Archi.ru: Sergei Alexandrovich, the architectural workshop you are heading has suddenly disappeared from the ranks of permanent newsmakers. What is the reason for such a lull? What is your creative team doing now?
Sergey Skuratov: Most of the time the workshop is now engaged in "Garden Quarters". After this project was acquired by B&N Bank, the work there really began to boil. The first stage is being completed - these are the first and fourth quarters - where the facades are being clad with Hagemeister clinker bricks and natural stone, stained-glass windows are being installed, and the landscaping is being completed. At the same time, we are making working documentation for the second stage - these are the second and third quarters, the construction of which has already begun, a foundation pit has been dug, a foundation slab has been laid, a wall in the ground has been made.
A good third of the workshop employees now spend their every second working day at this construction site. Frankly, for our team, Sadovye Kvartaly has become not only a very interesting job, but also a very difficult one, a real test of professionalism, which we consider it our honor to withstand. Architects, whose average age does not exceed 30-35 years, discover a new side of our profession, realizing that beautiful pictures are just the beginning of any project. I, as the head of the workshop and as a mentor, am extremely proud of my subordinates: they make the most detailed, beautiful drawings, delve into all the nuances of project implementation, and thanks to this approach to business, they were able to turn even a very complex stage of working documentation into a creative process.
Archi.ru: Is your workshop also developing the RD stage for objects of other architects that will be built in Sadovy Kvartalov?
S. S.: No, only for their own. But we look through the workers of our colleagues, we advise something, sometimes we give them our already developed units and solutions, if they should be repeated from project to project, making Garden Quarters a single piece of urban planning art.
Archi.ru: Now, almost six years after the start of this project, do you think that the consortium of architects was a good idea?
S. S.: Of course, it would be much easier to do everything yourself. And not because I trust myself more: it's just that the interaction between people, especially creative ones, is an extremely complex process by definition. But the city is not created by one architect and one idea, so the presence of other authors in this project will certainly benefit it. Although, I confess, I feel a gigantic moral responsibility for everything that is being built in the Garden Quarters, making no particular difference between the houses I designed myself and the houses invented by my colleagues.
Archi.ru: As far as I know, the interiors of public areas in "Garden Quarters" are also made by your workshop?
S. S.: Yes, and right now we are dealing with them closely. We invited Bernard Pictet, a French designer and painter, a glass maker, and we include his work in the interior of each lobby, framing them accordingly. I don’t want to reveal the details yet, I hope it will become the highlight and intrigue of the project.
Archi.ru: What other projects of the workshop are currently being implemented?
S. S.: Due to its complexity, the Rostov project is being examined in Moscow, and we hope that construction will begin this year. A project for the construction of a residential complex on Novoalekseevskaya is already under examination. There, by the way, the facing material has already been chosen - it will also be Hagemeister, but lighter than in the Garden Quarters, and without vertical seams, which will give the masonry an interesting texture. I must say that this house, both in terms of materials and plastic, turned out to be quite simple, but since solid dull parallelepipeds are concentrated around it, it seemed to us right to rely on restrained architecture. We want to neutralize the shock that is inevitable when a new bright object suddenly appears on a godforsaken territory. In general, I am convinced that the environment needs to be transformed gradually: it is very difficult to live in cities where every house screams about its uniqueness …
Also, the house on Burdenko Street is being completed now - its upper part is being completed, it remains to hem the console with bricks and make the upper beam. The landscaping has already been completed, and we are currently working on the interiors of public areas. We decided to completely decorate the entrance lobby with wood: the house itself is built of dark bricks and therefore turns out to be quite brutal and somewhere even a little unapproachable, and therefore we make the interiors in contrast, immersing the light, warm wood that has entered the world. True, we work with wood in a very unconventional way, in general, we are also preparing a surprise, I hope, an interesting one.
Archi.ru: Last year you won several competitions, including a very unexpected one - for a project to reconstruct the Russian Living Room at the Kennedy Center in Washington. The total area of this space is only 250 sq.m. What is the reason for the reorientation to small-scale objects?
S. S.: In general, I have never avoided small projects. On the contrary, I am convinced that work on serious urban planning undertakings should be combined with work on chamber volumes and interior details. And there are actually several such projects in our portfolio now. On the one hand, this is really the "Russian Living Room", which we are doing at the invitation of the Vladimir Potanin Charitable Foundation (the curator of the project is Natalia Zolotova). The main task of the Russian Living Room is that its renewed space, let's say, would help overcome the stereotypical ideas about Russia that exist in American society, and therefore the interior should be appropriate - to tell about our country without imposing folklore images. The artist of this project was Valery Koshlyakov, who wrote several new works especially for this place. One of the few interior items that will remain in the living room after its reconstruction will be a crystal chandelier donated to the Kennedy Center in 1971 by Ireland - we figured out how to play it and fit it correctly into the modern interior.
In addition, we are now building our first country villa, doing absolutely everything in this project: house, technical facilities, landscaping, interiors. This work has been going on for almost a year now, and construction is starting now. I must admit, it is very interesting to work on the interiors when I completely came up with the space and form. And again, the exterior and interior exist in absolute contrast - I am sure that outside the city it is more than appropriate, especially since there is a lot of glass.
Archi.ru: Was this a competitive project or was the house ordered to you directly as "a house from Skuratov"?
S. S.: I was called directly. Such a degree of trust and respect, of course, obliges a lot, but it is also extremely inspiring - I am grateful to fate for this experience.
