Usually we count chickens in the spring - choosing the best "woods" at the "ArchMoscow" exhibition. But this year has brought an unprecedented number of public wooden structures. And we realized that it is a sin not to summarize it now. For this is not just a collection of objects, but a phenomenon behind which important meanings loom. While the big architecture does not please us in any way, and all the main "events" of the year are some kind of fakes (Big Moscow, a park in Zaryadye), mirages (Skolkovo) or sorrows ("Children's World", "Dynamo"), small architecture - park, pavilion, temporary, wooden - turns out to be the only producer of positive news. There is also something to argue about here, but it is important that we have an architecture (in addition to the historical one), which we are ready to recognize as ours. And which can be considered a full-fledged statement - albeit quick, short, light. But this is just as important a genre as an impromptu, aphorism, or an epigram in literature.
This is not a competition yet, not a vote - all this will be, as usual, in May. This is just an overview. But to reinforce it, we decided to post 70 objects on the ARCHIWOOD website - these are the first contenders for victory in the nominations “art object”, “design of urban environment”, “public building”. Which is logical, since these nominations usually do not grow in winter. However, the coming season will be a turning point in this sense as well: 20 wooden Micro-houses will occupy the Muzeon Park. This will be the 15th City Festival, but for the first time it will be held in Moscow - and in this sense it is a significant event: the link between city and village.
For, of course, it all started there - in nature. Country festivals have been and remain the main suppliers of the most striking and unusual wooden objects. This year there are even more festivals, but only about fifty art objects. But in this genre, wood has always been the main material, but its breakthrough into the city is really a small revolution. I am glad that the process began not only in Moscow, but Vologda was the most significant of all - where wooden objects appeared not only in parks. Or rather, not in parks at all, but in squares, avenues and embankments.
An ideal scheme worked in Vologda. In 2011, the Days of Architecture festival came there (with lectures and exhibitions), inspired everyone tremendously - and the next year the main plot of Days was not contemplation, but action: five excellent wooden objects were built in the city. The founders of the "Days of Architecture in Vologda", Muscovites Alexander Dudnev and Konstantin Gudkov, helped with the organization, the students of the local university did the rest themselves: united in the group "AVO!" ("Activation of Vologda"), chose the places, came up with ideas and built everything with their own hands.
The most original (but naturally growing out of the intersection of paths) turned out to be "Triangular Garden" - an open-air auditorium park. Wooden sidewalks (familiar in the Russian North) have flowed into benches, those - into sun loungers and desks, as a result, students of the Polytechnic University can indulge in anything here. Lectures, press conferences and concerts have already taken place. The most romantic object was the Red Beach: the steep bank of the river turned into a wooden amphitheater and a favorite place for photo sessions. And the most effective is the "New Pager" (concrete ruins were sewn up with boards), where the city's free market regularly takes place. Other objects have also taken on a life of their own: on the "Stage" at the Drama Theater they watch movies, on the "Boulevard of Folding Cots" they teach origami. It's amazing how accurately all these objects fit into the city - unusually cute and cozy, in which the old wooden architecture subsides just as quietly and carelessly. But even more surprising is the reaction of local residents, grumbling that there is dust and bird droppings on the "Pager", that the greens in the "Raskladushki" have withered, and on the "Beach" there are mosquitoes and "gopot with beer".
The architects are to blame, of course, who else provokes drinking. Therefore, hoping that the “new tree” will help to realize the value of the “old” tree is a utopia, while it is only rapidly leaving. That in Vologda, that in Nizhny Novgorod, where the next festival "Oh! City" took place. Constantly changing its location, this time it took place in the Pochainsky ravine. It was an accurate choice: in the very center of the city there is a magical, but neglected pit, which young architects tried to transform, and the Scene turned out to be the most useful among a dozen art objects. The complete antithesis to its simplicity and functionality was the installation "Architecture of Movement" on the Volzhskaya Embankment of Yaroslavl. Built within the framework of the festival of the same name (held for the 5th time), it not only radically transformed the usual landscape - too ceremonial and monumental, but also demonstrated the tree's ability to be light, airy, flexible.
The Pro. Dvizhenie project celebrated the end of the world by holding the Catastrophe festival near Odessa. True, the most savory objects (such as the giant frame of the Stolichnaya bottle) were not made of wood, but this is also logical: what kind of catastrophe is made of wood? But there was also a spectacular "Cube of Light" (another variation on the theme of the most cited masterpiece of modern Russian architecture - "Meganom's" Sarai), and witty homage to the New York "twins" made of pallets (in the evening, naturally, candles were lit in them). And at the Novosibirsk festival "Yolki-Palki" Andrey Chernov presented the composition "Manhattan" - here already New York was made of pine chicks. The fest itself, which was held for the first time, almost became a "disaster": a couple of days before the opening, kind people burned all the carefully prepared snags. But the architects did not give up, and even managed to compose art objects from them: Slava Mizin, for example, cut pencils out of them.
