You are an architect with a strong personal agenda. How do you define your place in contemporary architecture?
There is no modern architecture. My whole life, at least the last 25 years of my life, has been shaped by this great discovery. I have articulated it clearly in recent years, although it came to me much earlier, in 1981. What we call modern architecture is non-architecture. This is a different genre, a different kind of activity. What is called modern architecture is actually a building design, but a design that claims to be monumental. I don't want to take any place in it. I want to return architecture in the true sense of the word to design.
Should we attach such importance to words?
These are not words, they are essential opposition. Contemporary architecture is based on a design program. That is, on the search for the form of things that move. It has nothing to do with the expressiveness of stable vertical standing. This is the opposite aesthetics, and it opposes the very post-and-beam nature of architecture, its fundamental immobility, the image of "the Universe does not even move." This is a very abstract level of reasoning.
No, this is extremely specific. Let's take a simple example. Antique. For example, a chair from the Empire era. His leg always converges downward. No column, neither in Empire style nor in any other classic style, ever tapers downwards. Why? Because a chair is movable. The principle of its stability is to provide maximum reliability in the place where the maximum load is - where the seat and legs join. The main load carried by the chair is not vertical, but horizontal. The same goes for a stroller, ship, plane, etc. But not architecture. Architecture created by means of design is an ontological disgrace. You apply the aesthetics of moving objects to that which is motionless. What is beautiful in a car is ugly in a house. What is beautiful for a horse is not very good for a woman.
I agree, the very opposition of the aesthetics of movable and immovable is accurate. But what does "ugliness in the ontological sense" mean? Yes, the aesthetics of one have been transferred to the other. But this was done completely deliberately. The striving of modern architecture for movement, flight is programmatically declared by the mass of manifestos of modern architecture
“A house is a car for living,” is said ingeniously, clearly and unambiguously. But the fact that Corbusier said everything in advance does not absolve him of responsibility. As with the other founding fathers of modern architecture. There is aesthetics as an aesthetic imperative, a commandment that cannot be violated, because it cannot. He violated, or rather, reflected an internal mutation that took place in society. Architecture has one strange property - it is a portrait of Dorian Gray. It does not separate from human life, just as the skin does not separate from the body. It grows out of everyday life, giving it form and manifesting its meaning. We are slaves to a certain spiritual reality, and the essence is that in our creative processes nothing would interfere with the manifestation in the flow of a person's life to that person with a capital letter, who makes the meaning of this life. A person should look at the facade of the house - and see himself, his life in it, and see that it is beautiful or ugly.
If a person is ugly, then it is terribly difficult to hold back this horror by some movement of talent. Let me give you an example - Zholtovsky's house on Mokhovaya. And today it is clear, and it was clear to everyone then, when it was built, that it is impossible to cover the constructivist prison with the most beautiful order of Palladio. She crawls out and represents the reality of Russia in the 30s, which gave birth to her.
But here, at least, there was still a chance for people to become different. When our creative process deprives a person of such an opportunity in advance, destroys the very possibility of an image's manifestation, it is a crime. This is what I call disgrace in the ontological sense - when the very structure of being is deprived of the opportunity to receive an image.
What does it mean, "The universe is still not moving"? It's not that there is no movement in it - it is, we see it. But it cannot be moved. That is, it is indestructible, eternal. That which moves, then stops - dies. That which is immovable abides forever. The loss of the image means the loss of the possibility of eternity. This is a crime.
Okay, they said everything beforehand. Here is Hitler - he also said everything in advance. Mein Kampf was written in 1923, not 1939, and it says with great enthusiasm what exactly he will do with humanity. Or Lenin. The program of revolutionary terror was put forward by him in 1905, not in 1917. Does this remove responsibility for their crimes?
To me, these comparisons seem inadequately harsh
Perhaps this is a response to the usual slander of modernists against the classics, which they consider to be the clothing of totalitarianism. By the way, about totalitarianism. The opponents of his brilliant project, Corbusier invites the future wise caliph of Paris to simply chop off his head, and Gropius did not understand until the end of his days why the Bauhaus was rejected by his beloved Hitler. The crimes that modern architecture commits are aesthetic, they are sins against the image of a person, not his life. I just compare them with moral ones because people went for it deliberately. They joyfully showed their aggression towards the old cities, which is especially clearly seen in Corbusier - the Voisin plan. It is symbolic to the point of insanity. Voisin are the predecessors of Peugeot. Corbusier is working to get them to sell more cars. To do this, you need to clear the old city. Everything must be destroyed, and instead towers, devoid of small parts, were installed, since these towers will be perceived from the rushing cars.
Skyscrapers have risen over Moscow today. I was in one of them, all of Moscow is visible from there. Our hometown looks scary. Here you can see how they began to make some kind of garden, and then all were thrown with terrible garbage. As in the forest after the invasion of tourists. Boxes, boxes, everything is thrown with them, like some kind of discarded packaging from the eaten life.
