Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas came to Moscow to give a lecture and award the winners of the competition for the best design project for a door handle, organized by ASSA ABLOY - Valli & Valli, Triumfalnaya Marka and ProjectNEXT agency. All eight winners received their certificates from Fuksas personally. The winner of the competition was Mikhail Leikin with the project of the Supersonic door handle:
Massimiliano and Dorina explained their participation in the competition jury as follows: “We never liked the pens offered by most manufacturers. So we decided to make them ourselves. And Russian designers were amicably praised (however, the format of the event disposed to this).
1.
Massimiliano Fuksas:
“For many years we have not heard anything about Russian designers, but I am sure that they are great fellows. Russian designers don't copy anyone. Therefore, their works often seem mysterious and poetic. They have an incredible desire to express themselves. I think that a lot of interesting things will appear in Russia with regard to creativity in the coming years."
Doriana Fuksas:
“The first thing we noticed is that Russian designers can draw better than Italian ones. Second, the works of Russian designers reveal themselves: you look at the pen, and it explains everything that its author wanted to say. In the objects of Russian design, I was amazed by the functionality, proportions, drawing technique and novelty."
I must admit that Massimiliano reigned supreme that evening in the White Drawing Room of the Central House of Artists. He began by saying that an architect is a creator whose activity is not limited to architecture only. Art is generally limitless, which is why it is not difficult for them with Doriana to combine engineering and industrial design.
Further, according to Fuksas, form is an insignificant concept for a true architect. Fuksas is convinced that there can be no invented form. It is set by the needs of the human consumer, the specifics of the place, topography, etc.
2.
“If someone in our architectural studio dares to ask what shape our project will be, we will kill him on the spot. If there is a nerd trying to define the style of our architecture, we will kill twice!"
It is impossible to understand the projects developed by the Fuksas couple by throwing only a cursory glance at them. Looking through photographs of objects, it is very difficult to capture their holistic image - from each new angle they are revealed in a different way. Massimiliano Fuksas explains the reason for this perception by the fact that he does not plan the space, he directs it, like Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock learned to control light in a completely special way, bringing each frame of his film to an abstract, mesmerizing spectacle, his shooting angles are unpredictable.
3.
“My favorite directors are Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. The first taught me the art of quick, fractional editing. The second is the drama of close-ups. Vertigo is a Hitchcock film that helped Doriana and me understand exactly what our architecture lacks. In this film, every plan is built contrary to cinematic tradition. All unnecessary is cut out. The most important thing remains in the frame. We strive for the same in our work. To understand our projects, you need to be inside them."
Fuksas cited as a colorful example of such a staged space
Ferrari Research Center in Maranello. The main characters of the project are light, reflections in water surfaces and wind noise in tree crowns.
Mindful of the 7th Venice Biennale, curated by Massimiliano Fuksas, the journalists brought it to the topic of social architecture and the sociality of an architect. After all, then the Biennale was held under the slogan "less aesthetics, more ethics."
4.
“The question is not about being social - the question is about ethics. And an ethical person is one who knows how to say "yes!" and "no!" is someone who will refuse to shake hands with some important minister if he considers the latter a bad person."
Meanwhile, as it happens with the stars, the architecture of Fuksas seems far from man, inaccessible and prohibitively expensive. Refuting this opinion, the architect gave figures in euros per square meter - according to him, the average is 1200 euros.
5.
“The cost of construction always remains approximately the same. Good architecture just looks expensive,”Fuksas said. And after a short pause, he spoke about one of his works, unknown to the general public.
In the late 1990s, Massimiliano and Doriane Fuksas proposed to develop a project for the development of an entire block in a very dysfunctional criminal city near Marseille. This city had about 80 thousand inhabitants - mostly of the working class. Most of the population was employed in the oil industry, poisoning the city with emissions every minute. The buildings here were molded to one another, the sun practically did not penetrate into the premises, and the north wind brought poisonous streams of air from the factories. Women and children were afraid to go out into the dark and dirty streets. The whole block was in the hands of drug dealers.
The architects undertook to design modern housing and infrastructure to replace one and a half thousand apartments, which are in a terrible state.
6.
“We have built a new road along the houses - so that it is illuminated by the sun. We planted trees. We have built buildings with terraces and large windows. A square was organized in the center. After finishing the work, I put myself together with courage for a long time before going and looking at the result. I walked along the road we built to the bright square, saw a green park and people who, at last, took to the street …
For all the past years, no one has ever said thank you to us for this. The project has never been published in any magazine or newspaper, and today I spoke about it for the first time."
After this story, applause was heard in the hall.
At the end of the press conference, Massimiliano Fuksas, adhering to the rules of editing by Alfred Hitchcock, highlighted the main thing: “Doriana and I were very lucky, because we have been together for 33 years. And I believe (I speak for myself) that we still love each other. Doriana herself, having conceded the primacy to her star husband, for all the time said only a few words about the competition and about Russian designers.
Later, vividly communicating with the room filled to capacity in English without translation, Massimiliano Fuksas cheerfully talked about his fantastic objects - from the luxurious Armani skyscraper in Tokyo to the Airport in the form of a huge plane.
[The lecture was organized by the companies Triumphal Marka, Valli & Valli and the Union of Moscow Architects]