Irkutsk "Bukh-ART" was held for the sixth time, as always, in severe frost, and its main hit was the carousel depicting a train compartment. A kite camp on the shores of the Gorky Sea has acquired the architecture: the Wooden Wind festival brought to our piggy bank one domed house and several pitched ones, enchantingly painted. But Voronezh unexpectedly turned out to be the coolest, where Marina Molodykh, a graduate student of the local university, organized the Archidrom festival. Although it was based at the Kirovets tourist center, only those projects were selected for participation that could then be used in the improvement of the city. Therefore, among the most relevant was "Veloport" - a bicycle parking, supplemented by a bench and a canopy. Or a shower stall for the city, where blinds play the role of conditional walls (the issue of water supply has been resolved, alas, so far, too, conditionally). The young people were especially excited by the theme of the gazebo: one of them, equipped with a hammock, is intended for bookcrossing (book exchange), the other has walls made of cobwebs, the third (for children) appears in the form of a giant chair, and the fourth (gazebo-suitcase) threatens to slam shut, swallowing a slowed-down traveler.
The correspondence competition of our two main festivals continues: Kaluga versus Tula. "ArchStoyanie" has become a serious structure - it is no longer some kind of "village", but a "natural and creative cluster" where art residences are built and workshops are held. Growth costs are natural (the price of a tent place amazed everyone this year), but for all that, the festival does not lose its architectural edge. Although the craving for monumentality is obvious here too. Having built the Hypercube in Skolkovo, Boris Bernasconi created the Hyperarca in Lenivets. But if not everything worked out with the first (swing something for a ruble), then the Arch has become a great symbol of our modernity. This is a triumph of rationality (everything from a standard 6-meter board), irony (the arch rises above the path), porosity (which symbolizes the impossibility of true transparency), indefinability (this is a staircase, an observation deck, a bar, a well, and a cellar). A powerful antithesis to Arke looks like "Universal Mind" by Nikolai Polissky: it is completely non-functional, mysterious and attractive. "Storming the sky" is directed in the same direction: the Bureau Manipulazione Internationale is worthily continuing the work of Yuri Avvakumov in increasing the volumes and meanings around a simple staircase.
“ArchFarm” this year was a quote (delighted the audience with a Temple made of hay or Foucault's pendulum in a silo) and self-quote: “Plavgorod” is another fantasy on the theme of an inhabited raft, “Lighthouse of the barbarians” is a fascinating design exercise on the theme of a board, glued cross- crosswise. Usefulness here is always shaded with irony - that's why the "Kibitka" looks like a wooden fuel truck, the Aqueduct is needed to end with a prosaic shower, and the three-storey hotel "Skvorechnik" splendidly mocks the realtor's adage about "each apartment with a separate entrance."
Ivan Ovchinnikov was going to make the intervention of the "Cities" into the city through the Park of Culture, but then it became obvious that it was already oversaturated: both with objects and visitors. Which, however, does not at all prevent him from keeping the brand of the main place in Moscow for the second year. Remaining them even in winter - which is not so easy for the park. But the Central Park of Culture and Leisure has a reliable hit - a skating rink that demonstrates an important quality of seasonal architecture: the ability to be not only collapsible, but also a team. Having delighted the city last season, it was dismantled and reassembled - increasing in size and changing the set of pavilions that came with it. In the summer, new objects were also assembled from them (according to new projects and in other places), and now some of them have found another - already their third life, becoming the pavilions "Bulka", "Sport" and "Merkato". (The organizing committee of the ARCHIWOOD prize is somewhat confused: should these objects be considered new or should they be given a special prize "Bird F" - for demonstrating their survivability in a difficult Russian climate?) Carefully recreated by the restorers and our old-fashioned High Line is a pedestrian bridge for the ridgeless minority.
In addition, the WOWHAUS bureau, the main developer of the park and the pioneer of summer architecture in general, adorned the main square of the Park with a pergola that gave photographers magical shadows (in the summer it will return to its place). Embankment - a constructivist terrace with a set of authentic entertainment: shooting, sunbathing, drinking tea. Finally, Anastasia Izmakova built the most beautiful toilet in the city in the Park. The corporate style of WOWHAUS was diversified by inclusions of other manners. Alexander Brodsky carefully landed on the grass a deceptively unpretentious (as always, however) gazebo, bureau FAS (t) - a tennis club in the as yet non-existent neo-postconstructivism style. Alexander Tsimailo and Nikolai Lyashenko built an absolutely magical cafe on the banks of the Pionersky pond. Having collected all the technical details in a 25-meter beam, they brought the theme of "parking" to the limit: having removed all materiality from the pavilion, they left only a frame that frames the view. At dusk it is indistinguishable from the cafe from the famous painting by Edward Hopper.
