Sergey Nikitin: The main reason for our round table was that today is the 125th anniversary of the birth of Le Corbusier. The second excellent reason is that Le Corbusier, in a sense, is with us today … In the person of his researchers, students and people who have dedicated, I am not afraid of this word - although Charlot would probably be against it - practically all his life to studying this great world classic.
Jean-Louis Cohen: Worldwide.
Sergey Nikitin: Let me start by explaining why and how the idea for this roundtable was born. It was born from the feeling that I had when we worked on the theme of Tverskaya Street in the Moscow Heritage magazine. Studying the history of the construction of the cinema "Russia", we noticed that the building contains quotes from the architecture of Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov. Namely, this one, for example, is not even a ramp, but a porch, with the help of which you can get directly to the second floor. And at that moment I suddenly realized that this is almost the only case, at least of those that I know, when in the architecture of the late 50s - early 60s, thaws suddenly appear in the architecture of, well, let's put it this way, not even quotes, but influences, some ideas from the architecture of the Russian avant-garde. And at the same moment, another text by Omar Selimovich Khan-Magomedov came out, in which he talked about how Khrushchev, in one of his speeches, very clearly warned against returning to constructivism and showed the way to mastering new architecture - and thus a chance to return to 60s, 50s, 70s to the study and development of themes, plots and ideas of the Russian avant-garde in Russia was lost.
To what extent did this really happen, or is it a somewhat exaggerated vision from the outside? I decided that we need to get together on this. And the people who sit at this table today either built, or studied, or wrote and thought a lot about this architecture. And I think that we will not have any special order, and those who start will start. And who will start? Please, Anna Bronovitskaya.
Anna Bronovitskaya: When I heard that the topic turned in this way, of course, I immediately began to protest. Because, for example, in the cinema "Russia", in addition to this porch, there is also a strongly extended console. This console roams the Soviet architecture of the 60s and 70s in very large numbers. In addition, today Jean-Louis at the lecture showed another example, a variant of the tribute of the Tsentrosoyuz by architect Leonidov, and noted the fact that this is an almost finished project of the Yunost Hotel - one of the iconic buildings of the thaw era. But this is one aspect.
Another aspect: it is rather difficult to separate the influence of Le Corbusier from the influence of the Russian avant-garde. Because Le Corbusier's influence on the Russian avant-garde was absolutely enormous. And it has always been perceived in many ways precisely through our Russian experience. Of course, there were other Western architects as well. Mies van der Rohe also influenced a lot, both Gropius and Louis Kahn. But the "lecorburization" of the USSR, as it was formulated, nevertheless really took place - this is a fact.
But, it seems to me, there was another important psychological aspect.
After all, all Soviet architects who survived the Stalinist period and then again got the opportunity to make modern architecture, they are all victims of violence.
And it seems to me that in Le Corbusier they also saw such a hero, well, an accomplished architect, right? They saw in him the fate that could have been. After all, Corbusier survived the occupation of France, but he still developed without such significant injuries as he survived, I don’t know, Vesnin, or Leonidov, or many of our other architects. And they loved him also because of, perhaps, this failed fate of theirs.
Sergey Nikitin: Failed?
Anna Bronovitskaya: Well yes. That all of ours had a broken fate. And they saw in him how it could have been if they had not been so tormented, if they had not been forced to do something contrary to their desire.
Sergey Nikitin: That is, they saw in him a successful architect, first of all? Much more successful?
Anna Bronovitskaya: Well, to a much greater extent, yes.
Evgeny Ass: I have lived this story of the "Corbusierisation" as it is formulated here. First, through his father, and second, through himself. And I would like to show you a few slides, which, in my opinion, may somewhat differently highlight what Anya was talking about. Because this is a very personal story, this, as Anya rightly said, is a turning point …
This story begins with a portrait of my father, who draws a project for the restoration of Voronezh in 1947. And you see what he draws … You see what he draws, right? And in the next picture you will see … You will see the house that he built in 1947, in which we still live. This house is fully consistent with the general orientation of socialist realism … Socialist in content, national in form. Here, as the father himself said, some of the traditions of the Naryshkin Baroque are used. And initially this house was designed as red with white details, but then it turned entirely into gray. And now a picture that was taken 8 years later. Just 8 years after what was done in 1947. And if it's not … If it's not Le Corbusier, what is it?
