Archi.ru: How did you start your work in the museum? How much has your idea of him changed after the appointment and the first acquaintance with the “wrong side” of the museum as its new director?
Irina Korobyina: My work began on April 5, on the first day of Easter week, with an acquaintance with the team. The first steps are to study the documents and space of the Museum from the inside, especially its "through the looking glass", closed to visitors. I did not expect an exemplary wrong side, but the reality surpassed expectations. It was as if I got into the engine room of the ship from a holiday on the upper deck, where music thundered, fireworks, fireworks sparkled and we all drank champagne with a wonderful captain. And it was a happy life! But to prevent the ship from sinking, you need to put things in order in this part that is closed for access - to close numerous holes, repair mechanisms, eliminate defects, inspire the team, at the same time, learn navigation, etc.
I work in several directions at once, drawn in the light of the upcoming reconstruction, their common theme is the question of the development of the museum. I am not facing separate problems, but a single complex task: the concept of the museum's development, the concept of a permanent exhibition, the establishment of the museum as a living and very active center of the architectural and cultural life of the international level. I hope to involve the best domestic and foreign professionals in this process.
Archi.ru: What problems of the museum seem to you to be the most serious and require prompt intervention?
I. K.: Reconstruction of the complex of buildings belonging to the museum into a new center of architectural life is coming. This means that today it is necessary to put in order the documents of title and think about the concept of development. It is clear that we are striving for a new quality, but what will it be, what will the renovated museum of architecture consist of, what kind of life will it be intended for? For many years there was no permanent exhibition, scientific research activities, which were very serious in Soviet times, somehow came to naught. In recent years, MUAR has become a bright and socially active center of architectural life, but the signs indicating that this is a museum have faded, and this is a shame, because its funds are out of competition!
According to the acts of inspections received from the Ministry of Culture - this is an act of 2007 and an act of 2009 unfinished in connection with the illness of David Ashotovich - the picture is not very good. It is necessary to build a new depository, to improve the storage conditions. So in the near future - to intensify the imperceptible, but heroic work in the funds: accounting, restoration, documentation, scientific research, and so on. To the best of our strength and capabilities, we will strengthen the team of curators, who are sorely lacking in a museum that has huge funds in terms of quantity and, I think, the best in Europe in terms of its level. The curators are forced to accept for safekeeping a much larger volume of valuables than in other museums, while their salaries are negligible, and each curator, headed by the main one, bears personal responsibility for everything that is in his department. This is painstaking, inconspicuous and very difficult work that requires time, attention and a lot of love. I think that the team of the museum staff are people who are kept in the workplace by a sense of professional vocation and love, because it is difficult to find other motivations here.
Electrical wiring, elaboration and approval of the staffing table and the completion of a package of title documents also require my prompt intervention.
Archi.ru: At your first meeting with the museum staff, you promised to tackle the personnel issue. Which part of the museum will the personnel reshuffle affect first of all?
IK: I did not mean personnel changes, but an increase in the salaries of employees. Average salaries in the Museum are below the subsistence level.
Archi.ru: Commenting on your appointment as director of the museum, the Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Alexander Avdeev stressed that his department was looking for "a person who would combine the abilities of a museum worker and a builder." Do you consider yourself a “builder”? Are you afraid of the upcoming hectic economic activity?
I. K.: I am by no means a builder, so I am in search of a deputy for capital construction. Business activities in a museum can be interesting and creative, such as running a trendy designer bookstore. However, for its implementation, I would have invited a producer-manager.
I think my role is to communicate with both the cultural community of the country and the global architectural community. It is necessary to attract the best professional forces to the Museum, which is completely easy and natural for me, since I have been friends with many leading architects of Russia and the world for more than one year. And they all express their readiness to help the museum completely disinterestedly. I hope to contribute to the concept of the museum's development into a multifunctional center, to which my Ph. D. thesis was dedicated at one time.
Archi.ru: Today there is a lot of talk about the museumification of David Sargsyan's office. Do you plan to implement this idea? How necessary does this measure seem to you personally? How is it technically possible to make an administrative office a display object?
IK: Yes, it is necessary to decide how to preserve and exhibit the legendary cabinet of David. I consider it my duty to leave it in the museum and provide access to it, and, most importantly, its safety. The task is incredibly difficult, because David's personal space, his office is the cave of Ali Baba, which is filled with thousands of treasures, including the works of artists, and donated books, and a million all sorts of strange and funny things … I think all this needs to be turned into “A special museum piece”. I am very glad that there are already ideas and suggestions on this topic from David's friends, as well as mine - Yuri Grigoryan and Alexander Brodsky, who work completely free of charge. Their talent, skill and love for David are the guarantee that the correct solution will be found. I hope this special "exhibit" can become an impetus for the creation of a permanent exhibition of the museum. She, of course, must occupy the main building, which is awaiting scientific restoration.
Archi.ru: Will there be a competition for the project for the reconstruction of the museum complex? If so, will it be a Russian or international competition?
IK: The questions about who will make the project for the reconstruction of the museum complex are premature. So far, there is not even a complete set of documents required to start pre-project studies. Until the stage of architectural design is still to go and go. Now it is necessary to engage in tedious and at the same time stressful paper-coordination activities. While everyone is worried about the skin of an unkilled bear, there is real help. I am very grateful to the Project Meganom bureau and the Union of Architects of Russia, who came forward with a disinterested initiative and made a pre-project analysis of the territory in order to search for reserves for the development of the museum complex with constructive ideas on how to increase its area, capacity and volume.
Archi.ru: Will you continue to lead Ts: SA? Will the center of modern architecture remain an independent organization or will it become part of a museum, which today, as you know, does not have a full-fledged department of modern architecture?
IK: I plan to integrate the activities of C: SA into the work of the museum. I believe that the combination of our developments with the museum resource will give a new quality, which, in fact, distinguishes modern museums, which have become an integral and very attractive part of today's life. A museum with a future perspective must face the future.
Archi.ru: Which of the modern museums (architecture and not only) do you consider a role model? How do you see an “ideal” museum of architecture?
IK: My reference book now is a booklet of the famous Austrian museum MAK. When the new director, the legendary Peter Noever, came there in 1986, he got a quite ordinary and boring museum of decorative and applied arts, which he turned into one of the most relevant and influential museums in Europe, where everything is arranged very professionally, artistically, and at the same time is rational. He was able not only to build a competent structure and attract serious resources to it, but also to gather in the museum itself and around it outstanding people, allies, associates, associates.
The ideal that I want to strive for is the creation of a center for international architectural life, serving to develop feedback between the profession and society. It is a kind of instrument for uniting the most diverse architectural forces. I hope that the generation of the development of architectural thought, the establishment of cultural values, implying both the protection of the historical and architectural heritage, and the promotion of contemporary architecture will take place here.
Of course, the permanent exhibition, created by the efforts of the best researchers and exhibitors, will be complemented by active exhibition, educational and research activities. The developed complex of all museum services will coexist with a unique photo library and an architectural video archive, a media library, a chic library with a reading room, an architectural literature and design store, a club-cafe, its own publishing house and a television studio. And in the director's office there are the incessant voices of friends and colleagues-architects, art historians, museum workers, critics and all those who are not indifferent to the history-theory-practice of Architecture. Already today, among my consultants are Alexander Kudryavtsev, Peter Zumthor, Peter Noever, Vladimir Paperny, Alexander Rappaport and many other creators of our time, whom I hope to accumulate around the museum.
Prepared by Anna Martovitskaya
