Every Saturday, within the framework of the XII International Biennale of Architecture in Venice, meetings are held with the former curators of this most prestigious professional show in the world. On October 16, Professor Kurt Forster became the hero of “Architectural Saturday”, who proposed the theme “Metamorphoses” for the 2004 Biennale.
Returning to Venice six years later, Forster titled his lecture Life After Metamorphoses. Introducing his guests to the audience - the editor-in-chief of the Madrid magazine Arquitectura Viva Luis Fernandez Galliano and the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels (founder of BIG, one of the most famous and sought-after bureaus in his country), the curator of 2004 first spoke about why he then chose this topic … According to him, at the beginning of the first decade of the new century, it seemed to him that the future of architecture lies precisely with metamorphoses - for a global transformation, such as occurred in Berlin (and Forster was one of the consultants of the German government on the reconstruction of the city after the unification), for digital forms, computer design and the creation of a fundamentally new language of architecture.
Six years later, a professor from Zurich, oddly enough, looks at the "metamorphosis" much more skeptically. Yes, digital forms, yes, buildings-icons and buildings-brands, but what is behind them? And behind them, according to Kurt Forster, there is practically nothing - at least, no benefit, no contribution to solving social, aesthetic and economic problems, which, as the professor is deeply convinced, should not be alien to real high-quality architecture. And if in 2004 he conceived the Biennale as a platform where the optimal balance between old and new, metamorphoses and historical heritage, traditional sketching and 3D design, between human imagination and computer design would be found, today it is recognized that this balance has not been found.
"The question" What to do with history? " today it is relevant for almost all megacities, but the architects seem to have agreed: all they can offer is either semi-antique mimicry, or a deliberately pretentious form, which for some reason is called modern, says Forster. “For me, it’s not the forms that should be so modern, but the materials and, above all, the techniques.”
A historian who has been studying classical architecture for many years, and a curator who has made a bet on modern architecture, today does not hide that he is looking for a third way, urging designers not to rush to extremes and not express themselves, but to work on solving simple everyday issues: how to save resources, how to provide comfortable and beautiful housing for everyone who needs it, how to preserve the historical heritage without spoiling it with fakes.
Even more categorical was Luis Fernandez Galliano, editor-in-chief of one of the most influential architectural magazines in Spain, Arquitectura Viva. Taking the floor, he said that with architecture today "very wrong things are happening." “When Kurt Forster announced the theme of 'Metamorphosis' in 2004, I thought, 'Ok, let's see what is changing in our world and where it will take us,' he recalls. - I think Kurt will agree with me: his biennale turned out to be very poetic, we saw in it not metamorphoses as such, but the ideas and dreams of architects about them. The most surprising thing is that little has changed in six years: I walk through the national pavilions and expositions in the Arsenal and see all the same dreams and fantasies. And where are the real cases? It seems to me that the architecture of the last decade is very let down by someone who once invented a sonorous slogan "Design the dream". It's time to stop designing a dream and equip a virtual space! " Having considered two dozen high-profile architectural premieres of recent years, Galliano very sharply condemned the tendencies of "star" architecture and the creation of icon-buildings. According to the critic, they are good only to be photographed against their background, but they are completely unable, for example, to qualitatively improve the living environment around them. "But what about Bilbao ?!" - shouted to the speaker from the hall. “The Bilbao you are talking about became known to the world in 1996, since then twice as long has passed than after the“Metamorphoses”! Not too much for one trend? " Galliano retorted emotionally and brought up a photograph of the burning World Trade Center on the screen. He is deeply convinced that after the September 11 terrorist attack, architecture simply has no right to remain the same, and designers and their customers are obliged to invest their ambition not in glamor, but in safety and practicality. For the sake of fairness, we note that this is Galliano's favorite horse - for many years he has considered it his duty to urge architects to show conscientiousness and modesty.
In the opinion of both participants in the discussion, such a designer is Bjarke Ingels, who then, in 2004, became the youngest laureate of the Venice Biennale of Architecture (he received a special prize for the project of the Stavanger Concert Hall (Norway). Six years later, he is deservedly considered one of the most famous modern architects of Denmark, who build a lot both in their own country and abroad. In particular, it was Ingels who owns the project of the Danish pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, designed as a giant magnifying glass, from which a tightly wound spiral Arriving in Venice at the special invitation of Kurt Forster, Bjarke Ingels actually publicly reported on the work done in six years in front of the man who lit his star. using slideshows and their unrealized works, and buildings, and newest projects. And looking at these and Buildings that are innovative in the technologies used in them and very impressive outwardly, you understand that Kurt Forster is still being modest: life after Metamorphosis continues, and the architecture is undoubtedly changing for the better. True, so far this is happening only in the most developed and smallest country in Europe.
