Over the 17 years of its existence, Arch of Moscow has secured the prestige of the most advanced and popular architectural exhibition in the country; people come to it from other cities, the work of the capital's bureaus is suspended for the duration of the event, about a month before the start, the eyes of many architects begin to shine wearily, and the solution of problems is postponed until “after the Arch of Moscow”. If this is an exaggeration, then it is not very big - the results of most of the awards and reviews that have happened during the year are displayed here, a significant part of which is presented here; the eventful program consists of many activities packed tightly on five spring days. In 2008, Arch Moscow turned into a biennial, and in order to become biennial, but nevertheless held annually, it now has to perform in odd years - this is how it is now - under the motto NEXT, declaring itself a way to "go out into the world" for young architects.
The NEXT exhibition has traditionally turned out to be somewhat smaller and more compact than the Biennale; now this feature seems to have intensified, the exhibition is small and visible. The entire commercial exposition - well, almost the entire one - is gathered in the central part of the second floor of the Central House of Artists, the DNA hall is empty, on the first floor there is a buffet. Meanwhile, under the colonnade, that is, outside the empty exhibition space, an exhibition of the ARCHIWOOD prize is still housed in a successful version of the stands from Alexander Kuptsov last year. There is also a large exhibition by curator Elena Gonzalez dedicated to Moscow parks - a representative collection of information about what is currently happening with their reconstruction, promised by Mayor Sobyanin, it seems, two years ago. The protagonist is Zaryadye, the main accent is a collage-illustration, in which an unfinished Donstroy giant is depicted overgrown with jungle. Indeed, a great park would have turned out from this mountain of concrete.
The courtyard of the Central House of Artists is filled with landscape design firms. Among them on the left perched not quite landscape, the exhibition "From the city to you" (see the project site) - a catalog of initiatives for the improvement of the city and urban space from guerrilla warfare to "Arhnadzor", conscientious and interesting research work; however, it is not very clear why it was placed on the street and so far from the main paths of the exhibition visitors.
But the main exposition must be recognized as "New Moscow", located at the entrance to the third floor (curator, as in the park project under the colonnade - Elena Gonzalez). This exhibition sets the theme and style, and, which is probably even more important, if many other exhibitions are inherited from Arch Moscow of past years and develop to some extent by inertia, then this one contradicts the given, already somewhat bored direction and brings us back to the former Arch Moscow as we knew it before the 2008 “turn”. And maybe it returns further, in general, somewhere by the time of the construction of the CHA itself.
First, this is a selection of the most illustrative buildings and projects of recent years, commented on by the experts who noted them (Bart Goldhorn, Alexey Muratov, Sergey Kuznetsov, etc.). Which brings us back to the times when Arch Moscow was the place of the "architectural catalog", collecting the best of the existing. There are 11 projects in total. Five authors are members of the current architectural council of the city. Nearby is the stand of the updated Moskomarkhitektura: illuminated and interactive, control via a touchscreen monitor in front of it. All together it looks like a manifesto of new Moscow architecture: architects who were once carefully selected in the same Arch Moscow, who are regularly awarded here and almost all of whom have already been "architects of the year", show large, mostly completed projects; they are supported by the Moskomarkhitektura and even constitute, at least in the form of an arch council, a part of it. In a word, a march of unity. The goal of the exhibition, designated by Elena Gonzalez, sounds correspondingly: “to outline the strategy and priorities of the capital's development”.
Secondly, the design of the New Moscow exposition. Large models are marked by uprights glowing from the inside, the proportions of which are close to the proportions of the columns of the Central House of Artists, and the design, like the design of the Moskomarkhitektura stand, on the contrary, sharply resembles the samples of the 1970s. Those who have been to the building of the Central House of Artists in childhood and youth - and almost everyone has been, will understand me, very similarly. This is post-war modernism, even fairly well-established after the war: simple forms combined with a touching desire for new technologies in the spirit of "Youths in the Universe". Apparently, the effect is not accidental and not without retro-styling. Which, probably, should be understood as a gesture of restoring justice: all this (first of all, the declaration of friendship between the best architects and the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction) should have happened in the Central House of Artists 30-40 years ago, but due to excesses in the party's policy, it did not happen, and - here it is, restored justice. The checkered ceilings of the Central House of Artists were pretty dusty and worn out, but they still waited for such a related concept. The retro-name "New Moscow" also, probably not coincidentally, echoes the picture of Pimenov (although it was written not in the 1970s, but in 1937).