Archi.ru: It is probably almost impossible to get such creative freedom in a city? A typical example is the project of a residential complex on Paveletskaya Embankment, where you first proposed a very futuristic pedestrian bridge, and then were forced to simplify the project, while simultaneously changing the class of housing. As far as I know, it is still being redesigned?
S. S.: Oh, the story is not easy there. We really won the international competition, among other things, thanks to the idea of creating a spectacular pedestrian bridge across the Moskva River, that is, the only participants thought out in detail the connection of this territory with the city. But then the customer abandoned this idea, he had to remove the bridge from the project and remake it himself, taking into account a more isolated situation. In addition, in both the first and second versions, we kept the factory buildings, relying on the expressiveness of the brick, and then we had to abandon this. Well, I admit, we have a little wishful thinking: we loved the ruins so much that we made candy out of them. In fact, their condition is depressing, and it is difficult to see beauty in them - the customer, at least, could not. And even the city, alas, did not support us, not recognizing these objects worthy of preservation. Now we are radically changing both the layout of the volumes and their architectural solution, but still I hope that we will be able to preserve the general spirit of the original concept. At least, we are still betting on the topic of dissolving a brick and transforming it into transparent glass.
What worries me the most about this project is how its public areas will be handled. In the Garden Quarters, the topic of the penetration of public spaces into the residential enclave was a priority for me, I really wanted to avoid repeating the experience of the 2000s, when a reserve for the rich arose in the very center of the city. But on Paveletskaya embankment, it is many times more difficult to realize such a noble idea - further from the center, a different context. And still, I am convinced that it is impossible to completely close the territory from the townspeople, because there it will be the only civilized impregnation of public life and, accordingly, a unique chance to breathe activity into that part of the city. But thinking about the comfort of the urban environment, we are simultaneously obliged to take care of the safety and comfort of the residents, so now we are working on how to separate the residents of the residential complex and the townspeople to different levels without fences and barriers.
Archi.ru: Fortunately, interest in public areas has increased tremendously recently, which gives your ideas an additional chance to be realized.
S. S.: Public spaces are indeed becoming the most important part of the formation of the climate of urban life - fortunately, global trends have reached Moscow. If we return to the example of Garden Quarters, then this project was originally based on the primacy of social life. The customer forms a whole group of people, a commission, if you like, which will deal with the scenario of the life of the entire social life of the project - it includes both marketers and sociologists, and I was also invited. I would venture to assert that such content of the project is in many ways even more important than the architecture itself.
In this sense, I am generally optimistic about what is happening now in Moscow and with Moscow. The new leadership of the Moskomarkhitektura is trying to pursue a policy of openness, rationality and collegiality, and it seems to me that Sergei Kuznetsov's team succeeds in general. The chief architect of the capital is trying to responsibly filter the stream of previously approved projects that has fallen upon him. At first this was done by the Khusnulli commission, but quite a few projects have leaked through it, demonstrating not just the density, but the superdensity of the building. It is good that the new chief architect understands that it is impossible to build up all the vacant lots in Moscow: the city cannot develop when it is being devoured by the building complex. I also really like that Sergey Kuznetsov actively involves young people in the architectural process. The shortlist of Moscow architecture is really very short, and the appearance of new teams there is not only justified, but also appropriate. Quite recently, I was a member of the jury of the competition for a business center on Belorusskaya Square, in which several bureaus of the generation of 30-40 year olds participated at once. It's time for them all to build in the city! Architecture, of course, is an age-related profession, since experience is important in it, but without a gradual renewal of personnel, its full-fledged development is impossible.
Archi.ru: And you yourself are now participating in contests, by the way? For some reason, your workshop was not among those who were involved in the project of the Polytechnic Museum.
S. S. We applied for this competition with the Dutch bureau Neutelings Riedijk Architects, but did not qualify for the second round. It happens that a competition is always a lottery. Now we are going to participate in the competition for the project of the last house on Ostozhenka, as well as in the competition for the concept of building 10 hectares in the west of Moscow - it is planned to create a multifunctional complex there. Both competitions are closed and international - of course, there are no guarantees that we will win at least one of them, but we love and know how to participate in competitions, this perfectly trains the team and increases professionalism, I always really appreciate this experience.
In general, I really like the idea of consultations, which is being introduced now, such as, for example, which was dedicated to Berezhkovskaya embankment. The ability to think strategically is a quality that both our city and our architects need to develop. Any experienced designer is able to draw a facade: in general, there are only about a dozen techniques, there is nothing difficult in applying them in one combination or another. But contact with the surrounding buildings is something that is important to be able to feel and take into account. An architect, of course, cannot breathe life into the block under construction by a wave of a magic wand, but he is obliged to create versatile prerequisites for society to accept a new object and master it. And this can be done only with a very responsible approach to all stages of design. In April, at the Golden Section, my master class will take place, which I decided to call “Architecture Without Waste Words,” where I want to talk about this. The fact that the arsenal of forms and means of a modern designer must be treated very carefully and carefully. Any word thrown out of place is reflected in society and space. And if we want the city not to turn into a screaming mass, but to be a convenient place to live, then we need to take into account all possible little things. No one canceled the laconicism and purity of the gesture, and as an architect, I personally see my professional task in striving for this purity in every new object, ruthlessly getting rid of unnecessary words, materials and techniques.
