Under the slogan "back to basics" Anton Kochurkin, architect and head of the 8L bureau, abandoned last year's idea of merging with contemporary art, moving from the abstraction of "forest liturgy" to the tangible form of universal structures, at first he was going to call the current festival "Elementary particles". One of these "particles" was to be the project-winner of the open competition "Shed No. 11", built in the Nikolenivets fields. However, the competition turned out to be popular, almost 350 works were submitted for it, and the jury represented by Evgeny Ass, Yuri Grigoryan and Anton Kochurkin, headed by Alexander Ermolaev, decided to implement not one project, but six. “There was no end to the imagination of the architects … and we felt that it would be relevant to go into the peasant theme,” the festival curator admits. Thus, from the parallel program "Sarai No. 11" has grown to the central object of "Archstoyanie", at the same time concretizing the vague theme of a certain "Elementary Particle" to the quite telling name "Saray".
Six structures, which are variations on the theme of a barn, varying in degree of outlandishness, are now scattered across the territory of Nikola-Lenivets.
Following the festival route, the viewer begins his journey from the "Wall of the Saray" by Sana Borieva - the most abstract object of this festival. A wall that is not yet capable of providing protection from rain and snow can already protect from the sun with its shadow. Deprived of the main functions of a barn, this "nonunit" turns into a kind of sundial during the day, reporting the current time of day, and a screen for film screening at night. The uneven inscription with the paint "firewood" that has recently appeared on the object catches the eye, which involuntarily raises the idea of another possible purpose of the building.
Replacing wood, the traditional material for building a barn, with steel chains suspended from a metal frame, the FAS (t) group of architects received the surreal structure "Standless Steel" (the name obviously refers to the inscriptions on the stainless steel knives). “We wanted the object to be sensitive to any changes in nature, be it an increase in temperature or wind force,” say young architects Alexander Ryabsky, Ksenia Kharitonova, Dmitry Baryudin. “The entrances and exits here are located along the entire perimeter,” the authors show, moving freely between the light chains. Permeated with streaming streams of light, ringing in the wind, and not performing any of the typical functions of a barn, the building was chosen by the guests of Archstoyanie as a place for memorable photographs and playing catch-up.
In contrast to the two previous sheds, the function of the next object is obvious. Capsule hotel "Your Cabinet" with an area of 70.3 square meters can accommodate up to 27 guests in 13 single and 6 double rooms. Free hotels, consisting of 2x1x1.25m capsule cabinets that can only fit while lying down, are popular in Japan, where they are used by townspeople as an inexpensive shelter for the night. According to Kirill Bair and Daria Lisitsyna, the authors of the Russian version of the Japanese hotel, their facility combines our traditions with southeastern technologies. “It's economical, environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing,” the capsule hotel's brochure tells us. Externally, the hotel shed obviously refers to the prototypes of Alexander Brodsky: the architects used old doors with sprinkling paint, just like in the Rotunda standing nearby; and picturesquely and chaotically arranged them, almost like windows in the pavilion of Vodka ceremonies from Pirogov. The cabinet has already begun to fulfill its functions, having solved the problems with overnight stay on the campground. Crumpled blankets and pillows peering out of the capsules testified that Vash Kabinet became a refuge for sociologists from the ArchMovement project who came to the festival for the sake of research.
Along with "Standless Steel", the second project of the current "Archstoyanie", claiming to be connected with art, is the "Nests of Light" by the architectural bureau "Panakom". As a prelude to the disclosure of the idea of their creation, the authors of the luminous object, Nikita Tokarev, Arseny Leonovich and Petr Tolpin, glorify the nests in the forest as a natural prototype of architecture. The barn for them took the form of these very nests, being lifted by the power of architectural thought to the Nikola-Lenivets pines and birches. The soft night glow of green, white, red or blue is provided by LEDs built into the structure. Five tangerine lanterns of different shapes and sizes have created an almost oriental atmosphere in the Russian forest - at the foot of the pines illuminating the forest, people drink tea and light a hookah.
The two latest new objects on the festival route are real simple barns. The first of which is named "Functional Moo" by its author Oscar Madera. By adding an additional roof to the most typical barn, and seemingly violating the planning rules, the architect shows that nothing happened, they say, as the barn was "deaf and dumb", it remained so. As we can see, nothing really has changed - the Chinese pagoda did not work out. However, there is some benefit. According to Madera, with a double roof, the project symbolizes the process of building itself. Anton Kochurkin endowed Functional Mooing with an additional function: in Oscar Madera's barn, projects that participated in the Sarai No. 11 competition are exhibited.
"Saray Sarayev" of the MANIPULAZIONE INTERNAZIONALE architectural bureau and the MISSISSIPPI art group tops the list of new objects in Nikola-Lenivets, as this is the curator's favorite. IN
Moving along the festival route of new objects, the viewer could see the evolution of the barn. Before his eyes, the abstract form of an elementary unit, "The Walls of the Barn", acquired a semantic load, interacting with the landscape ("Unstable Steel"), and acquiring various functions - providing shelter (Capsule Hotel "Your Cabinet"), lighting ("Nests of Light"), public space ("Functional mooing"). And finally, it reached its climax in the form of "Saray Saray". It combines the past and the present of the simplest architectural unit. Firstly, on its walls there are "shadows" of the objects that once surrounded it - these prints, scorched by the sun, were painted by the Serbian artist Dmitrievich. Secondly, now it is adapted for human life - it is a spacious room with all the amenities, well lit thanks to a plastic roof and small gaps between wooden planks. During the festival, the object is used as a veranda. The plans of Anton Kochurkin and the authors about the future shed are varied - from placing the property of Archstoyanie in it and ending with equipping it as a theater platform.