The old-modernist design of "New Moscow" seems to define the spirit of the entire Arch of Moscow - laconicism on the verge of emptiness, large spaces, large caesura. The vanity is gone; even commercial expositions became modest and focused on their functions, which, however, may be caused by the absence of stands by Vlad Savinkin and Vladimir Kuzmin, who used to set the tone for the second floor. The expositions have become larger, and the pauses between them are more significant. But you do not get tired of a cursory examination.
In terms of the amount of information provided, the exhibition is in the lead
Archiprix is a competition for student projects from all over the world, occupying almost half of the third floor. 286 projects from 76 countries are densely and chaotically hung on large tablets, some of them sideways; partly missing; it is difficult to understand something quickly, the presentation is shallow, English-speaking and creates the effect of not quite clear seething of student thought. The tablets of the nominees on the walls are, on the contrary, regular and accompanied by translation. After reading it, it is interesting to find the same projects in the general heap of the central hanging. For all its outward sloppiness, the exposition is very captivating; you can spend a couple of days on it, which would probably not be harmful to the NEXT generation. There are four Russian projects in this year's competition, none of them was nominated.
The exhibition of the Avangard competition, which should be the axis of the NEXT program, if in the past it was an axis (I remember that projects occupied the entire first floor, and the participants presented them to the jury right at the exhibition), now it has decreased, “curled up” into a small black box … Inside there are four finalists' projects, outside the participants of the first round. There, on the third floor, the exhibition of the NAYADA tables designed by famous architects, already shown at major European exhibitions, looks spectacular. On the second floor in the corner hall on the right, in front of the hall of the MARCH school (where
presentations of educational programs) it makes sense to notice an exhibition of furniture based on projects of the 1950s by the Italian architect Franco Albini, which the CASSINO factory is now starting to produce within its “architectural” collections.
Well, the star of the second floor exposition was the exhibition of "architects of the year" Sergei Tchoban and Sergei Kuznetsov called "Museum of Architectural Drawing". Since Sergei Skuratov in 2009 built his exposition in the lobby of the second floor, that is, in the very middle of the Central House of Artists, like a white box-partition with a separate interior space, this winning solution has been appreciated (in fairness, I must say that in this the place it suggested itself) - Vladimir Plotkin used the same scheme in 2011, and now SPEECH Choban & Kuznetsov built their own pavilion, a little larger and the same white outside as its predecessors, but speckled with relief drawings.
Sergei Tchoban is an excellent draftsman, collector of architectural graphics and a subtle connoisseur of classicistic solutions - everyone knows this. At the 2012 Venice Biennale, he made the interior of the Russian pavilion similar to the Pantheon, here this idea received, to some extent, a continuation: two-thirds of the pavilion is occupied by a round hall with burgundy theatrical walls, where the viewer enters at once; here is a "drawing of architecture", on the right, drawings by Sergei Tchoban, on the left by Sergei Kuznetsov, it is not easy to distinguish at first glance, except that Kuznetsov's line is somewhat stricter, there are more details, while Tchoban, on the contrary, is somewhat more picturesque. Passing through the round hall, we find ourselves in the transverse gray, where the "drawing for architecture", equally artistically executed sketches of buildings, are placed. A striking sketch of an “office building on the street. Dubninskaya”by Sergei Tchoban in the form of a large nut - a fragment of a fluted column: a theme that very accurately coincides with one of the leitmotifs of 1970s modernism in its intersection with the classics, and somehow internally immediately links this exhibition, which is essentially very classic, with memories of "Classic modernism" one floor above. Turning to the right, we find ourselves in the third hall (SPEECH accommodated not one, but three halls in their pavilion) with photographs of the Museum of Architectural Graphics, built by the Sergei Tchoban Foundation for Architectural Drawing in Berlin. The museum will open on June 1 with the Piranesi exhibition, and the pavilion is working as the plenipotentiary of this undertaking at Arch Moscow. A beautiful museum, wonderful graphics, a clearly readable plan visible from above - the interior of the pavilion subtly resembles a piece of the Pushkin Museum.
As you can see, the exhibition is more like Arch Moscow and less like NEXT. Art is immersed in itself and focused on itself, and the young generation is invited to join, choose between the designated poles. The search for new names, upbringing and education faded into the background and became a self-evident part of the process. Nobody pays too much attention to young people, there is no exaggerated joy from creating a "textbook", which was before. If you want - study, if you want - draw, work, fight your way, show yourself, compete with the masters. As stated in the next interview with Sergei Kuznetsov, "no one is going to carry the dog to the hunt." Maybe it's for the best.
