Yulia Tarabarina, Architectural News Agency Archi.ru:
Please tell us how Inteko canceled the planned presentation?
Grigory Revzin, curator of the Russian pavilion at the 11th Venice Biennale of Architecture:
I learned about this not from Elena Baturina, but from the vice-president of the company for construction, Oleg Soloshchansky. On Friday, he canceled the presentation without commenting on the decision. This is a surprise to me, because we have already made quite a lot of progress in preparing the script and agreeing on what should have been there. I take this opportunity to apologize to the journalists whom I have already invited to Venice
And what exactly was planned to be shown at the presentation in Venice?
This project, as it progressed, acquired state status. There is a federal commission headed by Mr. Molchanov, he has two deputies - Vladimir Resin and Pavel Khoroshilov, my co-curator at the Biennale. Therefore, the project was included in the number of special presentations of the Russian pavilion. This government commission was supposed to come to Venice, as well as a working group on urban development of the territory, formed by Vladimir Resin in accordance with the instructions of the Moscow government. The work of this group was to be presented in the pavilion. In addition, Lord Foster's project was to be presented. Anton Khmelnitsky, Foster's representative in Russia, prepared a separate layout of Orange for this presentation.
Are they the same project or are they different?
These are, in principle, approaches to one project. Not quite consistent. Even at the level of Foster - Inteko, and that is the discrepancy. From the point of view of Foster's bureau, only the Tretyakov Gallery was supposed to be located in Apelsin. Inside, a spiral ramp was conceived after the model of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. And from the point of view of Elena Baturina, the "Orange" should have offices, and the building of the Tretyakov Gallery is being built separately. Well, how all this fits in with the Moskomarkhitektura project is a question. In fact, we were supposed to show two projects - Foster's project and the town-planning project of the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Architecture.
We also planned to invite the opponents of the project there. As you know, the Council for Cultural Centers has been formed, which is not in favor of Inteko. We in Venice planned to organize a discussion on this topic, which could probably lead to a rapprochement of positions. Or at least to clarify them.
At the Biennale, in addition, as you know, there is an exhibition of Boris Bernasconi - it is a bit intimate, but nevertheless - an exhibition in the pavilion of Italy, in an international exhibition, dedicated to the criticism of this project. There is his book, which suggests giving the territory of the Central House of Artists no longer to Foster, but to Boris Bernasconi, Nikolai Lyzlov and other famous Russian architects.
Does Bernasconi's book have specific suggestions?
Yes, they want to build up this territory themselves, set up the CHA building on two floors and build several of the same rectangles.
You said that Inteko did not explain in any way its refusal to present Orange. Could you share your own assumptions about why this happened?
Well, I thought that Inteko had financial problems, like all our developers now. Against the background of the crisis, the development market suffers greatly, that the credit market - everything is based on loans, these are long-term loans, they are given back within 2-3 years. Today, such loans cannot be found on the market. For me, however, it was a surprise that even Inteko had problems. It is clear that Mirax has problems, PIK has very big problems. Inteko's problems seemed less likely to me. But this is a rather risky project, and perhaps the state of the market makes it difficult to implement.
The second option is to set up a public council for the protection of cultural centers, which includes respected people. They quite sharply opposed Inteko's policy. True, the memorandum is somewhat softer than the initial statements. For example, I am ready to subscribe to it, but I think that the government is ready to subscribe to it.
Why?
Because there is no requirement to preserve the existing building of the Central House of Artists, but there is a requirement to preserve the priority of the cultural function and the priority of the Tretyakov Gallery. This is exactly what is written in government documents. Therefore, it seemed to me that it is possible to bring opponents of the project to Venice, there will be no scandal and there is a basis for consent - they want the same thing.
However, at a press conference, they said they would defend the building …
I say that the memorandum is somewhat softer than the positions of individual participants. There is only a requirement to keep the function - but no one argues with that. This is the condition for the implementation of the project by Baturina.
And who, by the way, demanded this from Baturina?
According to Ms. Baturina, she went to Prime Minister Putin with this project. The fact that a commission has been formed under the Prime Minister, which is headed by an employee of his staff, testifies to the fact that this is true. The commission determined the conditions under which it is possible to build on this site. I saw some documents of this commission, it says that - yes, the priority of the cultural function, the Tretyakov Gallery is the determining institution for this territory, the next most important position is occupied by the Central House of Artists. But the preservation of the CHA building is not there.
There may be different points of view on this topic - the director of the Central House of Artists Vasily Bychkov believes that the Central House of Artists is an architectural monument and a cultural heritage, in which I disagree with him. But, one way or another, the requirement to preserve the existing building was not included in the memorandum adopted by the council.
However, it may have seemed wrong to start this risky investment project with a sharply negative public attitude and in a crisis. Thus, it is possible that this is a victory for the public and Elena Nikolaevna retreated, avoiding the scandalous situation. In fact, now it can only be sold with loans from the Moscow government - you know, Yuri Luzhkov allocated loans to save the Moscow development business. But then how - if it was done with the money of banks - it would still be understandable, but the situation in which the Moscow government gives money to Muscovites on credit to the company, and the company starts to do something with this money against the wishes of Muscovites - this situation is quite still dubious.
