In Moscow and St. Petersburg, you have designed several buildings with extremely original - both artistically and technically - decorative facades. Ornament is an important topic for you?
It seems to me that working with ornamentation is a very complex topic in modern architecture, there is no unambiguous attitude towards it, it provokes controversy. There are now two main architectural types in the West: the sculpture building and the façade building. But if we are building a facade building, then it needs to be decorated somehow? But, nevertheless, in Germany and in Europe in general, this is viewed with great prejudice. There are many examples when facades are decorated even now, but almost always with some kind of irony or some kind of subtext, so it is certainly premature to say that the ornament has again become a component of the development of facade architecture (not a structure, but a facade). Therefore, when I learned about the existence of large-scale electronic printing technology on a glass surface, I decided to give it a try. This method was first applied in two buildings in St. Petersburg - in the house on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, where classicist, Renaissance forms were "printed", and in the Benois business center. The first is a “flip-flop” building (in which the “classics” are fused into the panels), the second is a building with a narrative ornament, based on theatrical sketches by Alexander Benois - “Benois House”.
Now for the customer who built these two objects, we are doing several projects at once. All of them are united by the same theme: at the heart is an industrial building, already badly "shabby", which needs to be revitalized in some way, not only technically, but also in terms of image. All these buildings are located in different places and have different characteristics. And they will look very different too. However, they will all be united by this premier - ornamental print on glass, and due to this, all these scattered objects can turn into a recognizable brand.
Can the house in Granatny Lane also be included in this line?
No, this is a completely different topic. Here the path was very difficult. You can start it with my college memories. When I was studying, Andrey Burov's book "On Architecture" was very honored. Burov himself was characterized as a great supporter and conductor of Corbusier's architecture, purist modernism. I saw his works of the twenties, but I was surprised that, as it seemed to me, in his book he talks more about his works of the forties and fifties, makes the main emphasis on them. I am not quoting very accurately, but he says, it seems that if he were asked how to decorate buildings today? - he would say that it should be done the way it was done in the house on Polyanka and in the house on Leningradsky Prospekt - the same one with ornamental script on the panels. When we started work on the house in Granatny Lane, I wanted to make an homage, to pay tribute to this architect - after all, there is a portal of the House of Architects of the same Burov nearby, so thoughts about Burov determined the use of a certain paraphrase here, even a replica, but in other materials and with another ornamental row.
But this house has a very specific combination of decor and volume itself, they seem to exist in different dimensions …
This is the result of a difficult situation and difficult work. The search for forms went in the direction of a cubic composition, and, I will not hide, not only by my will, but also thanks to the opinion of the coordinating authorities. That is, I had a number of proposals, and some of them were quite sculptural in volume and detail. I repeat once again: either we are solving the problem of the facade, or we are dealing with a building-sculpture, which contrasts very strongly with the environment and perceives the environment as a kind of indistinct forest around the clearing where this sculpture stands. So, at first I perceived this environment as a forest "around" my building. If it happened so, then this method of mentalization ornamentation would not be needed. Then this sculptural form would take on the main role, and what would appear from the point of view of the facade surface would have to recede into the background, because shadows would play, some forms of the sculptural volume of the building would play. But the search in places such as the center of Moscow, of course, is not carried out "alone", but taking into account the opinion of the approving authorities, which stubbornly insisted that the original shape of the building be rectangular (i.e. not sculptural), and squares, rectangles and cubes continued the rectangular structure of those estates, mansions and Stalinist residential buildings that surround the construction site. As a result, a composition of three cubes describing the site from two sides arose. And then, of course, the facades of these three cubes acquired a huge role. Because the shape of these buildings has become standard.
So, due to problems with coordination, there was a desire to create a "façade intrigue"?
Yes, the question arose of how to make the “dress” of this building, what material to choose for it, so that the surface of the facade is both deep and interesting, and the shadows on it play well, and the building would age in a certain way, showing its texture over time … And then it occurred to me this statement by Burov about ornament, and his path to a new search for ornament. With such a geometry of forms, the ornamental decor seemed quite appropriate to me, but it had to be embossed - not flat, not glass: because the glass here - in Granatny Lane - would not fit, since glass does not create either a relief or depth of the surface, it does not have the "ability to age" - it is a smooth, cold material. And so I came to stone, in fact - to traditional stone work, which was the case in Ancient Russia.
How does this fit in with your image of a "western architect"?