Sergey Nikitin: Nikolaev.
Evgeny Ass: It is very interesting to discuss, of course, what influences were on my father's generation in 58, but I am interested in a more general question. What happened in the 58th year of this, because there were no books by Le Corbusier, there were no publications.
Jean-Louis Cohen: Of course.
Evgeny Ass: What kind of air the architects breathed then, it is very difficult to imagine. The journal L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui, its translated version, began to appear 5 years after that. But already in 58, all the architects knew everything. Here, forgive me, Sasha Pavlova will not let you lie, although she was not yet born then. Leonid Nikolaevich Pavlov already knew about everything. But the fact is that Leonid Pavlov was, after all, a "cultural-mass" man and knew the origins, and my father was a man from St. Petersburg, from the Academy of Arts, and was brought up on the best traditions of St. Petersburg architecture. How this all penetrated into Russia and became such a clear and precise, I would say, a very high-quality replica of architecture, in my opinion, very close to Le Corbusier - this, it seems to me, is a task for historians and for theoreticians. Can I have the next slide? This is a picture from about the same time, and it seems to me that here my father did not know for sure that there was a Chandigarh project. By this time, it was just beginning to form. But the compositional relationship, in my opinion, quite pretends to some kind of continuity and relationship with the project of Chandigarh. Further, please. The details are a slightly later project, let's say, from the early 60s, but, in my opinion, they are also very, very close to the original source. Here, it seems to me, the coloristic approach is very interesting, which, of course, is not directly related to Le Corbusier, but the very idea of a polycolouristic facade in panel housing construction, it seems to me, is extremely interesting. And this is a project of the late 50s, this is for the 10th quarter of Novye Cheryomushki. And here, in my opinion, the influence of Le Corbusier is absolutely unconditional.
Jean-Louis Cohen: Of course!
Evgeny Ass: Although I repeat once again: there was no information about Le Corbusier. Where, from what sources did they get it? What kind of vibes penetrated here, I still do not understand. The next slide is a bath in a sanatorium in Arkhangelsk, 61st year. Here you can argue what it is: Le Corbusier or Neutra. But there is no doubt that this refers to the tradition, of course, of the Western European avant-garde to a greater extent than to Russian constructivism. Russian constructivism did not offer this type of structure, this is a completely different tradition. Further we see a building in a sanatorium in Arkhangelsk. This is the 62nd year, here you can see these powerful concrete consoles that support the balconies, which are also very close, in my opinion, make this architecture related to Le Corbusier. And then the main building of my father is a military hospital in Krasnogorsk, which generally claims to be an international center, such as the UN …
Jean-Louis CohenA: Like UNESCO, I would say.
Evgeny Ass: Like UNESCO, yes, this is such a pathetic architecture that has little to do with the hospital. But the power of the utterance itself, it seems to me, is very important. Yes, and here, of course, the influence of Le Corbusier is, in my opinion, very strong.
And here is a family poster that my father made for his 50th birthday. And here, if this was not some very strange coincidence, the hand, the famous hand from Chandigarh somehow ended up on the family poster of our house, this is the same mystery, like all the previous ones. And finally, the last slide. This is my 2nd year project, 65th year. I think that in 65 the influence of Le Corbusier was extremely strong, it was the year of his death. And for all of us it was a terrible blow, we then treated Le Corbusier with great reverence and with great attention.
I think that none of the architects of that time could compete with him in terms of the level of influence on us at the institute.