In the story with the Gazprom Tower, nobody seemed to be embarrassed that it was being built with money from the St. Petersburg budget, while the city residents were against …
Quite the opposite, Gazprom Tower has shown that this is not a very good situation, a losing one for the image. Yet in Moscow, the movement for the protection of monuments cannot raise "Yabloko", and in St. Petersburg a whole march of dissent was held. Luzhkov is somehow more careful than Matvienko in relations with residents - he is more supported. And then, you know, the image of Gazprom and the image of Inteko are still different. Gazprom can afford to say that everyone who is against Gazprom is against Russia. But to say that everyone who is against Inteko is against Russia is in no way possible. Half of the Kremlin administration will disagree. There is a difference in status here.
One way or another, it turned out that the public won. It seems to me that Baturina is leaving the project - of course, this is my opinion. Perhaps I am exaggerating the significance of this presentation in Venice, but for me this is a serious indicator. A rather serious program was disrupted - not mine, I did not define anything here at all, in the series of our presentations at the Biennale this was the most state one and did not require any initiative from me. Two state commissions worked, some result of the work had to be presented, this did not happen. This decision must be caused by something. Some kind of force majeure.
There is probably a third explanation. If the project is supervised by the prime minister, then it turns out to be federal. It is known that federal structures are striving to enter the Moscow construction market, but these interests were constantly blocked. Remember the competition for the demolition of the Rossiya hotel - Eurofinance took part in it, and this competition was lost, and in a rather controversial form. It is possible that something similar happened with "Orange", but only at an earlier stage. The project was initiated by Elena Baturina, and then the situation develops in such a way that she leaves the project. This option will probably be the most unpleasant for the public - there is no Baturina, but the project is still going on, the Central House of Artists is being demolished, the Orange is being built.
But, in my opinion, this option is not very likely, because it means that now it will be necessary to assemble a new management, which will pick up all the "fallen" ties. To date, such a structure is not visible. Imagine that the state will conduct this project without Baturina - our state is not very good at doing this. How are we? Private development has made a significant breakthrough in 10 years, they are now able to implement rather complex projects. They have accumulated personnel, experience - they understand how this is done. State construction projects, on the other hand, have lost their experience. Today, the state is trying to implement more complex projects than developers are implementing, and nothing succeeds. A striking example of this is the Mariinsky Theater. They built and built, and finally they didn’t. Failed. It is clear that if, say, the Mariinsky Theater were given to Capital-Group or Don-Stroy, then everything would have stood.
If today Baturina is removed from this structure and replaced - well, I don’t know what - some “Moscow directorate for construction”, like the “North-Western Directorate for Construction” was, then it will not do anything there. The most she can do is to demolish the Central House of Artists, as she demolished the recreation center of the First Five-Year Plan. They cannot work without a "motor". The motor was Baturina. There was an understandable scheme - Baturina wants to build something, and they torture her, they say - well, but build us this and that - a new Tertyakovka, a new Central House of Artists, galleries, a new museum of contemporary art. There is a motor and there is what is hung on this motor. Now the motor has been removed. What they were going to hang may be spinning in our heads for some time, but it will not go.
I'd like to ask you about your personal attitude to this project. Many articles were devoted to him, but it turned out that there were many good journalistic articles against the demolition of the Central House of Artists and some bad articles in favor. You wrote the only high-quality article with a positive assessment of the project. Thus, you went against the collective opinion of the cultural community, which united in an impulse to defend the Sukoyan / Sheverdyaev building. Why?
I can repeat what I wrote then - my point of view has not changed. I did not write an article “for” the project. I wrote an article against the attempt to include the Central House of Artists among the losses of Moscow - to put it on a par with Voentorg, the Moscow hotel, now - Detsky Mir, and other losses. I was in solidarity with the fight against these acts of vandalism. Here Yuri Mikhailovich even sued me for an article about Tsaritsyn, which was somewhat ridiculous against the background of Elena Baturina's participation in the Biennale, where I am a co-curator. Well, now the absurdity, fortunately, has been corrected.
So, it seemed to me that when we include the CHA in this row, the purity of the position is blurred. It is one thing to demolish monuments that are historically and aesthetically important. And the demolition of the "Saray" is another matter. Let me remind you that when this building was built, it was nicknamed "The Barn". It seems to me that this is an extremely unfortunate building and there is no cultural value in it. It has clear business value, it has clear feature value. It houses important cultural sites that undoubtedly need to be preserved. But the building itself does not seem to me worthy to fight for it as a cultural property.
In this sense, I disagree with the position of the management of Expo Park and some architects who like the architecture of the 1970s. I sincerely respect them, but I have my own point of view on this matter. I think this architecture is not worthy of protection. I think that such a defense will look like an attempt at speculation by a pure - in the sense of a non-profit - movement for old Moscow. If we begin to call the Central House of Artists the old Moscow, then further on our old Moscow will become the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin - the buildings in fact of the same time, of the same design concept. Then Novy Arbat will become Old Moscow. Not that this architecture should be specially destroyed. But to declare it a national treasure - I am not ready to share this position.
