Archi.ru:
What can the audience expect from your exhibition, what is its main meaning?
Dmitry Mikheikin:
- To expect, I hope, some correction of the outlook on the domestic architecture of the middle of the twentieth century and its place in world history. For the better, of course.
Could, in your opinion, neoclassicism be the answer to the "Russian identity", because the classics, if you look seriously, are quite far from the culture that we habitually consider "the Russian original" (medieval, folk)?
- No, he can not. Your question is the answer. But in certain cases, certain universal archetypal models can be applied, which can be attributed to the now incredibly stretchable concept of "classic", and even more vague "neoclassicism". But not everything is architecture with columns; and yogurt is also "classic" in every store. In other words, knowledge of the history of architecture is an inexhaustible source of inspiration, but this does not mean that a historical monument is a subject for handicraft copying in order to search for a new national identity.
Who is your audience, who are you addressing?
- All. After all, the exhibition will tell the story of the transition from "Stalinist" architecture to "Khrushchev" architecture. Having clearly shown the transformation of an abrupt transition, we will see a certain fragility of the border between the "old" and the "new". Thus, I hope to reconcile in the eyes of the viewer "Stalinist" architecture with the legacy of the "thaw", at least by the example of public architecture.
And what is the similarity? After all, everyone is accustomed to thinking that avant-garde, neoclassicism and Khrushchev's architecture are antagonists, somehow even unexpectedly faced with an attempt to prove the opposite …
- As the exposition “Neoclassicism” will show. VDNKh”at Zodchestvo 2014,“Stalinist Empire style”, here collectively referred to as“neoclassicism”, in some cases is far from being an antagonist of the avant-garde in a broad sense: if only because both the avant-garde of the twenties and the“Stalinist”architecture of the thirties - fifties and further new architecture late fifties - sixties created, let's say, the same authors and their followers. And what then is “neoclassicism” if the same methods of form-creation, the same archetypal constructions are observed both there and there?
There is an opinion that, on the contrary, some authors ousted others. Not everyone managed to adapt, Leonidov, Chernikhov, and Melnikov, after the thirties, practically did not work. I would say that the classicists waited out the time of the avant-garde and returned, no?
- “We failed to adapt” - it means nothing and has nothing to do with architecture. Leonidov built almost nothing, except for a few interiors and the famous staircase in Kislovodsk - brilliant, like all his projects. But Leonidov's projects made a revolution in world architecture. Note that all of his implementations were with elements of "neoclassicism". A tribute to the time? Maybe. But I’ll say - not quite so: Ivan Leonidov, from the constructor of “neoclassical” elements given by the social framework, easily and masterly created something new. "Neoclassical"? Judging by the projects and photographs, this is the author's language, which is hardly subject to description in the style paradigm. Leonidov's “paper” projects, which predetermined the development of world architecture, clearly show archetypes that have been permanently present in world architecture for many eras, including order architecture.
Now about Melnikov: let's remember, at least, the project of the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry - what is it? Postconstructivism, and the elements of "neoclassicism" in it also take place. Do they dominate there? Of course not - it's just an artifact in the hands of the master. And Burov and his constructivism, then post-constructivism and then a large-block house on the Leningradskoe highway with printed floral ornaments that preceded ornamentalism in the world architecture of the 2000s, as well as the amazing project of the Stalingrad Epic monument of 1944, the shape of which, in essence, was inspired Giza. And Shchusev, who used “style” as a craft tool, creating masterpiece after masterpiece. And Vlasov in the early fifties completed the construction of Kiev Khreshchatyk, and in 1958 created an icon of a new style - the Palace of Soviets on Vorobyovy Gory, in which he formulated the language of new architecture. The genius and fantastic professionalism of the aforementioned masters of architecture were above the formal framework of "styles", they created them themselves.
Let me catch on to your last phrase, but this is important just from a world outlook. I get the impression that the possibility of "reconciliation" of Stalinist architecture with the architecture of the Thaw, which you declared above, is somehow connected with this denial of the "framework of styles" as such. Meanwhile, style definitions are an important criterion, they allow us to distinguish between personal taste preferences and epochs-periods, in particular, in the history of architecture
The question is: if you consider the "formal framework of styles" so insignificant, then what are your criteria in general, what are these archetypes, and what, in fact, will you measure the history of architecture, if you overshadow the styles? And what will you reconcile with?
It seems to me that your proposed reconciliation of modernism with classicism is not a reconciliation, but an excuse to close your eyes, turn away from the problem, relying on the denial of styles as such. Styles will not diminish, and you lose part of the conceptual apparatus - and what do you propose to replace it with?
