On May 26, the Museum of Architecture opened the "AuthorPati" exhibition - a personal exposition of the winners of the "Space of Contemporary Architecture" competition. This competition was held by the museum jointly with C: SA in honor of the anniversary of the latter, and its results were solemnly announced at a holiday in January; at the same time, an exhibition of ten winners was shown in the Apothecary Order of the Museum. Now the winners of that competition were offered to make installations on an arbitrary theme, "reflecting the creative credo of the participant"; the resulting objects are displayed in the Ruin Wing. These works have nothing to do with the theme of the past competition, although the name of the exhibition hints at continuity. However, this is a multi-layered name: it can be understood as a distorted English after party - after a party, and then it points simultaneously to the January competition, the winners of which are exhibited in the museum now, and to the exposition of the Belgian pavilion of the 2008 Venice Biennale, which was called this way. English. That pavilion was completely empty, except for the confetti on the floor, and then many critics liked it very much. However, the name of the exhibition of young architects differs from the English one - this can be understood as a kind of detachment from the Belgian prototype, or as an attempt to say in Russian-English "author's party". If you wish, you can even discern something self-critical: how far we are from them … However, all these speculations about the name are not so important.
However, if six months ago, young architects were thinking about the fate of Russia: for example, Liza Fonskaya and Nikita Asadov proposed to make the capital a migrant so that cities would improve before each move of officials, now some of the objects look like modern art, and the other part - like object design; there are several lamps among them.
For example, Tatiana Leshikhina and Anastasia Gritskova (installation "In the Clouds") created a series of lamps from plastic bags. Grigory Sidyakov, Igor Aparin, Mikhail Emontaev (The Nose) demonstrated a papier-mâché chandelier in the shape of a giant nose. And Olga Litvinova and Alexei Kharchenko developed the design of flower pots, outlined by oblique lines and with figures of white men among flowers, and created a bright green installation from them.
Maxim Malein, who won the vote in the January competition (he proposed to install plastic frames in all major cities of Russia that would be used as an interactive window to another city) - this time showed the video installation "Beyond geometry" (and again we recall the 2008 Biennale), promoting new technologies and a modern approach to architecture and design. It consists of a screen showing an abstract curvilinear animation and covered with gauze.
The organizers of the exhibition, headed by the director of the Museum of Architecture Irina Korobyina, were pleasantly surprised by the elegance of the exhibits on display. According to the director, the young architects have shown themselves to be mature masters of object design, and some of the objects on display could well be put into production.
The second external exhibition of the Arch of Moscow NEXT program has opened in the VKHUTEMAS gallery. It is called "Five-Year Plan", and also has to do with the anniversary, but already the anniversary of the gallery: she is five years old. Accordingly, VKHUTEMAS decided to recall the Soviet five-year plans - and the young architects "proclaimed a new architectural urban policy" and showed in the gallery alternative (utopian, as befits an old avant-garde) plans for the architectural development of Moscow: a mobile green city, with environmentally friendly modes of transport and developed amenities. Five teams of architects took part in the project - Megabudka, Children of Iofan, Archpole, Milk factory, Fast (t).
The architects of Megabudka proposed their solution to the problem of the Khimki forest: everyone who will drive along the highway built there is invited to take a container with a tree growing in it on the trunk. Thus, if all cars passing through the forest or standing in a traffic jam are supplied with trees, their total number will remain, - the authors of the project believe.
Authors from the Fast (t) group interpreted in their own way the idea "Moscow-the Third Rome" that had stuck in their teeth - namely, they recommended borrowing the experience of Ancient Rome in organizing public toilets and creating in Moscow a "toilet ring" of monumental buildings made of luxurious marble. At the same time, supply these structures with modern engineering systems and free Wi-fi.
"Children of Iofan" proposed a solution to the transport problem by organizing an aeronautical system. The new transport system would undoubtedly improve communication between different parts of the city, and ground objects could become observation platforms.
Archpole decided to start with the revitalization of one particular village, setting up furniture production, housing construction, restoration of churches and all the infrastructure there.
Milk factory proposed to improve the urban environment with modular elements of greenery that can be easily moved, greening roofs, facades, squares.
The entire exposition was designed by the architects of Megabudka. According to their plan, each project is placed on a long table in the form of an arrow, symbolizing the movement from the present to the future. Each arrow is divided into five segments, one segment representing the year.
On May 31, the gallery hosted a "Five-Year Plan holiday", where everyone could vote for the project they liked, as well as the least utopian, in their opinion, project. As a result of the vote, oddly enough, this turned out to be a project developed by the "Children of Iofan" group. The guests of the "Five-Year Plan" found it more useful and realistic to organize a system of airship movement in Moscow than, for example, to build toilets worthy of the ancient Romans. At the same time, art critic Alexander Shklyaruk presented all the project participants with the book "Constructivism in Soviet Posters" published by the "Contact-Culture" publishing house.
You can take a closer look at the projects of the "Five-Year Plan" exhibition here.
The exhibitions will be open: in the Museum of Architecture - until June 26, in the VKHUTEMAS gallery - until June 25.