I remember very well the graduation projects of my current friends and colleagues, who are not much older than me, by 3-4 years. I helped make the diploma to Alexandre Skokan, which was an exact reproduction of the church of Saint-Pierre di Firmini. Bokov's diploma, which was copied one to one from Chandigarh and so on, and so on. And we were all under incredible influence: now it is even difficult to believe that someone can exert such a strong influence on students in architecture universities.
Today, perhaps, not everyone remembers, but the first exhibition of Le Corbusier in Russia took place in 1965 in the library of the Moscow Architectural Institute. It was made by several people under the leadership of the now, unfortunately, already late Boris Mukhametshin, who was soon afterwards expelled from the Moscow Architectural Institute.
We photographed objects from Le Corbusier's six-volume edition, made copies, edged them and hung them in the library.
There was a six-volume edition in the library, it was then, in my opinion, the only six-volume edition in all of Russia. Who knows what we are talking about, this is the famous publication of Le Corbusier: in my opinion, the 5th volume came out in the 64th year - Jean-Louis will correct me. While still alive, and the sixth volume came out, in my opinion, after death.
Jean-Louis Cohen: Eighth, eighth. Only eight.
Evgeny Ass: The eighth, only eight, yes, it was … In the sixth volume there was a Zurich pavilion, from which …
Jean-Louis Cohen: That was the seventh.
EA: Was in the seventh? Yes, you know better, of course, I forgot which volume the Zurich Pavilion was in, but for us it was an incredibly important and only available source. It was then, in fact, that the first important discussion about Le Corbusier took place in the framework of the student scientific society. It was 1965. That was when Team-X came along - and we passionately discussed the discussion between Le Corbusier and Team-X. Let me remind you that the latter spoke at the CIAM congress in Dubrovnik with criticism of the older generation. And including Le Corbusier himself. That is, it was, if not a split, then an important milestone. Now it is difficult to imagine that anyone could be interested in this topic at all. It seems to me that there is no such drama in the architectural world today. When such powerful things happen, while this is not a confrontation, it is not a revolution. But this is a very strong discourse, this is a very powerful discursive field, which, oddly enough, was noticed at the Moscow Architectural Institute in 1965.
It's all about how Le Corbusier is present in my life. You can still talk a lot about this, since this is a person whom, in general, I roughly imagine him as a grandfather. Now I thank Jean Louis for showing this exhibition in Moscow. Having seen all of Le Corbusier's paintings for the first time, I remember how we trained our hand to draw these specific curves that Le Corbusier knew how to do. And it was aerobatics in our student practice - to draw like this.
Anna Bronovitskaya: Can I? I apologize for taking possession of the microphone again so soon, but the fact is that there is another personal story that I met quite recently, and it seems to me that it is extremely important.
Surely someone knows the Gas Industry pavilion at VDNKh. In my opinion, this is a very striking Corbusinism, because this is the Soviet version of the chapel in Ronshan.
This is 1967. A very plastic thing. And just the other day I went to visit the main author of this pavilion. This is Elena Vladislavovna Antsuta. She is now, if I'm not mistaken, 87 years old. And I asked her: who and what was Le Corbusier for you? She answered quite simply: "Le Corbusier is my God." Clearly and without any equivocations. She graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute, the same one, in 48. In the 48th. I asked her, and when, in fact, she found out about the existence of Le Corbusier's architecture and how it happened. She says: well, how, I studied with Pavlov. Leonid Nikolaevich took us to the library, showed us objects, we all knew that. So even in the most difficult Stalinist years there was … Well, a kind of architectural underground. Then, when she graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute, they began to distribute her somewhere near Novgorod. And inside the institute, a support network immediately began to work to save the girl, whose parents were repressed in 1938. And she was brought to the workshop of Alexander Vesnin. More precisely, they brought him to his home, because Vesnin did not leave the house, he really did not like everything that was happening around. He talked to her, she was capable, but also because she suffered from the Soviet regime, they wanted to protect her, and she was accepted into the workshop. And she says that, of course, they all, in general, preserved these ideals of their youth, they all had an idea of what modern architecture is.