- I do not deny the concept of "style" in any case, on the contrary, I am in favor of defining them more precisely. Then, and now, too, I believe, there was a time for the forge of "style" from the point of view of the "big" history of world architecture, and you can find at least fifteen "styles" and directions from this mishmash in a period of ten years, but you can not do it even though a fascinating but ineffective matter for understanding the essence of global changes in world architecture, but to see the trend within at least a hundred years.
And it seems that neoclassicism, as it began in the last third of the ХlХ century as an advanced and understandable dominant trend, never ends (with a short break for the outbreak of constructivism) until 1955, and then by accident: Khrushchev stopped everything until 1991 personal "order". Nikita Sergeevich was removed in 1964, but the "order" remained (in reality it was the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR of November 4, 1955, No. 1871 "On the elimination of excesses in design and construction"). And none of the architects dared to violate until the Union itself collapsed! But neoclassical architects in the 1980s are secretly in kitchens reviving the great work of the “ancestors”, working at the table within the framework of a certain direction of “paper” architecture; and since 1991, neoclassicism has returned and flourished in Moscow with a splendid bloom with the light hand of Yuri Luzhkov. And whatever you take - everything is "neoclassicism". This is all a joke, of course, but many people imagine the "classics" as such, as well as, possibly, its "superiority" over other architecture, its a priori "unattainable", "ideal" level.
It is precisely this generalizing position that destroys all the nuances that distinguish the architecture of one time from another, erases the very process of transformation of styles and trends in architecture, as if there is no progressive creative movement, and everything that appears, from the point of view of the most ardent so-called “classicist "- these are replicas of the past, which are hindered by the absurd innovation of some provocateurs, who, however, are quickly put in place by the time itself, returning architecture to the unchanging tradition of" antiquity ", to the" classics "itself … to kefir. I am exaggerating again on purpose. Here you need to understand where there are replicas, and somewhere new - a surplus artistic quality - and how these replicas are transformed beyond recognition in new contexts of time.
I was offered this topic - "Neoclassicism of VDNKh" - and I deliberately did not change the name, since this is precisely the forgery of concepts in our public perception. I just put the word "neoclassicism" in quotation marks, turning this term into "so-called". In fact, behind this sloppy term for this period of time hides a whole galaxy of styles and trends of the thirties - fifties, including world architecture, this is at least: Art Deco, postconstructivism, historicism and retrospectivism, which "digests" in itself the inertia of neoclassicism in the last third of the 19th and early 20th centuries, various kinds of eclecticism - in a word, the so-called "Stalinist Empire".
At the same time, considering the entire mosaic of styles and trends, it is possible to identify reference points that fix and anticipate in time the coming changes in the late fifties, in the sixties - logical in their essence and not at all accidental, not connected only with the current political nomenclature. These benchmarks are amazing, in them you can see prototypes of megalithic architecture, and "empire", and replicas of all eras, and new technologies that are figuratively comprehended, for example, at Burov's in the same famous prefabricated monolithic house on Leningradsky Prospekt. The architect of the thirties - fifties, like a painter, paints his new image by the time itself, finding in different eras, as on a palette, the necessary elements-images, purifying and rethinking them, collects a "timeless" collage from the spatio-temporal fabric in the present. Then the best authors opened the door to postmodernism. Having no modernism of their own in the thirties and fifties in practice, the best Soviet architects, after the avant-garde and constructivism of the twenties, in this "mess" of eclecticism and retrospectivism, paved the way for postmodernism in the sixties and eighties.
This is clearly seen on the example of the VDNKh architecture. In this case, VSKHV-VDNKh acts as a forge of styles and their overflow from one to another is clearly represented in the architecture of a unique ensemble, which makes it possible to see the general trend in the development of Soviet architecture as an ongoing search for a new language both in the thirties and in the fifties, sixties and before late eighties.
Does your exhibition touch on the theme of this year ("actual identical") and if so, how?
- More than that. I raise that layer of Russian architecture, the junction of the historical transition, which still determines our worldview and attitude to architecture in general. And until now, this turning point gives rise to disputes, contradictions and even aggression within society, aimed, among other things, at the architectural heritage. In the meantime, this legacy - both "Stalinist" and the new architecture after 1957, not to mention the avant-garde (after all, a recognized legacy) - and may be the key to identity. Then they began to select these keys again, and as I see it, they were found, and more than once. Now this process of searching for identity in architecture should be repeated and repeated in the future, creating, not crossing out and destroying the past.
Tell us about your project “Radioelectronics. Regeneration". Is it made specifically for the show? Is this a conceptual understanding of the ongoing dismantling of the modernist facades of VDNKh? By the way, what do you think about this: reconciliation by reconciliation, but behind the stylistics there is also an ideology, the facades of the seventies and fifties not only look completely different, but also carry different meanings, and now it seems that there is a rollback from those meanings to these (from modernist "space" to Stalinist, shall we say, "decorated")?
