The ceremony began with a short film about the awards from past years. Indeed, the competition has its own little history, this year it is being held for the third time. During this time, the award has gained a reputation of being extremely authoritative and professional, without losing its democratic character. All this together is very pleasant, and, of course, it was the merit of the curator of the award Nikolai Malinin and its organizer Yulia Zinkevich.
The exhibition pavilion traditionally greets visitors of the Arch of Moscow in front of the entrance to the Central House of Artists, and its appearance expresses the ideology of the award, the presentation of its expert council on modern wooden architecture. This year, a competition was held for the exposition pavilion, which received 26 projects, and the bureau Gikalo Kuptsov architects became the winner. Their Peripter fits perfectly into the space under the columns of the House of Artists, continues the ideas of modernism and at the same time hints at the ancient classics. It is interesting that in 1923, on the site of the Central House of Artists, i.e. and on the site of the prize, too, the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition was held, all the pavilions of which were erected from wood, and at which the architecture of constructivism was massively presented for the first time. Such parallels for the award are by no means accidental, since ARCHIWOOD has become a multi-component project, and its creators are engaged not only in searching and selecting objects of modern architecture made of wood, but also cataloging historical wooden architecture.
The report on expeditions to the Russian north, to Karelia and Siberia preceded the presentation of the main nomination of the award. Those present saw preserved fragments of a full-fledged urban environment made of wood in Vologda and Tomsk, Art Nouveau wooden houses in Yekaterinburg, rural residential buildings in Kenozersky Park and many wooden churches throughout Russia, sometimes in a completely deplorable state. In parallel with the study of the Russian heritage, the project is building relationships with wooden architects from other countries. A story about modern timber construction in Styria (region of Austria) preceded the presentation of the award in the category "Public building". A third of public buildings in Styria are built from wood: schools, kindergartens, office buildings, housing and even prisons. The most respected architect in the region, Werner Nussmüller, became a jury member of the award this year.
The presentation of the awards began with the nomination "Art Object", and before that the public was introduced to photographs about numerous architectural festivals that took place throughout Russia: "Archstoyanie", "Holiday of the Ax", "Cities", "Samara-next", Sretenka Design Week other. It is these festivals that basically "supply" objects for the nomination. The choice of the people here was the "Plotyacht" of the "X-10" team; a laconic floating object that combines functionality with a childhood dream. And the choice of the jury fell on a structure, which was delicately thought out from an engineering point of view, called "OSVODA Pillars", created at ArchFarm by Stepan Lipgart ("Children of Iofan"). Both of these facilities were built in the summer of 2011 at ArchFarm.
The next nomination is “Design of Urban Environment”, and before its presentation the audience learned about another side of the award's activities, namely the Parallels exhibition, which traveled to many cities of Russia and visited Vologda, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Of course, most of those present visited this exhibition last fall in the Ruin wing of the Museum of Architecture. But it is also interesting that having traveled with this exhibition to different cities, the organizers unexpectedly discovered that the wooden design of the urban environment has become a reality and is being embodied in various parts of the country. And the absolute winner in this nomination - by the choice of the people and by the decision of the jury - was Stanislav Gorshunov with the project of the summer playground "Gnezdo", located on the roof of the shopping complex in the satellite town of Nizhny Novgorod Bor. Both Nikolai Malinin and the awarding winners Evgenia Gershkovich and Maria Ignatushko could not help but express their joy that the winning object is located not in Moscow, but in Nizhny.
The next winner confirmed this tendency of avoiding metropolitan snobbery: in the category "Small object" the choice of the people noted the "Terrace" located in the vicinity of Ufa and designed by Darkdesigngroup. On the other hand, there is nowhere from Moscow: the choice of the jury in this nomination fell on the Orangery, built in the elite resort near Moscow Pirogovo by the workshop of Totan Kuzembaev. Presenting the award, Alexander Konstantinov raised an important question: what is wooden architecture - a skeleton, body or skin? In the case of the Orangery's wooden frame, this is undoubtedly a skeleton, but on the whole the award answers in the affirmative in all three cases - it sounded from the stage.
During the presentation of the award in the category "Public building", the presenters remembered that a hundred years ago such objects existed everywhere. These were, first of all, churches and chapels, besides bridges, wells; now we have public buildings made of wood - a rarity, but nevertheless they have recently begun to appear, although mainly in small forms or in the form of wood-trimmed interiors. It was these two variations that turned out to be the winners - the wonderful light arched pavilion of the Chess Club in Neskuchny Garden of the FAS (T) architectural bureau at the choice of the people and the information center of Ivan Ovchinnikov's ArchFarm at the choice of the jury. The chess club is also remarkable for its social role, for it revives the traditions of amateur tournaments in nature.
The main nomination of the ARCHIWOOD award is Country House. The choice of the people settled on the Lungins' lyrical dacha in the Moscow region from the architect Sergei Kruglyak. The main thing in this house is its atmosphere, which originates from old-fashioned villages, intellectual dachas of the early and middle of the 20th century.
With the selection of the jury in the main nomination this year, everything was difficult. The jury (which this year included architects Werner Nusmüller, Nikolai Belousov, Alexander Konstantinov, Alexander Larin, architect and scientist Olga Sevan, actor Daniil Strakhov, architectural critic Dmitry Fesenko) made the unpopular decision not to award the first prize. The reason is that the criteria are not formulated, all houses are very different, some have imagery, some are environmentally friendly, others have an excellent engineering solution or promote the social aspect of architecture. All this is difficult to bring to a common denominator, so instead of one main prize, three were awarded: two second and a special prize. The second two awards were given to environmental facilities. This is the Shanti-house, built in Crimea by Valery Borzikov and Ivan Kibirev, the structure of which is based on the Fuler geodesic dome and the first in the Moscow region
active house of the Polygon architectural bureau (a joint project of VELUX and Zagorodny Proekt).
Alexey Rosenberg and Peter Kostelov received a special prize in the main nomination for the "Switcher" group of houses built in a club village in the Tver region. Presenting the award, the famous Austrian wooden architect Werner Nussmüller said that these houses, somewhat Scandinavian and very European in terms of architecture, are unusual in their imagery and subtle play with scale.
After the winners in all nominations were determined, it was time for special prizes. The organizing committee of the award noted the ArchFerma project as a unique living museum, where creative forces are attracted and new wooden objects are constantly being created. Ivan Ovchinnikov received a chainsaw from the head of the ARCHIWOOD project Yulia Zinkevich. Ilya Ivanov was awarded as the chief photographer of wooden architecture - he shot approximately 90% of all objects nominated for the award. Maindoors.ru magazine gave its special prize to the authors of "Astanovka" on ArchFarm, who both designed and built their work with their own hands. The Derevyannye Doma magazine awarded an annual subscription to Dmitry Glushkov's architectural bureau for a single-family residential building in the Moscow region. The WOWHAUS team received a special prize from the general partner of the HONKA award for transforming the city with the help of wood. But the most unusual gift was received by Nikolai Malinin from the architect Oleg Karlson. The stuffed beaver on a pedestal, according to the plan of the donor, should become the first monument on the future alley of wooden architects.
The prize is awarded with the support of HONKA, co-organizer - PR-agency "Communication Rules", official partner - resort "Pirogovo", partners of the 2012 exposition - "3 Moscow Biennale of Architecture" and PINO company.