The same is happening in all cities in the world. From the point of view of the general outline, scale, from the point of view of being on the streets, this is a disaster. And this catastrophe happened everywhere, with the rarest exceptions, such as Venice, Petersburg. The place in the city that should be occupied by living architecture is occupied by the trash of used designer packaging. Architecture becomes rubbish, environmental pollution, the city becomes a dump. Hence my comparisons, which seem too harsh to you.
Does it bother you that practically no one shares your views on architecture? Hundreds of architects followed Corbusier's path. Are they all wrong?
The number of people who share a point of view is not a criterion for its truth. Humanity can fall into collective mistakes - just remember communism. The proof that I am right is for me that the old architecture is alive for the people. Almost no piece of world architecture is dead. Most of them work simply in accordance with their direct function. Like cathedrals where people go the same way as when they were built. Or, for example, a medieval center is a political center. Like the Kremlin. Or even when it's a tourist center. Some Petra or the Athenian Acropolis brings in as much money as oil, which Greece or Jordan do not have.
Yes, not even hundreds, but hundreds of thousands of professionals are following the wrong path. But there are still just people, and there are not hundreds of thousands, but millions. The attitude I am talking about is shared, and I am sure of this, by the majority of the world's population. For people, the old museum aesthetics is alive. They go to old cities and fill museums. Well, there is not a single person who would go to admire the architecture in Mitino. People do not go on vacation to Brasilia or Chandigarh - no, they go to Italy.
That is, you are appealing to the tastes of the dumb masses, which may be showing some views in their economic behavior, but not expressing them in any way
The fact that the people I am talking about are not professionals does not at all make them a dumb mass that has nothing to do with culture. On the contrary, it is generally accepted that people imbued with the old museum aesthetics are more than related to culture. Opposition to modernism is culture's opposition to barbarism.
My uniqueness is due only to the fact that I am a professional who adheres to such views. And the views themselves are just generally accepted. You have reproached me for the fact that the comparison between Corbusier and Hitler is unjustifiably harsh. In response, I will quote Brodsky, The Rotterdam Romance:
Corbusier has something in common
with the Luftwaffe, that both worked hard
over the change in the face of Europe.
What the Cyclops will forget in their rage, then the pencils will soberly finish.
Joseph Brodsky can be considered a dumb mass?
Of course not. But it so happens that professionals just get ahead, and the tastes of the others only catch up with them over time.
“Leaping ahead” is a myth of modernism. As if the existence of mankind is a race along the distance of progress, and whoever did not have time is too late. I would like to know where we are running, where is the end of the distance. What the modernists did is much more accurate to compare with vandalism. The vandals were Christians. Heretics, Arians - but Christians. And they destroyed Rome not because they did not know Roman culture, but because they wanted to free themselves from culture. This is a very subtle intellectual barbarism, a by-product of cultural development. As, by the way, and fascism and communism.
Okay, your position is clear. How did you come to her? Where is it from?
Since childhood, I felt the urge to say something new. But prophecy is very difficult. It is not enough to guess, you also need to do this in yourself. There is a lot to do with yourself. I brought up an artist in myself. But I still need to convince everyone, this requires great will and great talent, and this is what I probably lack.
No, what about the content of your program?
I will say a strange thing. I came to the classics through avant-garde. Contemporary art has a central myth. The myth of a lonely genius who knows something that no one knows - like Picasso, or Van Gogh, or Modigliani. People who no one understands and who then become on top of the world. That is, the myth of the artistic prophet.
All contemporary artists and contemporary architects try to live this myth all the time. I'm not an exception. Of course, I dreamed of becoming the protagonist of this myth. Therefore, I painfully concocted the most original, most marginal point of view. I wanted to be like no one else. A proud, ridiculous and senseless thought that guides all artists. But I have to be honest with myself. I came up with everything that I am now telling out of a desire to show off.
That is, you did not have any initial predisposition to classical architecture?
In principle, I probably could not have come up with anything else. I was born in the house where Pushkin wrote The Bronze Horseman. The kindergarten was in the house of Arakcheev. My first and literally 1st art school is Prince Golitsyn's own house. I honestly loved it all. We went to the Hermitage and the Russian Museum all the time. I knew the collection of the Hermitage by heart, laterally. The natural environment in which I grew up was the highest level of aesthetic education that exists in the world at all. In addition, I was instilled with the strongest dislike for everything Soviet. This was the period of socialist modernism. We hated everything that came from the Soviet regime, and pre-revolutionary Petersburg was, on the contrary, the aesthetic ideal of some kind of alternative Soviet vulgarity. The result is clear.
Nevertheless, you came to the classics through the myth of the avant-garde artist?