In the West, minimalism is not only the position of the architect, but also the cultural position of society, that is, there the eye is adjusted somewhat differently. I did not come from Germany to Russia in order to bring Western culture here, although during the years that I lived there, I was sufficiently imbued with its spirit. It even seems to me that the generally accepted intention of Russian architects is to find the progressive in the West and recreate it here, offensive and incorrect, I do not see a fruitful tendency in this. That is, of course, a very serious school has been created in the West in terms of the quality of construction, work with the form, with the detail - this has been worked out. But promoting a Western minimalist attitude towards the structure of the building, towards playing with almost subtle surface effects - this seems to me a dead end for Russia. It doesn't work here.
Why?
Firstly, in Russia, a different light, softer, and a minimalist attitude to the surface leads to the fact that the building looks poor, abandoned (compared to France or Italy, where there is more sun and more play of surfaces), and secondly, even if to bring all Western technologies, it is very problematic to achieve the accuracy of the mechanism of Swiss watches in architecture. And Russian architecture for 400-500 years represented a rich surface, rich ornamentation, rich color, rich relief.
But in addition to the formal enrichment of the facade, you seem to enrich its content, giving it some literary or cultural implication?
Yes, of course, the building receives some literary identification. Either it is based on the mythology of the place where this building is located, or it is given a certain theme that fills it with content.
Ultimately, the building is richer, both semantically and ornamental. When you talk about tradition, does this mean some classically values - as opposed to the "poverty" of purism?
I perceive the classics not as a kind of stylistic direction - here is the baroque, but the classics - I perceive the classics as something that has outlived time. This is what is left as an absolute value, and survived the aging process with dignity.
Are there elements of an ironic postmodern game in your work?
There shouldn't be a game. Architecture is serious. I have a project where I wanted to crown a building with a row of sculptures. And why should I, in this case, engage in self-irony? After all, the problems of completing the building remained, just as the problem of "enriching" the plastic of the facade, wall, volume remained. And this problem is especially true in Russia with its climate and traditions.
In our conversation, the image of Russia is being formed as a place not only not adapted for minimalist modernism, but also not very accepting of it. Is this your diagnosis?
But one thing is always connected with the other. After all, a person born in the north does not take a sun tan well. I believe that due to the climate and traditions, Russia does not accept certain formal quests that are now so developed in the West: work at the "zero joint", work in the absolute absence of the depth of the facade, all this is quickly erased by bad weather and a harsh climate. Russia had its own "minimalist" architecture, this is the medieval architecture of Novgorod and Pskov, but even there the severity was softened by rather developed ornaments on the facades. In a sense, this is a precedent for us.
But what about the Federation Tower, there are no ornamental or literary motives in it?
This is a pure "sculpture", here the form works on its own and for itself, but there is practically no facade (it, of course, is, but it performs only enclosing functions, it is only "skin").
So, when needed, is such an architecture possible for Russia?
Firstly, this is not minimalism, but sculpture, and secondly, if a city sees a sculpture as possible for itself, then it certainly can be with a smooth surface: after all, first of all, a building-sculpture works as a form, a silhouette. Although I am currently designing a hotel in St. Petersburg, which combines the sculptural volume and ornamentation of the facades.
What can you say about the relationship between Prussia and Russia in the architectural aspect? After all, even in Berlin, after a kind of "explosion" of modernism on Potsdamer Platz, houses-blocks with blades, with a calm structure, are increasingly beginning to be encountered, it seems that the Prussian (or Brandenburg) traditional mentality is winning. After all, in your hotel on the facades it is felt and conveyed? Are these Prussian traditions and restraint to some extent suitable for today's Moscow?
They also fit in the sense that Prussian architecture was looking for the answer in detail, because the main urban forms of traditional Berlin were very restrained. Potsdamer Platz was only a temporary exception. But in Russia you need to show the structure of the building outward more than in Berlin.
In Berlin, you are now constructing a building with ornaments on glass panels. Is it some kind of re-export of the forms found for St. Petersburg?
You are absolutely right, here the customer liked the building on Kamennoostrovsky Prospekt, and he insisted on repeating this technique. The peculiarity of this corner of Berlin is as follows: this is the Hackesche Markt district - a place where there was a clash between architects who worked with relief, with the traditional form, and architects who could only put a glass box in this environment, a glass screen from the wall of one preserved old building to the wall of another … We tried here to interpret these two trends in one building, creating an ornamental rich glass façade. I once allowed myself such a re-export of forms, but I think that from the point of view of the cultural tradition of the place, a completely different building could have stood here.