It is quite obvious that they were waiting for the moment when it would be possible to do this architecture.
This is the Gas Industry pavilion. Here it is immediately after construction, this is the author's frame. And this is a wonderful picture. Hand-drawn. The numbers next to it are the conversion of the Modulor measurements to the metric system. And this table was made by Stepan Khristoforovich Satunts, a very famous, popular professor at Moscow Architectural Institute and the husband of Elena Antsut. And, accordingly, this was also one of the people who carried love for Le Corbusier through the Stalin years. And it seems to me that it was thanks to this underground tradition that such a quick return became possible. This is such a living thread. And it seems to me that it connects the post-war Corbusierism with the pre-war one.
And, by the way, returning to the table - if possible, one more little side plot. Two words about Corbusier's ties with Russia. The fact is that the entire Russian avant-garde was built, designed from the very beginning in the traditional Russian system of measures. They are anthropometric. Yes, as you know, all these fathoms and derivatives are all based on the division of the human body. Yes, and the Russian avant-garde artists had to recalculate sazhens and vershoks by meters during the construction process. And then Le Corbusier developed his own system, as if returning to the same anthropometric system of measures. On this I pass the microphone.
Sergey Nikitin: Thank you so much. I would like to ask a question to everyone present: how did it happen that it was Corbusier who became the subject of this cult and underground attitude? I can't imagine that in such a role, for example, could be Gropius, or Mies, or Kahn.
Why did Corbusier receive that romantic aura, which was so necessary at the time to become a cult character?
Anna Bronovitskaya: Well, this is exactly the effect that Jean-Louis said that Le Corbusier was a poetic art architect. The Bauhaus tradition, for example, is much more rational. It seems to me that this is the case.
Jean-Louis Cohen: He was not only the author, he personified the image of the Architect.
In general, I would like to talk a little not so much about Corbusier, but about Corbusienism in general. Corbusienism begins almost parallel to the work of Corbusier. Le Corbusier's imitations begin almost in the mid-1920s.
I believe one can identify
5 variants, or 5 stages of Corbusinism.
The first stage is early Corbusienism. I would say that this is Corbusinism without Corbusier. For example, we see him in the building of the People's Commissariat for Finance in Ginzburg - this is an element of the language of Corbusier. This is a very interesting, paradoxical example, Ginzburg uses Corbusier's pillars. But at that time, Corbusier himself was working on the Tsentrosoyuz project without supporting pillars.
After the arrival of Corbusier, after the project of the Centrosoyuz, a second Corbusinism developed here. Or, as they said, they wrote then - Corbusierism. This was a very negative characterization - it sounded like "Trotskyism". And then began imitations, the construction of buildings "under Corbusier". For example, an electrotechnical trust with a ramp of the Tsentrosoyuz type is being built even before the end of the Tsentrosoyuz itself. And I would say that in the first and in the second Corbusienism there is a certain level of bo-quality, if I may say so. These are literally elements and Corbusier.
The third Corbusienism is the Corbusienism of the 1950s. This is already manneristic Corbusierism.
Do you know what mannerism is? This is a very difficult concept for art history. Mannerism is, for example, the architecture of Michelangelo in relation to the architecture of Bramante or Alberti. This is the use of classical elements, the development of one language, but with different proportions. And in this sense, it is very interesting to compare Russian projects with Japanese, American, Spanish projects of the same time. These third Corbusier artists include the work of such famous and excellent Russian architects as Leonid Pavlov, or, for example, Osterman. And early Meerson, House on Begovaya, for example.
The fourth and fifth Corbusienisms did not yet exist in Russia.
The fourth Corbusinism is the theoretical Corbusinism of Peter Eisenman or John Hayduk. This is a very interesting, intellectual work of American architects and critics. But this theoretical, critical Corbusierism - analysis, a very clear analysis of the methodology and significance of Corbusier's methodology did not exist in Russia. And the fifth is the development of analysis and criticism of the modern city, for example, by Rem Koolhaas, who not only has Corbusier in mind, but behaves like Corbusier, only in the era of mass media. This is the spirit of criticism of Corbusier, who was both a historian and a critic and a theoretician, and not just a Creator.
