"Perestroika" Against The Crisis

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 00:51

Perhaps no one doubted that the current exhibition will be held under the sign of the economic crisis and the fight against it. For the professional community, now there is no topic more important than survival in the prevailing conditions, and the national architectural exhibition No. 1 was simply obliged to reflect the stages of this winding path. And if all the other reviews are indirectly devoted to the crisis, to the extent that they show an order of magnitude decreased number of projects and implementations, then Arch Moscow and the Biennale that joined it set themselves an ambitious task, if not to develop, then at least to grope for a new strategy development of architecture and urban planning, which most adequately meets the needs of the crisis era. And such a topic was indeed found - the curators rightly judged that today no one builds in cities and does not boast of million-dollar projects, and they staked not on new construction, but on the harmonization of existing facilities and urban planning structures.

All major projects of the Biennale were devoted to the topic of renovation in one way or another. These are “Modernization of Modernism”, and the section “City Transformation”, and brightly colored facades of typical high-rise buildings in the “City of Perestroika”, and even “Big bet”. “City Transformation” brought together several proposals for the renovation of Russian cities, different in scale and degree of elaboration. This is the method of complex renovation of a typical quarter of a historical city (using Samara as an example), invented by Ostozhenka, and the project of introducing a racing highway into the structure of Togliatti, and scenarios for the development of modern residential areas in Moscow (New in the New) developed by the Youth Association of the SAR. The project “Krapivna. Resurrection”, born in the experimental educational design workshop of the Moscow Architectural Institute, headed by Evgeny Ass.

Krapivna is a former district town, now a village in the Tula region, where the branch of the Leo Tolstoy museum-reserve "Yasnaya Polyana" is located. The layout of the 18th century has been completely preserved in it, which, coupled with a favorable ecology and good transport accessibility, makes the town extremely attractive, if not for reconstruction with subsequent settlement, then at least for use as an ideal urban planning model. Evgeny Ass and his students emphasize that the project is deliberately focused on small structures, commensurate with a person and worked out in detail. In the reconstructed settlement there are no passable or random objects - on the contrary, each is worked out with love, which betrays the fears of young architects that without carefully revitalized small towns Russia will very quickly turn into a conglomerate of lifeless megalopolises.

It is precisely such megalopolises that the projects "Greater Paris" and "Moscow" were called upon to fight. The first, let me remind you, was initiated personally by the President of France and developed by ten leading European bureaus, each of which proposed its own version of the reshaping of the endlessly expanded capital. Project "Moscow" was invented by curators Bart Goldhoorn and Elena Gonzalez as a kind of response from Russians to French. 10 teams were also invited, the entire city was at their disposal, and it was expected that the architects would figure out how to make it comfortable and human-scale. However, a full-fledged creative bet did not work out. Where the French acted thoughtfully and delicately, the Russians preferred a joke and a spectacular art statement. And although there is a rational grain in the proposals of Muscovites (for example, Ilya Mukosey predicts the Great Transport Collapse and proposes to clone Moscow four times, Boris Bernasconi develops the "crystal lattice" of small cities between the two capitals, and Mikhail Labazov greens the golden dome everywhere), they are made in such a conditional and emphasized in a conceptual manner, which instantly becomes clear: architects themselves do not really believe that their city can ever change.

Undoubtedly, one of the main intrigues of the Moscow Biennale of Architecture is the question of where, in fact, lies the border between it and Arch Moscow. And is there anyway at all? By the way, all of the above projects were included in the program of the Biennale. And this allows us to conclude that the Biennale is actually a collection of all the non-commercial expositions of the exhibition, which she was forced to pull on herself for the sake of prestige. Well, since the Biennale is conceptual projects and expositions of foreign stars, then Arch Moscow, in theory, is a cut of the current Russian architectural practice. However, it was here that an overlay came out.

Whether because of the crisis, or for some other reason, the participants in the "Architecture" section this year could be counted on the fingers of literally one hand. However, the most depressing impression was made not by their quantity, but by the quality of the works presented. There was almost no architecture itself - full-blooded and full-fledged, in the form of well thought-out concepts, approved projects or fresh implementations - at the exhibition. And apart from the joint stand of the two unions - Moscow and Russian - and several tablets from Mosproekt-4, there was not a single big name in the Architecture section this year.

A kind of guarantor that this situation will not repeat next year is the tradition of choosing the architect of the year. This year the high status was awarded to Vladimir Plotkin, which means that Arch Moscow -2011 will begin with his personal exhibition. “I must admit that the organizers managed to intrigue me - I did not expect to be named Architect of the Year at all and was very surprised (pleasantly surprised, of course) when it happened. After all, this year I did not participate either in the Biennale or in Arch Moscow. Previously, I always, at least somehow, took part in some competition or Archcatalogue, but this time it did not work out - Vladimir Plotkin told us, - What is my opinion about the Biennale? The Moscow-Paris conference seemed especially interesting to me. A wonderful exposition of Perm, beautiful and informative. Krapivna Evgeniy Assa's brilliant project, especially from a methodological point of view. Among foreigners, I would like to mention the exhibition of Werner Sobek."