- Project “Radioelectronics. Regeneration”was not made specifically for the exposition, it appeared before I learned about the idea of a special project at Zodchestvo together with a proposal from the curators to make an exposition in the spirit of“neoclassicism at VDNKh”. The project is completely practical in nature, and is a specific instruction for the preservation of all existing historical layers of the pavilion "Volga Region - Radioelectronics". Thus, the project is not just a "conceptual understanding of the ongoing dismantling" of the facades at VDNKh.
This is a specific project proposal in the current situation around several pavilions of VDNKh-VSKhV - "Computing Technology", "Metallurgy", and the pavilion "Radioelectronics", as the most striking and outstanding monument of the "new" architecture of the late fifties, sixties - eighties, and I would add here - the nineties and two thousandths, since the architecture of the pavilion anticipates the development of architecture to the present day, if we take into account the global trends in the development of modern architecture. I believe that "Radioelectronics" is unique in its kind and is of great importance in the world history of architecture, taking into account also the fact that it is precisely a symbiosis of "Stalinist" and "new" architecture.
About the facades of the "seventies" and "fifties". The fact is that both facades of "Volga region" - "Radioelectronics" are from the fifties, and they are separated by only 4 years! And it is precisely that the frontal facade of "Radioelectronics" looks, at least, like the architecture of the seventies. And look at the photographs of the side facades of Radioelectronics, something even more modern is revealed there. "Radioelectronics" is one of the first and, no doubt, outstanding works in the "new" style. Still practically nothing was built in the mainstream of modernism in the Soviet Union, and "Radioelectronics" was already there. The facades of the "Volga region" model of 1954 existed in their original form for only about four years from 1954 to 1958, and were subsequently partially covered by the new facades of "Radioelectronics" by 1959 (designed by the architect V. M. Golstein, with the participation of I. M. Shoshensky, designers: V. A. Shtabsky, B. Andreauskas) in the process of transforming the agricultural exhibition into an industrial one, that is, a certain part of the side facades remained from the "Volga region" in 1954 in the guise of "Radio electronics", and not only on the facades, but also in interiors.
Moreover, there was also the first version of the Povolzhye pavilion in 1939 by the architect SB Znamensky, which was a symbiosis of post-constructivism and “Stalinist empire”, and post-constructivism prevailed in the volumetric-spatial composition. But this pavilion was completely demolished, and I don't understand why. The pavilion was quite innovative and outstanding, although not without historicism. Nevertheless, by 1954 a completely new "Volga region" by architects IV Yakovlev and IM Shoshensky appeared, which was a mixture of Art Deco and "Stalinist Empire" techniques. I think that the façade of the 1954 model is pretty much inferior to the façade of 1939; rather, it is a backward move with all the beauty of the facades of the Volga region in 1954, not to mention the comparison with the unique architectural merits of Radio Electronics. That is, the architecture of "Radioelectronics" in 1959 is much closer to the architecture of the "Volga region" in 1939, and in some way is its indirect logical continuation in the historical perspective.
Nevertheless, the project of regeneration of the pavilion "Radioelectronics" (VDNKh) - "Volga Region" (VSKhV) is supposed to preserve all the best that is possible to preserve, reveal and show to the wide audience all the best that can be demonstrated and what can be proud of from the point of view of -cultural and architectural values.
The question of what is priority and truly valuable came up sharply after the partial and significant demolition of the Radioelectronics pavilion, that is, those parts that belong to the period of the longest actual existence of the pavilion - from 1959 to 2014 - throughout its entire stories from 1939. Taking into account the fact that the pavilion of the 1954 model proposed for complete restoration did not exist, as already mentioned, and for 5 years in its original form.
The regeneration project assumes full preservation of the remaining parts of the "Volga region" of 1954, as well as all parts related to the "Radioelectronics" pavilion. It is planned to partially restore the main facade of the Volga region, restore the cascade fountains, as well as their regular recirculation. The side facades of Radioelectronics are subject to complete restoration, since they were made of smooth sheets, which greatly simplifies the reconstruction.
The cladding panels are partially restored in their former places, and most of the panels are replaced by panels of a similar shape, but made of glass with varying degrees of transparency due to the gradient deposition of a metallized layer on the glass surface.
Thus, there will be a visual superposition of the two facades, which will emphasize the continuity in the progressive development of architecture, preserve the "layers" of different eras. It is possible to organize a viewing gallery between the "old" and "new" facades.
What is proposed to be finally destroyed, and what is the public opinion craving for? The significant and very valuable remains of the 1954 pavilion are a vivid example of the architecture of the "Stalinist Empire" style, in which, among other things, some of the "Art Deco" techniques are well guessed.