Alexander Pavlova: Thank you for remembering my father. Leonid Pavlov. Evgeny Viktorovich said that Corbusier was like a grandfather. I literally remember from birth the famous portrait of Corbusier, in which he raises his glasses. He always hung in our living room. Nearby was a photograph of my dad, who lifted his glasses in the same way. That is, even in this gesture, he somehow tried to be submissive. And Corbusier existed as a kind of truth for him, probably.
I may be wrong now, but it seems to me that at first the Tsentrosoyuz project was developed in the Vesnin workshop. And it was during that period that dad worked for them. There is even a photograph where he and Corbusier are bending over a common table in a clean room, considering the project. This project then once again appeared in his life - shortly before his death, his workshop was doing the reconstruction of the house. But somehow it then all came to naught, because new commercial times began, and the project went into someone else's hands.
I was amazed by the exhibition, I thank you for the exhibition. Several years ago, together with Anna Bronevitskaya, who was the curator, we did an exhibition of Leonid Pavlov, dedicated to his centenary. It was done, surprisingly, on the same principle. There was painting, there were layouts and there were drawings. And the layouts were white, maybe a little on a different scale. And this coincidence completely amazed me. I was also struck by the fact that they came, as it were, from one thing - from painting. Their painting was very different and very emotional. But it was the 1964-66 years that were devoted to paintings. And this is painting-architecture, it's amazing. There was no more such stage in his work, creativity.
I am also amazed by the fact that Corbusier's first major building is a house in the center of Moscow.
This is surprising, because Pavlov always said: "An architect can exist only under a slave-owning or socialist system, where pathos and scale are important."
Sergey Nikitin: Preparing for this round table, I contacted Felix Novikov, on the advice of Alexandra, he said that the fathers of post-war architecture should be considered to a somewhat lesser extent Kahn and Mies, and to a somewhat greater extent Corbusier and Khrushchev. I would like to ask Evgeny Viktorovich to tell about one very interesting episode related to the texts of Khrushchev and Corbusier.
Evgeny Ass: Yes. But first I want to fix it all the same. Kahn appeared in the history of world architecture in the late 60s, or at least in the mid 60s with his first buildings. Although he was already aged, but as a famous architect he took place in the mid-60s. This means that in the 50s no one knew him for sure. And he didn't know himself, strictly speaking.
Jean-Louis Cohen:: Even in America he was not known.
Evgeny Ass: Now what Sergei is asking me to do. In 1993, when I was doing the Moscow Architectural Avant-garde exhibition for the Art Institute in Chicago, I carefully studied the documents of the famous 1954 All-Union Meeting of Builders. This happened long before the 20th Party Congress, at which the personality cult of Stalin was exposed, but it was then, in 1954, that one of the main Stalinist mythologemes was criticized for the first time - that architecture and construction should pathetically glorify the triumph of socialism. So, I was very impressed by the speech of Khrushchev himself. Obviously, his speech was prepared by some construction assistants.
I was amazed that several phrases from Khrushchev's speech almost word for word repeat phrases from Le Corbusier's book "Vers une l'Architecture", almost word for word about what socialist urban planning should be.
Apparently, when in the 54th year the reform of the entire architectural, urban planning and construction practice in the Soviet Union was being prepared, it was necessary to rely on some basic documents. It is clear that Khrushchev's clerks could hardly have come up with some important postulates themselves, on the basis of which it was possible to reform the entire Soviet construction industry. They used ready-made clichés. These clichés were borrowed from Le Corbusier. This is a hypothesis, but, in my opinion, almost irrefutable. We have translated Corbusier's book entitled "City Planning". Well, there were several articles that appeared so fragmentarily in Russian. There was nothing else. This means that a large team of some guys in the Gosstroy worked, who were preparing a new text for Khrushchev, on the basis of which a decree was made on the fight against excesses, on the transition to a new architecture system. It was borrowed from Le Corbusier. My suggestion. Jean Louis will refute me.