What is your attitude to the topic of wealth? In modern Russia, wealth, prestige, glamor - all this, one way or another, is transferred to architecture, architects are forced to somehow work with this …
I take this with sympathy. And I am talking about this without fear of any reproaches, which, of course, would have fallen upon me in the West. In the West, there is an attitude towards the building as an expensive dress, which balances on the verge of absolute modesty and absolute sophistication. I am able to create a building that "keeps" on this edge, but, nevertheless, I believe that in order to know further possibilities and their boundaries, this is not enough. Both from the point of view of the building-sculpture, and from the point of view of the design of a building with calm forms, where the main role is played by the facade, the discussion around the concept of "glamor" is now relevant. After all, glamor is redundancy, it is more than necessary. Redundant form (like Zaha Hadid or Frank Gehry) is glamor, just as a facade can be redundant. So, you need to balance on the verge of redundancy, but with a sense of proportion and with an understanding of the very glamor in question.
A neoclassical trend is emerging in our country. And I would like to know your attitude to this movement
I have been asking myself the question for a long time: what is it? It seems to me that in order to create new and truly individual samples in this architecture, which are in the right competition with the samples of the past, this must be intensively pursued throughout your life. For this you need to create a school out of yourself. Because the school of classical architecture is the school of the canon. If you follow the way that I am trying to move, or the way that many architects in the West are moving, then this is, to a certain extent, a search for your position, it can be very narrow, it can be (as in painting) one shade of paint, maybe a whole palette, it depends both on the tasks of the person and on his talent. But today tradition is born and dies along with the architect, and this is the difference from the classics, where there is a great external tradition. That is, the architect invents some kind of personal tradition for himself, but he does not create a school. Classics are just such a school. Classicists do not learn from their teachers (they are torn away from the school proper by the whole tradition of modernism), they learn from their forefathers, that is, they try to build a bridge to the school that ended in the thirties and forties of the XX century. They are turned into the past. I cannot feel myself in the role of one of the fighters in the age-old tradition of changing the classical order.
In your work, you can see a fairly wide range of directions - from extreme sculptural modernism to more literary, narrative architecture - within the same modernism, but on its "right" wing?
Maybe I do not look very consistent, but I can find spontaneous answers to the questions posed without following certain canons, within which this answer is already predetermined. For me, following only the classical norm would be a narrowing of the ability to respond spontaneously to this or that problem. I am now forty-five years old. I have been active in architecture for twelve years. When I arrived in Germany, I was thirty, until I was thirty I was just studying at the Academy of Arts and was engaged in paper projects that did not lead to anything. At first I did not know the language and could only deal with architectural graphics. Active time is somewhere from 1995 to the present time. Twelve years is not a very long time, it is still in many ways a time of searching. I have already said that modern architecture moves in two ways. The first way is the way of sculptural formation of the building, and the second way is the way of forming the surface of the building as a kind of screen. But one cannot assume that this is a soulless surface, that this is just a minimalistic ratio of closed and open surfaces, no, this is a kind of surface that in itself, in decorating and ornamental itself, should express something besides the fact that it is a series of windows and closed surfaces. In my last buildings, I try to express this. And I perceive the classics as a completely different direction, where the two named forms, sculptural and facade, are one, where both the form and expression of the surface of this form are found.
Many now perceive the classical language as impossible. And you?
No, I do not perceive it as impossible, I perceive it as follows: if today I realized that I could shrink myself to understand that this is my path, then this would have to be dealt with very seriously, this is a minimalist school, but this is not minimalism of denial of possibilities, and minimalism of choice of possibilities. In the path I have chosen, there is the possibility of exaggeration, of the grotesque, while in the classics the possibility of grotesque is minimal, there a step to the right, a step to the left - these are already deviations that give off a bad taste. Moreover, this deviation to bad taste has a much smaller gap compared to the situation when you compile positions to a certain extent. This is the path of purification on an absolutely definite path. Today I am not ready for cleansing on this path. I am not ready to give up the wide range of possibilities of modern architecture. Well, for example, this is the Benois house, being a classic, I would not do it. I am simply not ready for the screening out of the borderline phenomena that the classic suggests.
What you are doing is not even working for two countries at once, but for two cultures. Does it somehow enrich you?
Yes, this kind of work gave me a lot. I came to architecture from drawing, I was actually a paper architect, so getting to Germany gave me a school of practical work, now I know how to do architecture. Germany for me now is, of course, immersion in what technology can do today. And then, there - in the West - work is being honed with the material, with the detail, the integration and aestheticization of the latest engineering achievements is taking place. At the same time, for the European culture brought up on modernism, many topics remain closed, almost “taboo”. In this respect, Russia today provides more opportunities for an architect. Working in Russia, staying here, gives the very additional, literary, content to my buildings, about which you spoke. Here I am trying to saturate architectural forms with additional content.