But the “shell” of the 1959 model and a number of interiors built on the symbiosis of “old” and “new” architecture have an immeasurably greater historical and cultural value.
The unprecedented forms of the Radioelectronics pavilion, balancing on the verge of international modernism and postmodernism, then emerging in the sixties and seventies, amaze with the freshness of their solutions even now, 55 years later. And this is the main thing that so distinguishes the architecture of "Radioelectronics" and puts it on a par with the monuments of architecture that predetermine the subsequent development of architecture.
The architecture of "Radioelectronics" contains a dialectic of "old" and "new" - "timeless", as indicated by the comparison of the "historical" Empire volume and the modern silvery "body" both on the side facades and in interior solutions - from "classics" to the ultra-modern - as if "flowing" in time, as well as the symbolic language in the interpretation of the image of a radio component and radio waves in general and accompanying physical phenomena fully reveal the postmodern tendencies in the pavilion.
Thus, "Radioelectronics" is a vivid example of the mainstim of the world architecture of the fifties - eighties and further to the two thousand.
In itself, such a combination of architectural "styles" in one volume is unique and unprecedented, which reflects the dynamics of the change of eras: "Stalinist" - "thaw".
In "Radioelectronics" the fleetingness of the era and the fundamentalism of the timeless are combined.
In addition, the Radioelectronics pavilion, like many other “new” pavilions at the exhibition, built after 1957, actually formed a new image of VDNKh with a sectoral exposition and a clear focus on an innovative and industrial concept that replaced the Agricultural Exhibition. Taking into account the return to the exhibition of the full name of VDNKh in 2014, the inexplicable attacks, demolitions and alterations of the pavilions-founders and carriers of the basic concept of VDNKh are puzzling.
One can criticize the violation of the beautiful central ensemble of the exhibition, the backbone of which is formed by the pavilions-stars, at the head of which is the pavilion "Ukraine", which is stunning with its amazing and outstanding architecture, and later the pavilion "Agriculture" at VDNKh. But such criticism is neither tactically nor strategically sound. In her practical conclusions to reconstruct as much as possible the absolutely basic ensemble of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, she denies the permanent historical change of "styles" in world architecture, which is so richly represented at the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition-VDNKh, as in a good textbook on the history of architecture of the middle and second half of the 20th century. At the same time, in the visible panorama of VDNKh (which has not yet been destroyed), one can clearly see the change in the language of architecture both in our country and then in the world. And this can be seen especially sharply in the bundle of volumes when comparing the facades of "Ukraine" and "Radioelectronics", as well as "VT" and partly "Metallurgy". Despite the striking "style" and external differences, the fabric of the surface of the facades is created by the endless repetition of the decorative module-symbol within the orthogonal grid. The difference is that on the surface of the facades of "Ukraine" the grid conveys the "pictorial" - the abundance is displayed by ornamental plant motifs, and the modules "Radioelectronics" and "VT" symbolize new industries, declaring themselves, being in fact an abstraction. This is the same dialectic between the pictorial and the declarative, "artificial" and "natural." Leading architects of that time, who created in some 30-40 years first constructivism, then the diversity of the “Stalinist Empire style” and, finally, the “new” architecture of the USSR, felt and understood this perfectly. Moreover, the pavilion "Ukraine" of the 1939 model does not have a tower, and the ornamentalism of the wall is moderate and calm in relation to 1954, thus the fundamental volume, in general, is similar in proportions and rhythms to the pavilion "Radioelectronics", which does not allow the pavilion to be different architecture to disrupt the general ensemble of VDNKh-VSKhV, which took shape after 1958.
And as you asked, in this situation there is hardly any "rollback from those meanings to these (from the modernist" cosmic "to the Stalinist, shall we say," decorated ")". I do not think that the real participants in the process consider this situation so deeply philosophically. I do not see in this any kind of historical repetition of events on a global scale, the extreme parallels of the "Stalin-Putin" type for me, in general, are absurd. In making specific decisions (for demolition, for example), a superficial first impression without deep research dominates. And this is understandable, since this kind of research is carried out by specialized specialists endowed with a deep knowledge of the subject. I propose, finally, to invite relevant specialists and give them the opportunity to participate in making certain decisions, and then the situation with the identification and preservation of priceless monuments at VDNKh, I think, will improve. And if you look at the situation more broadly, then this should be done throughout the country.
Do you think it is right to look for identity and uniqueness now, or it might be more logical to focus on the quality of life? Or, on the contrary, on common human problems, forgetting about the originality?
- The essential idea is primary, then a tree grows from it. All other qualities depend on its quality.
