This year, the "Golden Capital" was held simultaneously with the largest construction exhibition in the Siberian Federal District SibBuild. From the kingdom of building materials and stands demonstrating the latest construction equipment, the vast festival site (and "Kapitel" -2012 expanded on an area of 1,500 square meters) was virtually in no way separated, but it was possible to find it by a giant foam cow. According to the idea of its author, the famous Novosibirsk non-conformist architect Andrei Chernov, the brutal cow of the Dutch breed symbolized "architecture-mother-nurse".
The theme of this year's festival announced by the organizer (Siberian Center for the Promotion of Architecture) is “Sustainable Architecture. Sustainable city. Sustainable Territory "- a red (although in this case it would be more correct to say" green ") thread ran through all exhibitions, seminars, lectures and master classes, and the titles of the lectures of the invited experts formed a coherent trilogy:" Sustainable City "by Christian Hennecke (CultureBridge Architects, Germany), “Ideal City” by Keys Kaan (Claus En Kaan Architecten, The Netherlands) and “Open City” by Kees Christians (KCAP, The Netherlands).
Christian Hennecke in his speech focused on energy-saving architecture and renovation, demonstrating building prototypes developed within the framework of the joint German-Chinese project RECAST Urumqi for northwestern China, the climate of which is similar in extreme extreme to that of southern Siberia. The Dutch emphasized urban planning, high-density yet humane development, and simple and logical solutions for “understandable architecture”. Honored Architect of the Russian Federation Nikita Yavein showed the completed and competitive projects of "Studio 44" for St. Petersburg, Sochi, Astana and London.
Several exhibitions were presented at the festival exposition. This is a photo project "Astana - a new capital" (SCSA), and an exhibition of works of the international festival of innovative technologies "Green Project" (Union of Architects of Russia), and the concept of an Art Park near Novosibirsk, developed by Andrey Chernov. Also on the "Golden Capital" were shown the results of workshops held within the framework of the Russian-Dutch project "City as a Laboratory" in Novosibirsk and Chelyabinsk (NGAHA and SUSU), and a verbal-manufacturing project of the publishing house TATLIN called "Life is Smarter than an Architect".
The second winter parametric school and the workshop "SO-Society_2" held within its framework provided everyone with the opportunity to attend a series of lectures on high-tech architecture, its prospects and non-obvious methods of shaping. They were conducted by Muscovites Eduard Hayman and Maksim Malein, as well as Alex Warden from the United States, two of whose lectures were devoted to "knitted" architecture. And if last year the workshop participants got acquainted with the basics of parametric tools, this time the goal was to introduce the parametric method into practice. To begin with, using the example of small objects - street benches for the Novosibirsk Academgorodok. Thus, the workshop participants tried to solve the pragmatic task of designing small architectural forms, designed not only to diversify the environment, but also to stir up the so-called. “Memorial” consciousness of local residents who resist any modernization of the Academgorodok, created fifty years ago. In just four days, the participants of the seminar not only developed sketches of benches, but also on the basis of the Akadempark technological park were able to translate some of the projects into quite tangible models demonstrated at the closing of the festival.
The central and most anticipated event of the Golden Capital, according to tradition, was the review competition of the best architectural projects and buildings. Its geography is constantly expanding: this year architects from 27 cities and more than two dozen architectural universities of Russia took part in the competition. Recall that the most important distinguishing feature of this competition is its absolute independence from unions and other professional organizations - the jury includes only laureates and diploma winners of previous years, and voting takes place independently of each other using an electronic scoring system, thereby excluding the possibility of accepting any political decisions. The results of the competition provide an annual objective snapshot of the realities of Russian architecture. Moreover, not only the one that is being designed and built, but also the one that is still only "brewed" in the depths of architectural universities.
In total, 157 projects were submitted to the competition this year, however, according to the jury, there were not many really interesting works, so the shortlist of the competition was almost two times shorter than in previous years. However, according to the experts themselves, this indicates not so much the crisis in the industry, but rather the desire of architects for quality. By the way, this year the review competition has also renewed its main award: now it is the author's statuette "Golden Capital" by the famous Siberian sculptor Alexei Dyakov in the form of a minimalist head made of pure bronze and therefore rather weighty.
The most valuable "heads" this year went to Perm (architects V. S. Tarasenko and S. M. Shiryaev for the project of low-rise residential buildings in the residential complex "Iva-3" in the Motovilikhinsky district of Perm), Omsk (V. M. Kurepin, A. A. Gatsenko and others for the bridge across the Ishim River on Kabanbai Batyr Avenue in Astana) and Moscow (the Leonidov and Partners Architectural Bureau for an individual residential building in the Moscow region), one more remained in Novosibirsk (Fedor Architectural Bureau Bukhtoyarov for the Beerman & Pelmeni restaurant). Eric van Egeraat and the Novosibirsk design bureau LOMMETA went to the Golden Capital and the Grand Prix in the amount of 100,000 rubles for the Vershina shopping and entertainment complex in Surgut. In the section "Archyouth", the Golden Diploma was awarded for the project of the residential complex "Laguna" in the water area of the Volgograd reservoir (Zlata Chuikova, Volgograd State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering). More information about the laureates and diploma winners of the "Golden Capital" can be found on the official website of the festival.
Finally, I would like to once again mention the "sacred cow" - it seems that she, like a Trojan horse, appeared at a construction exhibition, which had not been particularly fond of architecture before, and not by accident. And I would like to hope that the emerging rapprochement between architects and builders will finally result in modern high-quality development, which will not only change the face of Russian cities, but also make life in them at least a little more comfortable.