Jean-Louis Cohen: Yes, that's right. But we must look wider. It's one thing who wrote Khrushchev's speech. One of these people was Georgy Gradov, who wrote a letter to the Central Committee. Gradov was a supporter of Corbusier. I met him in the early 70s, Gradov had a great influence. Perhaps these phrases from Corbusier passed through Gradov, but it is important to take into account other circumstances as well.
The fact is that the Germans had the most important influence on Soviet urban planning.
For example, Ernst May, who led the construction of Frankfurt am Main and who was in Moscow from 1930 to 1934. Or, for example, Kurt Mayer, who was the chief architect of Cologne at the time. They all developed general plans for Moscow and it was they who came up with the "experimental" panel construction in Germany. In many ways, they became the people who determined the standards of urban planning in Russia.
And they were opponents of Corbusier.
Corbusier fought them all the time inside SIAM and at international and international congresses of architects.
Sergey Nikitin: And what is the essence of their disagreement?
Jean-Louis Cohen: Corbusier used the concept of function, but most of all metaphorically … And the Germans were in favor of industrialization and standardization of construction. The computer was used because it was trendy slogans: standards, industry and industry.
Sergey Nikitin: It seems to me that we had such a discussion with memoirs and professional clarifications. And for me, as a journalist, it would probably be most interesting to talk about the influence of Corbusier, rather, there, on the mass, perhaps, consciousness. This spring, with the students of the Higher School of Economics, we wrote interesting works: my idea was to take Moscow objects of the 60s, 70s, 80s and look at them through the eyes of, well, 20-year-old students, who, like - maybe, I hoped, they would see in these objects the purity and beauty, which was, say, 20 years ago, not quite intelligible to us, right? And I really hoped that the students would open my eyes to this architecture and tell me something like that. Students, I must say, were very tormented when choosing objects for themselves, and in many works the main reasoning ultimately boiled down to the fact that "well, this is practically Corbusier." That is, they were talking about a choreographic school, about Meerson's "House on Legs" or about Novy Arbat. And the whole assessment in the end was based on Corbusier - like Corbusier, or not like Corbusier. It turned out that further it was already possible not to think, not to discuss: Corbusier is the best measure of value and beauty, to which it is enough to reduce everything with reasoned, and then, it means, it turns out that this is good. Jean-Louis talks about this all the time - we constantly reduce all architecture to Corbusier. So Grigory Revzin had an article in which he hung on Corbusier all the responsibility for the modernism of the 20th century. And on the one hand, this terribly confuses me, but on the other hand, I understand that this is precisely the historical law, when one figure pulled all possible threads on himself and, so to speak, holds them in his hands.
Evgeny Ass: I just wanted to respond to the question of whether it was true or not that everyone was then completely addicted to Corbusier. I can say that, in fact, fans of Mies van der Rohe met at the Moscow Architectural Institute in the 1960s. But there is one peculiarity in Mies van der Rohe's architecture that made it hardly suitable for student design. The fact is that the projects “for Misa” did not have the kind of depiction that is welcomed in the Moscow Architectural Institute. And so they were, by definition, a failure.
The Moscow Architectural Institute has always appealed to great depiction.
And secondly, Mies's architecture was oriented towards high technologies, which in Soviet times were simply unreproducible. A kind of rude - pleasant brutality of Le Corbusier was much easier to reproduce than the exquisite manufacturability of Mies van der Rohe. Therefore, he could not take root completely. And everything that was done in imitation of Mies looked just awful.
Elena Gonzalez: For Misa, I am very offended. I think that someday we will also have his anniversary, and then we will remember Misa with a good word.
But to the question of why everyone knows Corbusier, it seems to me that this is such a dislocation of the consciousness of the “Afisha generation”.
