath came out thin, you cannot wash in it!"
But in the meantime, while the "star boom" remains "paper", foreigners in Russia are still building. The conditionally foreign architect Sergei Tchoban is completing the Federation Tower in the City.
Frenchman Jean Michel Wilmotte, who never built a new embankment in Volgograd (project of 2004), is finishing a business center on Prospekt Mira commissioned by the Krost company. German Ulrich Tillmans is building "Villange" - one of the residential buildings of Krost's "Welton Park". The Iset tower was laid in Yekaterinburg, designed by the French bureau Valode & Pistre. In Astana, Norman Foster built his own pyramid.
But what do we see? That it is not the stars who build, but the masters of the third row. What is being built not in Moscow, but in other cities. That they are not building iconic hits, but simply high-quality objects. That is, there is, as the president would say, a "working process". But he will hardly be able to help in overcoming provincialism. This task still remains with Russian architects.
This is convinced not only by the growing quality of Russian architecture, but also by historical patterns.
If we use the famous scheme of Vladimir Paperny, in which “Culture One” appreciates abroad, and “Culture Two” opposes it, then it turns out that everything happens as it should be throughout the 20th century: the 20s love “abroad”, the 30s - oppose, 50s and 60s - love again, 70s and 80s - oppose again. At the end of the century - due to ideological changes and information transparency - this situation loses its acuteness, but it persists in milder forms. In the 90s, the country is open to the West, in the 2000s, it begins to move in the opposite direction. And therefore, the appearance of foreign architects, justified and prepared by the 90s, in the 2000s takes on the character of a strange confrontation. They are actively called, but instead of taking advantage of the fruits of their labors, they prefer to "cut" in Shukshin's way.
This situation is reminiscent of the watershed of the 20s and 30s. In the 20s, Corbusier and Mendelssohn, May and Kahn are designing in Russia. The competition for the Palace of Soviets is becoming a border. Feeding illusions, nurtured by the 20s, foreigners send projects (Corbusier, Mendelssohn, Hamilton), but as soon as they understand that no one needs it here, that the course has changed, everything stops. Half of their projects remain unfulfilled, Tsentrosoyuz's legs are swaddled, Corbusier refuses authorship, and Anton Urban dies in dungeons altogether. And Russian architecture begins to follow its own path, which turns out to be infinitely far from the world, but, nevertheless, creates quite outstanding things on this path. Which seems fantastic to Western stars today: this is how Herzog and de Meuron reacted to seven Moscow skyscrapers.
Abroad for Russia is not at all the same as for any other country. This is much more than a neighbor on the map. This is a myth, a complex, a fad, in which love and hate, desire and fear, attraction and repulsion, envy and pride, parroting and self-abasement converge on equal terms. The kings call foreigners, but wash their hands after greeting the ambassadors. That is why Russia is so stubbornly resistant to globalization - at least in those areas where national pride has some historical basis.
There is a feeling that everything is sour in some kind of swamp - although there seem to be no obvious reasons for this. The image of this gloomy racial hopelessness was formulated by Andrei Platonov. Describing in "Epiphany Sluices" how, on the wave of foreign successes, the English engineer Bertrand Perry arrives in Russia - to build a lock between the Oka and the Don by Peter's order. He makes a project, work begins, and then everything is as usual. Peasants driven to work run away, contractors steal, German technicians are sick, the voivode drinks … Then it turns out that the pre-project surveys were done in a full-flowing year, but now there is no water, expanding the underground well, Bertrand destroys the water-containing clay layer … The gateway will not be built, Briton Peter will execute, and "that there will be little water, all the women in Epiphany knew about that a year ago, so all the inhabitants looked at work as a royal game and a foreign venture."