But the most original construction of the Park was the first pavilion of the Garage - a set of parallelepipeds wrapped in a construction grid, subtly saluting both Zholtovsky and Frank Gehry. “In cloudy weather, the pavilion dissolves and sinks in the surroundings, and this dissolution is just as non-declarative and natural as the twilight illumination,” the object even made the best architectural photographer of the country Yuri Palmin become a critic.
The second pavilion of "Garage", which has acquired the name "shigerubank" incomprehensible to laymen, practically does not apply to our topic, although it played an important role in the current process, showing that the Park not only builds wooden architecture, but also reflects on it. The exhibition "Temporary Architecture from Melnikov to Bana", which opened the pavilion, analyzed the past (VSHV-1923) and reflected on the present: its special section "Contemporary Temporary" for 9/10 consisted of "pieces of wood". The designer of the exhibition Olga Treyvas also acted as the architect of the Garage bookstore - where the metal mesh is ingeniously used as a building envelope, and the other wall is covered with shingles that have not been used in urban architecture for a hundred years.
But the main newsmaker of the season was the neighboring park, Muzeon. He began, as expected, with a master plan. True, he did not announce a competition for the Park of Culture, but he entrusted it to the most sophisticated Moscow architect - Yevgeny Ass. Who managed not to spoil our city in any way, having not built anything in it over the terrible last 20 years. And his park projects are also as minimalistic as possible: they creep along the ground, bypass trees, do not strike the eye - such are the terrace at the Central House of Artists and the promenade, winding like a wooden snake through the entire park. And recently the construction of a cafe has begun here according to his own project. As for the lag of this clearly "summer" architecture, this is not absurd, but a challenge - a long winter, deep snow, early twilight, in the end, to ourselves.
No less "challenge" will be "Microdomes", the construction of which has already begun in "Muzeon". It's too early to say what will happen, but it is important that a large and well-conducted competition preceded the construction. And this is another important feature of this summer's plots: the majority of socially significant wooden objects go through a competition. The most interesting of which was the competition for the building of the School, which was won by Igor Chirkin and Alexei Podkidyshev and managed to implement the project exactly for ArchMoscow. The round building, whose facades are equally divided into wood and polycarbonate, became a good contrast to the colossus of the Central House of Artists, as well as a real center of cultural and architectural life.
Simultaneously with the School, the Peripter pavilion was opened at the entrance to the Central House of Artists, which was also built following a competition that produced interesting results. The pavilion was intended to demonstrate the short-list of the ARCHIWOOD prize, that is, to promote the best examples of wooden architecture, but in such a way that he himself was not a bastard. And Alexander Kuptsov with Sergey Gikalo and Anton Fedulov succeeded perfectly. It was assumed that the pavilion would be disassembled and assembled in a new place, but for various reasons this did not happen, but in November Peripter unexpectedly became a new urban exhibition area in the open air: it opened the Knigostroy exhibition, timed to coincide with the nonfiction fair and dedicated to the relationship between architecture and books. Time will tell whether the pavilion will have a full-fledged exhibition life, but for now it has been decided that ARCHIWOOD-2013 will be held here (and Rossa Rakenne SPb (HONKA) will continue to be its general partner.
The organizer of the “Knigostroy” exhibition was the city project “Books in Parks” - and quite logically inscribed its own “Gogol-modules” - transformer pavilions for the book trade in the history of new types of book spaces. This story was also preceded by a competition, marked by a bizarre ending: the jury chose one project, the customer clearly wanted another, and as a result, both versions were built - both "ladders" and "drums". It was a complete coincidence (but very significant) that both variants had the same author - the young bureau RueTemple.
Gogol modules were installed in three Moscow parks at once, including the Bauman Garden, which clearly rushed into the race for the leaders. Having built another children's mega-hill and a pergola for exhibitions - by the efforts of the ubiquitous WOWHAUS bureau (and next season we will have a "Inhabited Fence" according to their own project). The most stylish stage of the year appeared in the Perovo park - it, like the children's club, was made by the Praktika bureau. Several pretty cafes were opened in Sokolniki at once, and just now - a skating rink of very intricate architecture. The most spectacular urban wooden object outside the capital grew up in Ufa: Igor Palichev made an original cafe "Jamaica" here.
We, of course, are especially pleased that this Ufa bureau DarkDesign is a laureate of the ARCHIWOOD-2012 prize. The works of the contenders for the next year's award can already be seen today.
on the website of the award. This premature start was triggered precisely by the breakthrough that happened this year, which seems to us to be a very important trend that marks the turn of architecture towards man. For the same purpose, we decided to simplify as much as possible (and at the same time authorize) the submission of an object to the ARCHIWOOD website. Now authors can completely independently upload their objects to the site. True, the application is still activated by the site administrator, but otherwise we risk turning our "board of honor" into an advertising trash can. So far - in a test order - we ourselves have uploaded to the site "pieces of wood" of public use, nominated by members of the Expert Council of the Prize. Now the floor is for the authors (objects for the Prize are accepted until March 31, 2013), and for everyone interested: your comments are very important to us!