At this point, you probably know better than most what the project of Foster's workshop is all about. Please tell us in which direction it has developed recently
As for the Orange project itself, it was raw. In that article, I said quite clearly: "Orange" as a project cannot be seriously considered. It has no functional component. He does not solve the problems that exist in the CHA today, but he adds his own problems.
Foster himself in an interview with Vladimir Belogolovsky says - not necessarily "Orange", we are now thinking about this territory. The movement was in the next direction. The main problem of the CHA building is that it is made as a supermarket in Bibirevo. A large chest in a vacant lot, quite far, about a kilometer, from the metro. To get there, you have to cross this wasteland. When there is a supermarket in the chest, when there is nowhere else to get food, everyone goes there. And when groceries can be bought from the metro, these supermarkets are closed, no one goes to them.
The same thing is happening here, but not with the supermarket, but with the Tretyakov Gallery, which is wrong. We have Malevich hanging there, Kandinsky - the main Russian things that we were going to print on money - remember, Gelman suggested doing this. At the same time, the halls are empty. This is despite the fact that an advertising campaign has been going on in the city for years “visit the new exposition of the State Tretyakov Gallery”. And still nobody goes.
When we start thinking - why? - then we find that all European museums that claim something in the 1990s. survived a major reconstruction, the idea of which is very simple - the museum is built into the scheme of urban recreation. It is located in a dense city quarter, where there are: hotels - of course, because the museum is a lot of tourists; where there are restaurants, cafes, boutiques, galleries selling paintings. Not inside the building, where this gives the impression that the museum is selling some pretty bad painting, but outside. At us on the Crimean embankment and in the passage, something similar was formed - in the form of hawkers. But this is somehow not too civilized.
The project went in the direction of coming up with the terms of reference for the new building of the Tretyakov Gallery, for the Central House of Artists, and a general task for this territory, which would revive it. Now it is a territory with a strange function. At one time, Alexander Kuzmin bitingly called it "a cemetery without the dead." The monuments of the totalitarian time have been brought there - they can also stand in a dense urban environment, the environment only gets better when there are many different sculptures in it. And somewhere there is an attraction in the form of an Orange or some other "Bilbaoid" thing, where the treasures of the Russian avant-garde are located. It seems to me that this is a possible line of thinking about this territory.
Foster is the master of function. He always thinks through these aspects in great detail, for him it is an important thing - how, who, where will go, how it will work. For him, a building is a machine in such a serious, technical sense. It should work. On the contrary, "Orange" was made - we came up with an image, but how it will work is unknown. Therefore, I cannot say that I was a supporter of this project. I was a proponent of designing in this direction. It's another matter - maybe in this case I'm wrong - but it seems to me that all the proposals that our architects made for this place are weaker than Foster's. Even though the project was very crude.
Do you like the project?
Rather yes. It seems to me more successful than the London mayor's office on the banks of the Thames opposite the Tower, and perhaps even more interesting than the London "cucumber". But to like - not to like - is somehow personally … It seems to me that this is essential. In the whole dispute around the Central House of Artists, the artistic component of this project has never been considered. All objections to Foster lay in the plane, I would say, economic. Of course, they tried to shift the topic to the cultural plane, declaring the building of the Central House of Artists as a national treasure - but this, I repeat, in my opinion, is not a completely fair game, an attempt to pass off one's commercial interests as general cultural ones. I do not mean architects in this case, although the project of Boris Bernasconi makes us see in their position a variant of the struggle for an order.
And nobody discussed Foster's project as an artistic thing. In this sense, showing it at the Biennale was quite an important moment. We could evaluate - and in fact, what kind of architecture are offered to us? In my opinion, it is actually quite interesting. We saw a competition for the reconstruction of the Central House of Artists - it is much more interesting here.
On the other hand, Inteko paid a lot of attention to the positive image of the project, but from an artistic point of view, again, no one discussed anything. It was discussed how good it was for us to have Foster. In Venice, it was planned to look at the actual project. And that was exactly what was canceled. That is, in my opinion, a strong indicator that the interest in the project has been lost.
I am not a big supporter of attracting Western architects to a historical city, it seems to me that they do not really feel the context and it is better for them to build from scratch. But in this case we are dealing with just an empty territory. There is a barn and a huge area around it. At one time, I supported Eric van Egerat's project here - and, by the way, mind you, when Capital Group left the project, he died, despite the favor of very serious government officials. I think it would be nice if we had a building there designed by Foster. I have not seen anything terrible in the very fact of this design, and I still do not see it. But without Baturina, the project loses the "motor" that is capable of moving it.
Well, at least everyone can calm down. Everything is in order, the "national treasure" will be preserved. There will be no orange, we will be left with the barn that Brezhnev built for us.
