Curator Bart Goldhoorn this year deliberately invited not only interesting foreign bureaus to the Next International program, but companies run by young architects. It is interesting that in Europe this definition means practically the same age as in our country - 30-35 years, but the achievements of our “young” European colleagues are much higher. And the presented expositions clearly prove this.
A series of foreign exhibitions "Arch of Moscow 2011" is opened by the Austrian bureau xarchtekten - a group that successfully combines the construction of residential and public complexes with conceptual research in the field of urbanism. The architects built their exposition as a presentation of their latest projects, both implemented and still existing only on paper. The projects were presented in the form of photographs and 3D visualizations, and the architects conditionally divided the entire array of pictures into three parts: the largest objects, medium-sized objects and chamber, private buildings. It is very simple to navigate where which ones are - the largest volumes are printed on large-format photographs, and individual houses and pavilions, on the contrary, are represented by pictures the size of a notebook sheet.
Red umbrellas, fastened together and forming an impressive hemisphere, are already DUS architects from Holland. At the exhibition, this structure instantly became a favorite attraction for children and adults - they constantly take pictures under the umbrella arch or just pass by, because it is more interesting. Architects Hedwig Heinsman, Marnia de Wit and Hans Vermeulen do not hide that they were counting on such an effect: their favorite horse is to model public space using a 1: 1 scale. In Rotterdam, for example, the umbrella dome they invented served as a street bar, redirecting the flow of people along a new route in the blink of an eye.
The silicate blocks, on which the participants' tablets are placed, are becoming a cross-cutting theme for the design of the foreign exposition. Thus, the curator wanted to emphasize that with all the variety of artistic and planned ideas, the young generation of European architects profess the same basic values - an individual approach to each project, responsibility in relation to the context and needs of society, an orientation towards innovative technologies. “The environment in which we work is constantly changing, even during design and construction, so we have to adhere to a very flexible concept that can adapt to external circumstances, but maintain its essence and correspond to the present. Each project should have its own history and identity, created by a unique program and conditions”, - are convinced of the CEBRA bureau from Denmark.
But the British from the AOC bureau used blocks to place not tablets, but questions from which work on each of the presented projects began for them. "How do you bring an abandoned pier back to life?" "How do you create a teaching landscape?" Plates, diagrams and diagrams are placed on the wall opposite each of the questions, clearly demonstrating what answers the architects found to them. However, for the most slow-witted, the answers are formulated in writing - on the annotations to the projects, and it must be said that these answers are far from always distinguished by political correctness and gentleness. So, on the last question, the architects decisively say: "By shaking the fucking rubbish out of them." In order to create truly high-quality and well-thought-out objects, you need to act decisively and directly, we are confident in AOC.
Daniel Dendra, founder of the interdisciplinary architectural bureau anOther Architect, which has offices in Berlin and Moscow, thinks in about the same vein. At its stand, topical issues that the modern city poses to the architect were complemented by unusual furniture. The chairs and armchairs folded of perforated white sheets of metal looked like they were made of paper - visitors did not dare to sit in them, without first making sure that the structure was able to withstand at least some weight. “Modern architecture is often not what it seems at first glance,” says Dendra. “It solves a lot of very different problems, but such a“versatility”should by no means be striking."
The exhibition “Riga Wooden Architecture: Achievements and Prospects”, created by “Bureau Zaiga Gaile”, complements the foreign program of the current Arch of Moscow. Three Riga organizational and financial models of preservation and reconstruction of wooden buildings are painted in detail on large tablets, and small neat models show both restored objects and examples of new wooden buildings.