Yes, but the idea was so radical that it turned me over. It was impossible to go back. It turned out that this is not just a technique, a new style, etc., but an existence. I was baptized. The ideology of Orthodoxy and canonical art struck me as incredibly similar. I guessed that contemporary art and contemporary architecture is a syncretic icon of atheistic consciousness. True, it turned out to be impossible to use Orthodoxy as a support for one's aesthetic position, because if you do this, you immediately find yourself in the company of the patriotic Pharisees milling about at the church fence. Almost everyone who is trying to replace the hard artistic work of creating beauty with ideology ends up in it. I began to look for a proper aesthetic path.
And in what?
I immediately realized one very important thing. I realized that there is no recipe as such in classical architecture. That is, if you just learn the orders and start putting them on the boxes, you will not create a full-fledged work of art.
The recipe lies in creating an aesthetic experience in oneself. In the oldest, most serious sense of the word. Just like pianists play the piano for five or six hours a day. Why, one wonders - they already know how to play? No, because you need to constantly do something beautiful, then you will succeed. You need to constantly draw, do something. In the old days, everyone understood this, and it was not even discussed. All architects have worked as artists all the time. But it is very difficult to prove that you need to draw Antinous in order to design Mitino. You can't prove it.
That is, you became an artist "out of your head" to implement an aesthetic program?
Yes, I never set myself the task of being just an artist, I did it for architecture. Perhaps this somewhat narrowed my possibilities of realization as a painter and graphic artist. But in itself it was a very sure way. I still confuse some lesbian and Dorian kimatiy, that is, Russian goose and heel, but I am not mistaken in the choice of colors or proportions. I come to the construction site, and on the 9th floor I can see an error of 5 centimeters. The guys who drive, look - do not see, everything is fine. And I see - that's why I couldn't draw like that. And in the old days it was completely elementary, no one talked about it. Everyone had this experience. I want to say this to everyone who is trying to return to traditional architecture, and I am sure that sooner or later this will happen. Traditional architecture is a constant search and increase of the standard in relation to itself. This is the morality of the old aesthetic program. In a very high demand for their work. Don't feel sorry for yourself, don't feel sorry for your work. If you drew and you liked it right away, either you have bad eyes or you are lazy. The highest standards must be applied to oneself.
Do you only use this artistic experience in your architecture? Experience drawing old architecture?
I can say that in principle I am the son of my school. Schools of the 1970s - inventions, complex compositional constructions. There was a bet on the invention of spatial effects, and this is very interesting. Only it has nothing to do with ancient plastic problems, and there is no contradiction between the compositional searches of the 70s and the order. On the contrary, it is terribly interesting to combine one with the other.
In fact, there is a contradiction. Order architecture is about harmony. The architecture of the 70s is about disharmony. Rupture, scrapping, conflict. Fundamentally unclassical architecture.
A classic ruin? It all consists of exactly this - rupture, scrapping, conflict. There are thousands of these ruins. And people go hundreds of kilometers to bow to them. There is a plastic sea of techniques behind this. And the most important thing that attracts is freedom. There is freedom in the ruin, which does not at all exclude deep historical aesthetics.
May I ask some specific questions? Tell us about your experiences with paper architecture
I am skeptical about the period of paper architecture. In my opinion, its significance is unjustifiably exaggerated, including by critics. Paper architecture as a whole, as a phenomenon, is not worthy of serious discussion. I am grateful to paper architecture for giving me the opportunity to declare my program, to declare loudly enough, since my "Style of 2001" won the first prize. But that's all.
To understand this phenomenon, you need to imagine the situation in which it was born. How did we live? We saw nothing in reality, we worshiped magazines. We looked at the image and thought of reality behind them, the magazine was like a window to Europe (no, more precisely to America and Japan). And when I came to Moscow and found out that it was possible to participate in competitions, and Misha Belov had already done it and won, it was fantastic. There was a feeling that, firstly, it turns out that you yourself can draw these windows, and secondly, with a successful coincidence of circumstances, you can enter the window drawn by you and be there. How they won and went. Three-quarters of the enthusiasm for paper architecture is due to this miracle. Essentially, paper architecture is the funny or sad caricatures of architecture skits that were so popular at the time. After all, the word "skits" came from an actor's feast in Great Lent, when theaters were closed, and the pies were with cabbage and mushrooms. And the second half of the last century is precisely the post of architecture, when it died as an art, and creative youth poured out their unspent talents. In a skit called "Paper Architecture".
In 2000, you represented Russia at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Then your exhibition consisted of apartment interiors and city utopias. Since then, you have had a large workshop, large orders. Has your understanding of architecture changed? Is there a new experience?
As for apartments and utopias, here I was inspired by the example of the genius neoclassicist Ivan Fomin. I was locked in interiors for seven years, but he had the same thing. Apartments and mansions of Vorontsova-Dashkova, Lobanov-Rostovsky, Abamelek-Lazarevs and at the same time grandiose utopias of “New Petersburg”.
After the Venice Biennale 2000, this period ended. Yes, I have bigger orders. But I can say - I have not changed in anything. Everything that I can, I want, I know, I came up with in 1982. The program has not changed since then. And it shouldn't.