So, the Grand Prix of the Biennale was received by PROJECT PERM - a combined exposition of projects made for the city on the Kama, starting with the masterplan developed by the KCAP bureau and ending with competitions for the projects of the PERMM Museum of Contemporary Art and the Opera and Ballet Theater. The project “Modernization of panel houses: the experience of Germany” (organizer - the magazine “Project Baltia”) was named the best exposition of the section “Modernization of modernism”, and Krapivna was out of competition in the “Transformation of the city”. The best guest projects were recognized as the exposition “Verne Zobek and ILEK: Sketches of the Future” and the exhibition of the nominees for the ARCHIWOOD 2010 award. And in the nomination “New Place in the City”, the art project “Strelka” was predictably awarded with a diploma. By the way, it was on its territory on May 27 that the "Architect's Breakfast" took place, where designers, developers and critics discussed the problems of the development of modern megacities. There were other “external” events in the program of the Biennale, but some of them, alas, remained only on paper. For example, the promised exhibition of the photographer Alexei Naroditsky in the Museum of Architecture was never found. The expositions in the Central House of Artists did not always open on time - "Arch Moscow" from year to year amazes with the fact that it begins to build at the very last moment. However, it seems that this is not a feature of this particular exhibition, and not even of national architecture in general, but of the mentality and national character. And, apparently, even the crisis here is not able to change anything.

Below we publish the results of the Second Moscow Biennale of Architecture and the Arch Moscow exhibition.

Architect of the Year - Vladimir Plotkin

Grand Prix - PROJECT PERM

Masterplan. General plan. Museum of Contemporary Art. Opera and Ballet Theatre.

Curator: magazine PROJECT RUSSIA, with the support of the administration of the city of Perm

Diploma for contribution to the development of PROJECT PERM

Sergey Gordeev, Member of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation from the Perm Territory

The best exposition of the section "Modernization of modernism"

MODERNIZATION OF PANEL HOUSES: THE EXPERIENCE OF GERMANY

Organizers: PROJECT BALTIA Magazine

General partner: KNAUF Company. Sponsor: STO

Supported by: German Cultural Center. Goethe in Moscow

Project manager: Valeria Kashirina, curator from Germany: Christina Greve, curator from Russia: Vladimir Frolov

NEW NEW CHEREMUSHKI

Modernization of the (post) Soviet microdistrict.

Head: Anna Bokova. Assistants: Evgeniya Murinets, Sergey Glubokin

The best exposition of the section "City transformation"

KRAPIVNA 010: RESURRECTION

Workshop of Experimental Educational Design MArchI

Moderators: Evgeny Ass, Nikita Tokarev, Kirill Ass

DEVELOPMENT. Cycling infrastructure project.

Curators: Denis Chistov, Grigory Guryanov / AB PRACTICE, with the support of PROM MARKHI / Administration of Dubna / TV channel "Dubna"

Samara: Methods for Renovating a Regular Quarter of a Historic Russian City.

Architectural bureau "Ostozhenka"

The best exposition of the section "City of Perestroika"

Competition "Our New School"

Organizer: IG KOPERNIK, Partner: Sberbank of Russia, Curator: Elena Gonzalez

The best exposition of the section "Guest projects"

Werner Sobek and Ilek: sketches of the future

Supported by: German Cultural Center. Goethe in Moscow

ARCHIWOOD 2010. Exhibition of the nominees for the award.

Curator: Nikolay Malinin

Organizer: Rossa Rakenne SPb (Honka)

Building sustainable communities

Organizers: DAC Danish Architecture Center, Royal Danish Embassy

Special diplomas

Moscow 1993-2009: Burden of Change

Organizer: Public Movement ArchNadzor

Curators: Alexander Mozhaev, Natalia Samover

For the joint research project of architects and developers "New in New"

Curator: Elena Gonzalez

Organizer: Vedis Group / Youth Association of the Union of Moscow Architects

Let's keep "Moscow" in Yerevan.

Organizer: Union of Architects of Russia, International Association of Unions of Architects (MASA), Russian Branch of the Union of Architects of Armenia (ROSAA)

Nomination "New place in the city"

Arrow art project

The best exposition in the "Architecture" section

Tsimailo Lyashenko & Partners

Yauzaproject

Best Design Object

The world of parquet

The best exposition in the "Design" section

Nayada Company and Smart Balls

DuPont Science and Technology

Best Professional Material Demonstration

RHEINZINK