"Architecture of the Future" opens a cycle of cultural discussions under the general title "Present of the Future", which the German Cultural Center. Goethe and the publishing house "New Literary Review" will spend one and a half years in the famous Big Auditorium of the Polytechnic Museum. The recent visit of Werner Sobek to the Second Moscow Biennale of Architecture, where the German engineer presented the exhibition Sketches of the Future, dedicated to innovative building materials and the possibilities of their use in architecture, can be considered a kind of prologue to the current topic.
One of the main exhibits of this exhibition, along with samples of materials, was House R-128 - the own house of Werner Sobek, which he considers the embodiment of his ideas about the architecture of the future. The house is a laconic fully transparent tower, the outer walls and internal partitions of which are made of triple-glazed windows of the highest quality. The only thing hidden from the eyes of a casual passer-by are two toilets and a shower (they are covered with aluminum frames), as well as beds in the bedrooms, wrapped in opaque curtains. All building materials used in the creation of this house are completely harmless to the environment and can be recycled. Electricity is produced by solar panels, and the house is controlled using motion sensors and voice commands. It is interesting that the interior of the house does not just have a free layout, but can change its configuration depending on the wishes of the owners. In particular, Zobek can move the bathroom along any of the walls - for example, in order to watch a beautiful sunset while swimming.
Presenting his home in the Large Auditorium of the Polytechnic Museum, the engineer elaborated on the issues of ergonomics, manufacturability and energy saving. Of course, the author had to answer the question of how convenient it is to live in an absolutely transparent volume. I must say that Werner Sobek does not consider life behind glass to be something unnatural. “Someone likes to live in a case, and someone in a nest. I love my home, and through the transparent facade I can observe how nature is changing. I began, like an animal, to adapt to the rhythms of nature, by the shade of light I learned to determine the time of day and season! However, this does not mean that the future of architecture (including private), according to the engineer, lies exclusively with transparent structures. “It would be awful if we had some kind of mono style,” Werner Sobek is convinced. The only thing that he considers obligatory and always implements in his projects is the compliance of the building with the “rule of three zeros”: do not throw anything into the atmosphere, do not consume, but produce energy, do not leave debris either during assembly or during demolition.
The architecture of Werner Sobek, no doubt, could claim to be the ideal embodiment of the ideas and technologies of the housing of the future, if … not for its cost. Alas, everything that engineer Zobek builds today is equally impressive with its high-class design and prohibitively high price. Today only large corporations can afford such technological delights, but not by private individuals and not even by the state as a customer of social housing.“For Werner Sobek, buildings are airplanes, both in terms of their technical level and cost,” Sergei Tchoban noted during the discussion. "And here a completely natural question arises: is this the only way to make the architecture of the future?"
The German-Russian architect believes that "green" architecture has three development paths: bionic, technological (like Sobek's) and with the preservation of the traditional form with the highest quality of execution. Choban himself chooses the latter option as the most time-tested and aesthetically sound. “Is your building beautiful? “I don’t know, it is“green”, - this is how modern architects reason today, but such houses are unlikely to become the houses of the future,” Sergei believes. In his opinion, the architecture of the future is one that ages beautifully, but does not grow decrepit. Examples include both classic buildings and buildings of the 20th century, such as the residential building of the founder of industrial architecture, Peter Behrens. Several years ago, Sergei Tchoban's bureau was engaged in the restoration of the facades of the latter in Berlin, and now he is pleased to present this building built in 1932 as an example of green architecture with an effective ratio of openings and a double facade, thanks to which the building consumes energy very economically even without solar panels on the roof. But the majority of modern buildings, from the works of modernism of the 1960s to the high-tech structures of the last decades, are already morally outdated, and not having time to become the future, says Sergei Tchoban. “The building that houses our Berlin office was considered incredibly progressive in the 1990s,” Tchoban said. - But in just 15 years it has "grown decrepit". Is 15 years a period for architecture? Nearby there are houses from the century before last - they were never masterpieces, but they are pretty."
The ideal model for creating the housing of the future, according to Sergei Tchoban, is one in which 90 percent of the architect's attention is paid to technology, but 10 percent - necessarily to aesthetics. By aesthetics, the co-author of two Moscow new buildings - the Novatek office and a residential building in Granatnoye - understands, first of all, the quality of the worked surface and materials: “The house in Granatny Lane, for example, has planes that are capable of perceiving aging. This will allow it to be a building tomorrow and not a fashionable box."
On closer inspection, however, it turns out that the accusation of high cost applies not only to the glass houses of Werner Sobek, but also to the "traditional" architecture of Tchoban. However, Sergei Tchoban believes that the correct attitude to the surface and material is also appropriate when working with areas of mass housing, where the use of standard (but high-quality!) Projects will significantly reduce the cost of their implementation. Werner Sobek is convinced that mankind will be able to put on stream and production of glass houses if it learns to use the energy of the sun everywhere. True, the speaker tactfully kept silent about how much it costs today to live in a house like that of engineer Zobek.
It should be noted that both architects, answering the questions of the discussion moderator Alexei Muratov, showed themselves to be rather restrained futurists. While scientists predict that in the next 20-30 years humanity will make a transition to new energy sources, Sergei Choban and Werner Zobek are inclined to assess the prospects for the development of the architectural process much more restrained. For example, both of them consider the invention of fundamentally different forms of space to be fantastic. “I think that in the next 1000 years a person will still prefer to be in an upright position,” Zobek joked. Architecture will not go along the path of exclusive media coverage, in any case Sergei Tchoban really hopes for this, since, in his opinion, this will make the lifespan of buildings extremely short. Cities, according to the architects, will continue to develop compactly, and not according to the principle of a garden city, since, as Tchoban noted, only a certain density creates the social comfort and social control necessary for the existence of the city. In addition, people will continue to build skyscrapers in the next 20-30 years. First, because buildings of this type have not yet exhausted their potential, says Sobek. And secondly, because “a person is an irrational creature and will build not for reasons of ecology, but because there will always be someone who wants to stand out at the expense of someone else,” Tchoban believes. But, perhaps, the most provocative is Tchoban's forecast that there will be no museums in the future, in particular, museums of contemporary art: "These are the most ineffective structures: huge spaces, gigantic energy costs and zero information."
The most noticeable changes, in the opinion of both participants in the discussion, await not the urban environment, but the profession of the urban planner itself. Already today, architecture is gradually being replaced by engineering, and the architect is being pushed out of the design process. Werner Sobek believes that this process will become even more complicated, including due to representatives of new specialties, but he does not believe that all these people will ever be able to do without an architect at all. Sergei Tchoban is convinced that over time, architects will retrain from managers to directors who can work with a large team of professionals as a single organism and who are extremely responsible in choosing partners to create the building of the future and bring it to life.
