The Building Awards are an award that is extremely free-spirited about its own concept. It has existed for four years, and during this time only its name remained unchanged. For the first time, for example, it was awarded to the best Moscow developers and architects in Moscow City - then it had many nominations and a total of more than 10 winners. In 2007, the award became more elite and was presented to a narrow circle of developers at The Ritz Carlton Moscow. By the way, in November of the same year, the last ARX Awards, also established by Building and intended for the best architects of Russia, took place in the same hotel. In the summer of 2008, the Building Awards moved to the new building of the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theater and again became more democratic - the winners were determined not by a special jury, but by the developers themselves by online voting right during the ceremony. This year, the award was preceded by a large-scale architectural and urban planning festival, and the number of awarded from 10 laureates narrowed to one, and it was not a developer, but an architect.
In fact, under the Building Awards brand, the ARX Awards were again presented this year, the untimely death of which the professional community once lamented. The jury of this year deserves a special mention - once development projects were evaluated by independent experts, architects, and developers themselves, but Building company entrusted itself to choose the best building over the past seven years (the number of judges included both owners of the company - Petr Shura and Peter Kudryavtsev), as well as the President of the Union of Architects of Russia Andrei Bokov, the rector of the Moscow Architectural Institute Dmitry Shvidkovsky, a member of the Public Chamber under the President of the Russian Federation Vyacheslav Glazychev and two developers - Boris Kuzinets (RGI) and Pavel Kosov (VTB). Needless to say, the alliance of officials from architecture and the sharks of the development business looks strange, but Building has always preached a dialogue between these two poles of the architectural and construction industry and, perhaps, finally achieved its goal. The main paradox of the situation is that it was the Hermitage-Plaza that had already received the ARX Awards, moreover, in 2007, according to this award, Sergei Kiselev already became, according to this award, the best architect of the year, designing the highest quality and most successful buildings … However, isn't this one more proof that "the winner takes all"?
It should be noted that the return to architectural and urban planning topics attracted increased public interest in the award. The emphasized democracy of the Building Awards-2009 also played a role - admission to all festival events held in the Central House of Architects was free, and this time the presentation ceremony took place in an extremely non-pathetic place - the “red hall” of the Moscow Architectural Institute. It is also symbolic that in the midst of the economic crisis the prize suddenly acquired a monetary equivalent - in addition to the traditional statuette in the form of a building level with an engraved logo of the prize, the winner was awarded 50 thousand US dollars.
Another innovation concerned the procedure for selecting laureates - this year, before the jury began to determine the winner, each of the nominees (and there were six of them this year) held a public defense of their project at the Central Academy of Arts, during which they had to show those key features buildings that ensured him commercial success. True, in the case of such a well-known object as the Hermitage-Plaza, the presentation format seemed hardly appropriate, and Sergei Kiselev had no choice but to play it smartly - instead of a detailed story about how the office complex was designed and built, he showed written rave reviews from tenants of the building.
In general, throughout the ceremony, the jury members repeatedly emphasized that this year they are not encouraging an architectural project as such and not a spectacular new building, but "successful architecture in action", that is, a building that has already managed to prove its effectiveness. And if we analyze the short list of Building Awards-2009, which, in addition to the Hermitage-Plaza, includes the building of the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theater by Sergei Gnedovsky, the concert hall in Yuri Grigoryan's Barvikha Luxury Village and his Milk House, Sergei's Copper House Skuratov and guest houses of the resort "Pirogovo" by Totan Kuzembaev, it becomes clear that this year the award did not try to make any architectural or development discoveries. Instead, a kind of revision of the "golden fund" of modern Russian architecture was carried out in order to identify the building that best met the expectations of end users - customers, tenants and ordinary citizens. True, not everyone agreed with this wording, for example, Sergei Skuratov said at the ceremony that he, as an architect, "is only responsible for the quality of the house at the time it was built, and for its engineering part."
Receiving the "level" statuette, Sergei Kiselev modestly noted that the theatrical building built by Sergei Gnedovsky was more worthy of the prize, but since the award went to him, he refuses the monetary part of it. Sergei Kiselev argued for his decision by the fact that his company was doing well even during the crisis, and asked the CAP to send “bonuses” to pay social subsidies to elderly architects. Thus, the award for the most commercially successful building unexpectedly acquired a social aspect, which at the end of the evening was supported by Pyotr Kudryavtsev and Pyotr Shura, who announced their intention to establish a scholarship for MARHI students in the amount of $ 25,000 in the near future. True, the founders of Building have not yet decided what exactly and to whom they will give it, but on the other hand, they have a whole year for this. Unless, of course, during this time the concept does not change radically.
