It was originally planned that the presentation site would be a cozy courtyard of the Provision Warehouses on Zubovsky Boulevard. However, this unusually rainy and cold September made its own adjustments: the “official” part of the evening was moved to the cinema hall of the Museum of Moscow, and the buffet was held in spacious tents, which were built from pre-fabricated awning structures. The eleventh issue of SPEECH: was sponsored by Concept, Poltrona Frau, Sky-Frame and Barkley Corporation.
As the chief architect of Moscow Sergei Kuznetsov and the chief editor of the SPEECH: magazine Irina Shipova said at the presentation, the Museum of Moscow was not chosen by chance as the venue. This one of the youngest cultural centers of the capital, which is now at the stage of active development, is the best fit for the theme of the new issue. The guests of the evening were able not only to buy a magazine dedicated to the architecture of the best modern museums, but also saw with their own eyes how the “cultural expansion” of the Provision Warehouses is being conducted - so far a rather rare example for Moscow of tactful, “acupuncture” re-profiling of an architectural monument. As Irina Shipova emphasized, this issue deliberately collected projects of not only new museum buildings, but also examples of successful modernization of existing facilities. “For Moscow, where reconstruction projects of several very important museums have now become the subject of international architectural competitions, this issue will certainly be very useful,” agreed Sergei Kuznetsov.
In addition to detailed stories about the new museum buildings themselves (among which, by the way, there was only one Russian project -
The Museum Complex of the State Hermitage in the eastern wing of the General Staff Building "Studio 44"), the theme of the issue is revealed in fundamental reviews by Nina Frolova and Bernhard Schultz. Exploring the development of the “museum boom” and the phenomenon of the modern museum itself, the authors show how multifaceted this typology is and how important it is in the social and urban planning role in the megalopolis of the 21st century. The architects themselves confirm this - the magazine published interviews with Enrique Sobehano, HG Merz and Ma Yansun, each of whom built several museums of a new generation.
By tradition, one of the heroes of the SPEECH: issue becomes a guest of its presentation in Moscow, and this evening was no exception. Enrique Sobehano gave a lecture on the design and reconstruction of museum complexes in the cinema hall of the Museum of Moscow. As the organizers confessed, his visit almost fell through due to the fact that the architect forgot to get a Russian visa, however, fortunately, the bureaucratic obstacles were overcome, and literally a couple of hours before his speech, he flew to Moscow.
Famous precisely for his museum buildings, Enrique Sobehano spoke in detail about working with this typology. Presenting to the Moscow public the Madinat al-Zahra Museum and the Center for Contemporary Art in Cordoba, the San Telmo Museum in San Sebastian, the interactive history museum in Lugo (Spain), as well as the Moritzburg museums in Halle (Germany) and the Joanneum in Graz (Austria), the architect formulated his main creative principle: "Modern architecture is the quintessence of the past and the present." Respect for the historical context and tact in relation to the prevailing landscape are indispensable conditions for working on each new project, but Sobehano is sure that this does not mean at all that direct quotes from objects of the past should be introduced into the fabric of a new building. It is no coincidence that the architect called his lecture "Memory and Inventions" - he sees his vocation not in copying the techniques of masters of past generations, but in inventing a new language to convey memories of the past of this or that place and thereby provide it with a long and interesting future. … And in this sense, the importance of the museum issue "SPEECH:" for the modern Moscow architectural practice really cannot be overestimated.
