The World Architecture Festival (WAF), according to its organizers, is a key event for architects from all over the world, has been held every autumn since 2008; this year it took place on October 2-4. Previously, his site was Barcelona, but in the last two years he has moved to Singapore. Such a drastic change of location was due to the desire of the organizers of the festival to attract architects and developers from China, India, Australia - in general, those who were previously uncomfortable flying to Europe. Now the Europeans have become uncomfortable: after all, it takes an average of 14 hours to fly to Singapore from Europe, so to participate you need a really great desire to get to the festival. In addition to physical effort, considerable financial expenses are also needed: a standard ticket for all 3 days of WAF costs 1580 USD, although for students the prices are more acceptable: 324 dollars. The price does not include a visit to the gala dinner on the last evening of the festival, where winners in all categories are awarded with wine and snacks and the "Building of the Year" is announced. It's hard to say whether it's expensive or not. Compared to the cost of some developments from the world of development - no, but even this price is a screening factor.
The festival was held in the business center of the hotel complex
Marina Bay Sands: This famous Moshe Safdie hotel with a rooftop infinity pool. It is most convenient, of course, to stop there: then only an underground passage will separate you from the festival site. But if you choose a more "budget" hotel, you can easily get to the festival by metro or taxi: public transport in Singapore works smoothly.
Architects wishing to take part in the WAF send their works there in advance, paying the registration fee. As a result, they get a place at the general exhibition, where each project is presented in the form of two A2 tablets. Then the jury selects the works for the "short list". At the festival, each project of this “short list” (in fact, there are more than a hundred projects in it) is presented by its author - in one of the small halls of the conference center in front of the public and several members of the jury (considering the number of categories (29) and participants in general, the total the number of judges of the festival is quite impressive: this year there were 76 of them; Russia was represented by Sergey Kuznetsov and Pyotr Kudryavtsev).
Among the considered categories are quite traditional: sports, culture, transport, villa, “old and new”. In each of them, depending on the success of the presentation of the project and the decision of the jury, one winner is selected. In addition, the jury can “mark” any projects they like: this is an incentive prize, pleasant, but not influencing anything.
The winner in the category receives a heavy yellow plastic "prize" with the words World Architectural Festival and the name of the nomination. But the main thing is that all category leaders get the right to compete for the title of "Building of the Year". To do this, you need to talk about your project again, but before the so-called super-jury: it is it that chooses the best object of the festival.
But even if you are not applying for an award, then you too will find something to do with yourself at the festival. You can attend presentations of shortlisted objects, lectures by famous architects and developers, and watch an exhibition of projects. However, you often have to regret that you cannot be in several places at the same time. It is very difficult to choose where to go: to the presentation of the new museum of Zaha Hadid, the works of the SPEECH workshop or social housing from the Barcelona office Miralles Tagliabue.
Presentations at WAF are interesting not only in terms of detailed information about the project: it is extremely entertaining to keep track of how the architect talks about his work. For example, Benedetta Tagliabue, a beautiful Italian woman, a talented owner of the Barcelona bureau Miralles Tagliabue, talks so captivatingly about her projects that not everyone can sit in the hall at her presentation, and many have to listen from the corridor. As a result, her social housing project in Spain was recognized by the jury in its category.
The opposite case is the presentation of the Zaha Hadid Museum. Naturally, many visitors to the festival, focusing on the "star" name, gathered to listen to the story about the project. But instead of Hadid herself, the building was presented by an ordinary architect from her bureau, unpleasantly astonishing those present by reading the text of the description from a piece of paper. That is why the wonderful project lost a lot in the eyes of the jury and the public and, as a result, did not win in its nomination.
The good news is that the domestic workshops included in the shortlist - SPEECH and Blank Architects - made very worthy presentations of their projects. But it's important to note that both of these bureaus are essentially international - like most of the world's leading architecture firms. SPEECH presented
The Aquatics Palace in Kazan and the Museum of Architectural Drawing in Berlin. Sergei Choban and Sergei Kuznetsov spoke about the features of these buildings, mentioning also how difficult it is to achieve a high quality of implementation in Russia. The Berlin Museum was awarded by the judges of the festival.
At one of the WAF sites, Sergey Kuznetsov spoke about the development prospects of Moscow. The chief architect of the capital, as the conclusion of his speech, invited foreign companies to participate in Russian competitions. Foreign companies were very interested in the offer - judging by how quickly viewers began to photograph the e-mail address of the Moskomarkhitektura displayed on the display, where, according to Sergei Kuznetsov, they can contact with any questions.
Due to such interest of WAF participants in Moscow competitions, it was decided to extend the registration period for
a competition for the reorganization of the territory of the Hammer and Sickle plant for a month until November 7, 2013: Of course, this gave more opportunities for participation not only for foreigners, but also for Russians.
Also, within the framework of the festival, an international competition of student projects is held, the topic for which is announced in advance. For the first time, a team from Moscow presented their shortlisted work at WAF. MARCHI students, under the guidance of Professor Michael Eichner from Munich, have developed the Extending Family Living Space project: an energy-efficient residential building that uses snow as insulating material in winter and water in spring. The jury especially noted not only the simplicity and functionality of the project, but also the excellently executed presentation in English.
At the invitation of Paul Finch, Program Director of WAF, celebrities such as Charles Jencks, Dietmar Eberle and So Fujimoto gave lectures. In addition, along with architects, many developers gave lectures: they talked about their positive experience of working with architects and about the ever-relevant topic of creating a profitable business.
The specificity of the World Festival of Architecture is in its democracy: any participant can approach another there, discuss the presented projects, exchange contact information and, possibly, agree on future cooperation. There is no division into “Greats” and students, famous masters and novice architects. And even Charles Jenks, if you dare to approach him, will gladly tell you about his latest ideas. And many of those who come to the festival every year become good friends.
Therefore, returning to the question “Is it worth the visit to the festival such an effort?”, You can answer “yes”. WAF is not entirely universal, given the selection of participants based on distance and financial factors, but still a democracy, which, oddly enough, can give you not only a yellow plastic award and contacts of potential partners, but also close friends. Against this background, it is not so important which building became the “Building of the Year” this time.
But let's clarify: the winner of the WAF-2013 Grand Prix was the building of the Toi-o-Tamaki Art Gallery in the New Zealand city of Auckland, designed by the FJMT bureau and Archimedia. Note that this choice came as a surprise to most of the participants: the obvious favorite of the festival was the Blue Planet, an aquarium in Copenhagen designed by the 3XN bureau.
