What is the essence of the profession of an architect for you?
For architecture, man has a heart, brain and soul. The heart is a sensory organ, it feels beauty. The brain is intellectual, this is for the truth. The soul is a moral sensation. And the task is to hear and connect all this. An artist all his life has been accumulating something inside himself and giving away. And mastery is the ability to hear correctly within oneself. And the more honestly, more precisely, sincerely we give ourselves, the more architecture gets.
Where does the accumulation come from?
For me, these are probably three sources. Or four. First, just professional communication. Conversations, friends, discussions. Secondly, books, magazines. Then - everything built. The buildings are very different, both modern and historical. Well, and something else unprofessional. Just impressions - films, books, memoirs.
So you think it is possible to learn from modern architecture? At your contemporaries?
There is very little good modern architecture. Even in the West, I'm not even talking about us. In my opinion, we don't have any good architecture at all. I mean the last ten to fifteen years. There is not a single house that could be considered a success. There are compromises, more successful, less, but there is no such thing that one could say - a monument. No one. And this is a problem, there is no bar from which to count. Rather, I'm still trying to measure myself against history. Rome, Florence, Siena - this is the real thing. It gives a lot, you really need to absorb it. You just understand what a wall is, what a stone is.
What do you like about Russian architecture? Constructivism?
Oddly enough, I don't really like Russian constructivism. He gave me nothing. I don’t know why. He is somehow too worker-peasant for me, or something. Some sort of all in terms of rank. They were inventing a new form for general use. I do not need a form for general use, I hate - "like everyone else." I don't even want to breathe like everyone else.
Is the Western avant-garde different from this? They also invented housing machines?
Corbusier gave me a lot. But not an early one, not a housing unit, not a car for housing. Why is housing a car? Housing is a palace. This is a sculpture. Rather, a good car is a sculpture. For me, Corbusier is the Ronshan Chapel. This is a unique space, a unique experience. This is art. And it only expresses it.
Usually Russian architects, who, like you, work in modern forms, turn to constructivism in the order of, so to speak, national self-identification. Constructivism here turns out to be like a variant of the Russian style. Is it important to you?
This national theme is not important to me at all. For some reason, for some reason, as a rule, I have Jewish customers, Tajik builders, and people of all nationalities buy apartments - what kind of architecture can there be, besides Russian? I live here, I build here - how can this not be Russian architecture? I don't understand why you need to specifically think about it. There is me - that's enough to get Russian architecture.
That is, for you, architecture is the self-expression of a master? Like a painting. Not an expression of place, function, money, society - but just a master? Yourself?
Yes, ultimately it is. We, of course, do not come into emptiness. There is a specific place, time, customer. Well, as a doctor comes to a specific patient with a specific disease, and must treat him. Obliged, took the Hippocratic Oath. But the question is how to heal. Architecture is art. You can only treat yourself. In my opinion, any person should at some point tell themselves why you work in this place. And here it is wrong to answer that you simply cannot do anything else. And if you ask me why you are doing this, I will say - because I love it. I love doing something out of nothing. When out of emptiness, out of nothing, a house is born. I just love it.
But is this birth itself an act of art for you? But what about the function, modern materials, economics, approvals? Is this nothing?
I don't know what to discuss here. All this goes without saying. Yes, of course, I understand how the building will work both functionally and economically. I understand how it will be built. I know construction techniques very well, I have already built so much that today I teach builders how to do it. And they are very afraid of me, because if they cheat, I make them break. My buildings have to stand for a long time. Yes, I enjoy materials, textures, surfaces. The combination of stained Canadian oak with Belgian bricks can bring real pleasure. But I know all this at once, from the inside, there is nothing to discuss. Maybe this needs to be discussed inside the studio, with the architects who work for me, so that they adequately embody my ideas. But there are no creative topics, it's just literacy. You're not going to ask the Ferrari designer if his petrol pump is working properly? He will just be offended and leave.
That is, architecture is not born out of this?
Architecture is born from an attraction to a place - your attraction. It can be different, warm, cold, passionate, hidden - but attraction. You need to grope for the correct configuration of this place. This is what architecture is born out of. You need to understand that the solution is actually - in a metaphysical sense - only one. In a sense, this place already knows how it should look, you just have to reveal this solution. It is one - correct, the rest - false moves.
But then it’s not you, does this place know how it should look?
But I came there. If someone else had come, I don't know what would have happened. But I came. And so there can be only one solution. This is some kind of crossroads of fate, the quintessence of existence, when you connected with a place. in my opinion, it cannot be accidental. After that, you can draw.
Do you think in pictures?
No, there must be something before the drawing. Something has to grow there, inside you. This is not a complete image, not a ready-made solution, this is some kind of impulse - it must appear. Then you need to listen to it. Sometimes I walk around the place for weeks, looking, thinking and not drawing anything. And then it appears, and then there are drawings.
But your drawings look exactly like spontaneous ideas, impulses
Yes. When I didn’t know how to create as an architect, I worked as an artist. I have done hundreds of watercolors. I have been drawing since childhood. But today, for me, drawing is not a complete artistic value, it is a stage in the formation of an image. The drawing contains the general idea, move, flash.
Drawing as a way of aesthetic verification? Well, I don't know, the masses, the proportions, how it all got on the paper …
No, this is all searched for in models. For me, drawing is not a way of checking, it does not have the necessary distance for me. This is too my, too intimate business.
