As Alexei Bavykin himself says, the idea to hold such an exhibition arose spontaneously. At the beginning of April in the same hall there was an exhibition of works by the workshop "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners", and the CAP management considered this format of the "progress report" very successful, deciding to turn it into a good tradition. The difference between the new cycle and traditional exhibitions is that they will not have a hint of retrospective - the workshops will show only those projects that have been worked on over the past 2-3 years and continue to work at the moment. Thus, both the Union and the heroes of the exhibitions themselves intend to show that rumors about the destructive impact of the crisis on architecture are somewhat exaggerated.
At the opening of the exhibition, Aleksey Bavykin stressed several times that this was not his personal exposition, but a demonstration of the results of the collective work of the workshop, in which, despite the crisis, 35 people were employed. Over the past two years, they have designed more than 10 objects, which have now been approved and are ready for implementation. Bavykin proudly says that all objects (with the exception of one residential building) will definitely be built, and some have even received all the necessary stamps and signatures of officials. True, not all projects managed to overcome this "line of fire" without losses: not least of all, the exhibition is called "Metamorphoses" because some objects in the struggle for the right to be realized have undergone quite serious changes. And the reason for this was not always the will and dubious taste of officials - it happened that the investor simply ran out of money, and he was forced to change the functional purpose of the object.
This is exactly what happened with the project of an administrative and office building in the 3rd Avtozavodsky passage. And if at first it was a subtle paraphrase of the famous DK im. Zuev Ilya Golosov, where the 27-storey cylinder acquired Doric flutes, then after the business center was converted into a 3-star hotel complex, the walls of the cylinder became smooth (Bavykin himself affectionately calls it not a column, but a bank), and it is now connected with the main volume only by a large square console at the level of the roof.
Another project that has undergone dramatic changes is the famous arch-house on Mozhaisk highway. Recall that initially Bavykin interpreted this office complex as a kind of three-dimensional projection of the Triumphal Arch of Osip Bove. Through the arch passed the "nose" of a long glass body oriented along the highway - reminiscent of a locomotive frozen at the exit of a tunnel. In a word, it was a spectacular and ambiguous project that was loved by critics and received several professional awards. Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov personally "hacked him down", considering that there is no place for a romantic ruin in the capital (not so unexpected, if you remember how unlucky Tsaritsyn was in this sense), and Alexei Bavykin's workshop developed a second version of the office complex. The volumes became rectangular, the arch turned into a glass-stone pylon. Placed side by side, these tablets with two versions of the same project made, if not stop, then at least slow down the pace of almost all the visitors of the exhibition. And then the same scene followed: Aleksey Lvovich personally approached them, greeted them, warmly shook hands, then clapped his palm on the second option and exclaimed: “Agreed, everything is agreed! All the stamps are there! "Bavykin and his constant co-author Mikhail Marek responded to all fans of the theory of the creator's intransigence in a manifesto written specifically for this small exhibition. “The object can slightly shrink in volume, lose height, change its purpose, finally! And here the discussion is completely inappropriate! Good or bad - it makes no sense to comment. Sit down and work!"
In general, the overwhelming majority of Moscow projects are at the exhibition. An exception is the project of the second stage of the Premier residential complex in the city of Sochi - a gallery residential building located right behind the recently built tower of the Titanic residential building. According to Bavykin himself, the only criterion for selecting projects for the exposition was that they were agreed upon and would be built. The exception is a 10-storey residential building on Vavilov Street - the completion in the form of a gable roof, the beat-down rhythm of the windows, a brick facade, tightly fused with white plastered. This house, which is very typical for Bavykin, reflects and transforms the surrounding typical buildings (the favorite technique of the architect, suffice it to recall the residential tower on Isakovskogo Street, by the way, also included in the exposition), but although the project has already been agreed upon, it will not be built. Why this happened, Bavykin tells very reluctantly, waves his hand and again says something about the Moscow authorities. But he explains that he included this house in the exposition as proof that "a little diversity in approaches to" Moscow "architecture doesn't really hurt."
And it is really very Bavykino - to work with diversity and for the sake of diversity. In the exhibition hall of the CAP, nine projects are presented - nine completely different architectural subjects, created by one workshop for a multifaceted and colorful city in which everything is possible.