Or which publication was the first to start making selections like “10 Places You Must Visit”, “5 Things You Should Know”? And here are Corbusier's 5 rules - it's easy to remember, and it seems like you look like an educated person. With Mies and others, you can enumerate much more and longer. There is already a definition, shades of gray, that is, there you need to have a certain intellect, a certain education, a certain understanding. In other words, Corbusier is easier to popularize. And, of course, Corbusier's genius is that he was able to draw effectively. He knew how to effectively do things that were not meaningless. Any of his curls, which are so spectacular, are always linked with a deep thought. That is, this person was an intellectual and at the same time an artist. This is how, you know, they say that a director should be smart, but an artist does not have to, an artist, on the contrary, the more direct, emotional, liberated, the better. But Corbusier somehow knew how to combine these things. That is, he was, of course, very smart as a director of space. And at the same time he was completely emancipated as an artist. Very indicative in this sense is his painting, which is presented at the exhibition. Corbusier may not be a great painter, but that harmony, that organicity with which his painting is combined with his own architecture and mutually reinforces each other. This is a very clever painting. I think that such a direct perception is more typical of young people, when here romanticism, an impulse, you want something beautiful, spectacular - and Corbusier was able to carry it through his whole life.
Sergey Nikitin: Thanks Lena. And many thanks to Le Corbusier. It is absolutely wonderful, although it seems that there are even more questions than there were, and we are unlikely to have time to sort them out today. But before I say goodbye, I want to give the floor to Andrei Mironov, the author of the book about Le Corbusier, who is also here with us today. From Moscow University.
Andrey Mironov: I am very grateful that I was given the opportunity to speak. And I want to show you the book, which is the first in 40 years in Russia, written about Le Corbusier. And this is the only book in which the entire work of Le Corbusier is described in Russian, however, critically. Unfortunately, very often a situation arises when, looking at a great person, we turn him into God. And it seems to me that the shortcomings that Le Corbusier had are no less interesting than, by the way, the shortcomings of any great man. And we shouldn't forget about them. Because there is always the other side of the moon. Many of Corbusier's techniques are beginning to be borrowed by people who learn from his architecture and believe that if the architecture is good, then it can be endlessly repeated. A very typical example is houses on stilts, which were built in large numbers in Russia. And not only in Russia. Unfortunately, the architects who adopted this technique did not understand Le Corbusier's most important idea, why build houses on stilts. It's not about beauty, it's not about the special aesthetics that Le Corbusier imposed.
By creating houses on stilts, he was going to build an entire city in which the problem of transport would be solved once and for all.
If we build houses on stilts, we have the ability to conduct transport routes in any direction we need, expanding them almost unlimitedly. None of the architects who built these stupid houses on stilts understood this. Le Corbusier himself was not allowed to fully realize this plan.
And another interesting thought came to my mind this morning: what would have happened if Le Corbusier was only a philosopher, only an architectural theorist, if he had not built anything? If only he left us his texts. It seems to me that then architecture would be much more interesting. After all, we have Ginzburg, for example, who built the building of the People's Commissariat for Finance, inventing, repeating Le Corbusier, realizing his ideas that were not written in the text, never seeing them, restoring them in his mind. It was not an imitation. This was precisely the development of Corbusier's ideas. And if you just take quotes, architectural ones, I mean, not textual ones, this does not contribute to the development of architecture. Thank.
Jean-Louis Cohen: I thank Andrei Mironov for writing this book. In general, it is a big scandal that there are no books about Corbusier in Russia at all. I expect from you, from your generation, a critical assessment and reprint of Corbusier's important books. Many more can be translated and published here.
Sergey Nikitin: Thank you, friends, I would like to thank, firstly, the Petrovich club, and, secondly, all those who are sitting here at the table. Let me list it again: Elena Gonzalez, Anna Bronovitskaya, Jean-Louis Cohen, Eugene Ass, Alexandra Pavlova.
