They remembered Andrea Palladio and sadly, as the 500th anniversary of his birth was celebrated at the funeral. Art critics have written small articles. Theoretical conferences were held quietly. His enormous influence on world and national architecture was noted. They talked about proportions, about concrete buildings that have become monuments. The speeches were prepared by a familiar narrow circle of specialists and it was possible to notice that, despite the difference in topics, almost every performance expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of architecture with weak regret. But this is the lot of modern theorists. They write for themselves. Nobody hopes to influence the historical process of architecture development any more.
Talking about architecture smells like book dust. This language is too complicated and is no longer interesting either to practitioners, or to a specific customer, or to the layman. Architectural critics, on the other hand, try to speak in a more understandable language. They speak to the reader through glossy magazines superficially in the context of burning issues or fashionable topics. But there are as many subjective opinions as there are critics. I remember that in the late 80s there was a theory that with the growth of communication technologies the need for skyscrapers will disappear and they will die out like a relic of the past. That it will not be necessary for everyone to sit in one office, and you will be able to work sitting in your village anywhere in the world. That was a good idea. Ten years ago, I, by a sinful deed, wrote an article for the Project Russia magazine. The article was called "Hour of the Monster", in which I argued my assumption about the imminent revival of Neoclassicism. But of course no revival happened. Moreover, those Monsters that I was so afraid of are now everywhere. During these ten years, the interest in "fantasy-space" skyscrapers has grown so much that their pictures are now filling all magazines. Changing facades have become a reality. Digital and building technologies have dominated the entire design process. Each person has a mobile phone. But have new ideas emerged in architecture? Ten years is a long time. During this period, whole epochs of architectural styles were born and flourished. Russian modern. The avant-garde period and constructivism. The period of passion for "Paper architecture" also met this deadline.
The most important thing has always been the idea. But for simplicity of perception, its poster embodiment was required. Remembering the competition projects made with Sasha Brodsky - after all, we also had our own symbol - a little man in a hat and raincoat with an umbrella. Remembering these harmless projects, for the first time you think how much depends on the symbol of the idea. After all, it has a truly mystical meaning. So in the "Bible of Constructivism", the first book of Le Corbusier in 1923, the poster symbol of the idea was an airplane - a small airplane. It was also included in his treatise on architecture “Style and Epoch” by M. Ya. Ginzburg. This is truly when the coup took place. Then, for the first time, not a man, but a technological symbol was put forward as the predominant one in the theory of the development of an architectural style.
The preachers of modern modernism most often mention in the argumentation of the new style …..the mobile phone. This is a new technology symbol, and the idea is the same.
To put it even simpler, today we have only two main conflicting architectural ideas. The old classic, which incorporates all the stylistic types of architecture, the symbol of which is man born on earth … And the new modernist, the symbol of which is a technological idea born of a man.
And you don't have to choose, regardless of the opinions of theorists - after going through the laboratory of the 20th century, the modernist idea won.
Where this idea may lead, we can only speculate. Logically, architecture will only depend on the paths of technology development. Technology development - from the economy. The construction process is no longer led by architects, customers, or even government officials, but by the centrifugal forces of the general economic mechanism. This car is just starting to pick up speed, and it is no longer possible to stop. Already now, the perception of the world from a car, through a television screen, through a virtual computer space requires new spatial solutions in architecture. It is likely that in architecture, shells, formerly called facades, will begin to move, be video screens, change shape and color. Artificial nature will be created. Artificial sun. The same centrifugal forces will require constant renewal of this space. Fashion and technology will change, and architecture will also change. Unique objects will not be able to remain so. The same economic principles will force the cloning of architectural and technological schemes in the plural. The invented world will very soon fill the living space, turning the real one into a heap of rubbish. We read these assumptions somewhere in childhood or saw in some kind of movie. But there were always two realities left. One scary one is the space station or the city of the future. Another desirable one is a field, a forest, a river and a home.
In the end, there is still an unpredictable human factor, and one can hope that, like last time, my predictions will not come true.
Of the theoretical statements on this topic, the opinion of Alexander Rappoport, who still relies on the human mind, is interesting, and in his recent interview with “Design versus Architecture” he made the following optimistic assumption: “For a long time in the 20th century, it was believed that architecture had died and it would be replaced by design. On this wave of changes in tastes and assessments, a change in the understanding of architecture, everything is being built to this day. Recently I had an idea about the so-called planetary claustrophobia, which, as it seems to me, will be the end result of such an attitude … … In general, I have the impression that total death will come in the design paradise. And you will have to get out of it … Design objects will become something like insects, which, from our point of view, are all the same. And what is connected with life, fate, with the place where a person was born, where his ancestors are buried, will begin to regain values. Then the tactics and strategy of architectural creativity will change. And instead of building Gazprom skyscrapers, they will build low-rise buildings, but with a unique layout and decoration, a complex, sophisticated game with light, living plants will begin …”.
In fact, this is hard to believe. It is also the fact that it will be possible to save something from this tsunami of modern modernism. But I believe that until the end of the century, somewhere away from prying eyes, there will also be an original second reality. The world that Andrea Palladio saw with his own eyes. To be fair, Palladio was lucky. God opened his eyes and gave him a little more to do for architecture than his craft colleagues. This "little" was the art that still arouses admiration. It was this art that gave him the right to be called the first among equals, and the era in architecture was called Palladian, and his successors were called Palladians. But there is one very important detail in this topic, missing which we will not understand the main secret of the immortality of his legacy. Being a Palladian does not only mean being able to copy ancient fantasies and constructing columns and porticoes in proportions. And this means - to creatively understand architecture, as Andrea Palladio understood it. I will cite the final lines of A. Radzyukevich's report, read at the Academy of Arts: “… Palladio's creative method is based on his attitude, which today may seem archaic to us, but this shows not that Palladio is outdated, but that we ourselves have gone somewhere not there. Here is what he writes about his activities: “… when, contemplating the beautiful machine of the universe, we see what wondrous heights it is filled with and how the heavens in their cycle replace the seasons in it and keep themselves in the sweetest harmony of their measured course - we are no longer we doubt that the temples we are building should be similar to the temple that God created in his infinite goodness …”.
If there are still people who correctly understand and share this worldview, it means that Palladianism is still alive. And if someone calls me a Palladian, I will not deny it.
