For the third year in a row, the presentations of new issues of SPEECH: magazine have invariably become an architectural holiday - with a large number of distinguished guests, an interesting program and live music - and the sixth event was no exception, despite the severe February frosts. The address of the “winter” meetings “SPEECH:” is already customary - this is the Vintage Hall of the Center for Contemporary Art “Winzavod”.
Sergey Kuznetsov, head of the SPEECH Choban / Kuznetsov architectural bureau, was the first to present the new issue to the invited guests. He noted that the issue, dedicated to color solutions in architecture, itself turned out to be incredibly rich and bright. This was largely due to the choice of objects, including the bright green Center for Fashion and Design in Paris (Jakob + Macfarlane), the scarlet Museum of Contemporary Art in Malmö (Tham & Videgård), the blue Danish Radio Concert Hall (Jean Nouvel), David's City of Justice Chipperfield and David Adjaye's Skolkovo School of Management. Articles by Vladimir Sedov (“Color in Russian Architecture”), Ivan Nevzgodin (“Coloristics of Dutch Architecture”) and David Cohn (“Color in Contemporary Spanish Architecture”) are devoted to the national peculiarities of the use of color in architecture. And if in the Netherlands and Spain the traditions of creating a multi-colored habitat can be considered completely rooted, Vladimir Sedov makes less comforting conclusions regarding Russia: “Despite the seeming brilliance, the process of working with color in Russian architecture may not have begun yet”. A similar thought was voiced at the presentation by Sergei Kuznetsov: “It would seem that we should be the most colorful architectural power in order to somehow compensate for the dullness of our climate, but so far, unfortunately, this has not happened. By publishing a magazine dedicated to color in architecture, we hope that it will at least one step bring Russian reality closer to the multicolor of hot countries."
The central event of the presentation was a lecture by Will Alsop, "the main bully of English architecture". The architect himself defined the genre of his speech as "showing films with free commentary" and took the stage with a glass of wine and a lighted cigar. “Usually in such situations, the speakers philosophize, and I could too, since my age already allows me to say all sorts of things with a smart look, but, frankly, I find it very boring,” Alsop admitted to the delight of the audience. And, sitting comfortably in an armchair, he added that, in fact, he always liked to have fun more than to work. “You can say that this is my creative credo: entertainment is more interesting than work. And this principle perfectly explains what I do in architecture."
However, Will Alsop began his story about his projects with the work he had done for Moscow at one time. Among them are the Millennium House office complex, the Deutsche Bank building on Shchepkina Street, and a residential complex on Rochdelskaya Street. The project of reconstruction of the Domodedovo airport flashed among these slides, pointing to which, the author casually commented: “And, by the way, it would be a good airport, much more interesting than the one I arrived at today”. Further on the screen appeared the latest bright works of Alsop - the residential complex Chips and The Public gallery, which explained better than any words why this particular architect became the main character of the SPEECH: issue dedicated to color.
“I don't see the difference between painting and architecture … New materials give me the opportunity to use colors in new ways. Previously, colors were usually applied with paint. Today it is in the past. So for me not using color is like boxing with one hand. This is an excerpt from an interview with Will Alsop, which was made by the famous critic Vladimir Belogolovsky for SPEECH: magazine (by the way, it was he who introduced the British architect to the Moscow audience). Will Alsop did not speak so seriously with the audience who came to the presentation: he devoted most of his lecture to the demonstration of animated films that clearly show the process of finding the right color and creating a memorable image - both in painting and in architecture. The stylistics of these cartoons could be called acidic, if from the seemingly chaotic mixing of colors Alsop did not manage to extract a new building each time, striking both with its originality and with the integrity of the image.
