An article by Grigory Revzin in "Commeranta" (No. 39, 25.10. 2013) is devoted to the competition for the court quarter in St. Petersburg. In modern avian language, this is a "landmark" event. Only for the author of the article, it seems to be something like a sign "restrictions have been lifted", but I imagine a sign "dead end". Or even "rockfall on the road."
In the second stage of the competition for the complex of buildings of the Supreme and Arbitration Courts of the Russian Federation, projects of four authors passed - Maxim Atayants, Evgeny Gerasimov (who made the project together with Choban Project), Yuri Zemtsov and Nikita Yavein.
Neither from the article by Grigory Revzin, nor from other publications devoted to the competition, it is impossible to understand how well the participants solved urban planning, functional, spatial problems of a complex complex.
One gets the impression that the entire competition (both between the designers and the jury) was about the way of decorating the facades.
Two projects (Zemtsova and Yaveyna) were devoid of clear signs of historical stylizations. Gerasimov's project quite accurately reproduced the style of the Stalinist Empire style of the 40s. Atayants' project demonstrated something antique-Hellenistic as interpreted by Ivan Fomin at the beginning of the 20th century.
“The final meeting of the jury lasted four hours, although it is rather difficult to discuss four hours and four projects. The architects in the jury - President of the Academy of Architecture Alexander Kudryavtsev, President of the Union of Architects of the Russian Federation Andrey Bokov, President of the Union of Architects of St. Petersburg Oleg Romanov and former President of the Union of Architects of St. Petersburg Vladimir Popov - campaigned their colleagues on the jury for the project of their friend, peer, classmate and colleague Yuri Zemtsov, but not convinced. The jury, in addition to architects, included Alisa Freindlikh, Oleg Basilashvili and Daniil Granin from the intelligentsia, Vladimir Gusev and Mikhail Piotrovsky from the artistic community, chairmen of the Supreme Arbitration Court and the Supreme Council Anton Ivanov and Vyacheslav Lebedev from the courts and Boris Eifman from the theater and Minister Vladimir Medinsky and Governor Georgy Poltavchenko from power. And now the non-architectural majority voted for Atayants”.
The way the jury is assembled is of particular interest. It terribly reminds the jury of the competition for the Palace of Soviets in 1931. There was also every creature in pairs, cream from the highest (party) officials, and from the architectural leadership, and from the "cultural elite."
And the result of the competition was very similar - “the use of the best techniques of classical architecture” won.
True, the Stalinist jury was a wordless screen, but here the voices were divided.
The difference is that then there was a real tragedy, but now, rather, a farce. Not funny, though. As serious as it is majestic - like the architecture of the winning project.
In my opinion, this is the key phrase of the article: “It seems to me that the center of St. Petersburg is such a place that any modernist architecture looks here like a scarecrow among marble sculptures. However, this is my value judgment, and not a single modern St. Petersburg architect would support me here. They have something else on their minds."
It means that there are places where only historical stylizations can be built. And St. Petersburg is one of them.
One can understand why this opinion is not popular among architects who are not prone to stylization. In my opinion, such places do not exist at all. And the construction of antique counterfeits is vicious anyway. Sign of professional decline. But if in some empty place it can sometimes even be funny, then next to real historical architecture, in my opinion, is completely unbearable. The best way to morally destroy architectural monuments is to surround them with modern imitations and stylizations for them.
New architecture, not trying to pretend to be something else, may be good or bad, but garden scarecrows next to real old buildings look like fakes. Regardless of the quality of workmanship.
The fact that the Russian public prefers bad stylizations over bad non-stylizations is understandable. For more than 80 years, nothing decent was built at all. Hence the zero experience of living in good new architecture. And naive craving for antique counterfeits.
But Petersburg is not the only city with a historical center. And to put it mildly, not the oldest. And one gets the impression that there is simply no other outside of the Soviet-Russian experience.
It seems that there is a direct connection between the official re-creation of the wild system of Soviet architectural censorship in the form of the Moscow Architectural Council (presumably, not his only one) and the commanding attitude towards stylization as the main “creative method”.
Another important, moreover, principled quote: “I must say, our architectural community is monstrously archaic. It is unlikely that anyone in their right mind would think of reproaching Dolce & Gabbana or Dior for using classic reminiscences in design. In literature, to prove to, say, Sorokin that stylizing Russian classical prose is a crime against the spirit of innovation and so it is impossible - this is some kind of provincial comedy. It is extremely difficult to imagine that in art someone would argue whether it is possible to draw like Plastov, or just like Malevich, it is extremely difficult, these disputes went down in history half a century ago. Lord, draw whatever you want! But the architects are still fiercely fighting the columns, as if it were 1954”.
It seems to me that here there is a shift of problems from a sore head to a healthy one. I do not observe any "struggle with columns", at least in architecture. I suppose she never existed at all. There was and is a struggle against eclecticism. In 1954, architects, too, were fighting not at all with columns as such, but with a wild (and just archaic) way of designing.
And by no means the right of any person to “paint as he wants” has become today a subject of discussion and a reason for professional conflicts. Such a right is knowingly inalienable. It is about the right to call things by their proper names. Eclecticism - eclecticism. Stylizations - stylizations.
Classic (or any other) reminiscences in design, literature or architecture are a matter of taste and a sense of humor. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are not. But "reminiscences" is more than an imprecise word when applied to the phenomena under discussion. Classical reminiscences and stylization "like the classics" are not at all the same thing. Stylization for something and or for someone as a method of serious creativity is nowadays a rather strong professional absurdity. "Indus Winter Grains" is just about stylization, not about reminiscences.
The Atayants project appeals to Ivan Fomin's 1914 project. There are no "classic reminiscences" in there. Fomin's project was an extravagant attempt to solve urban planning problems of the twentieth century with eclectic methods of the nineteenth. Methods that Fomin himself abandoned after 10-15 years. What was forgivable and understandable at the time of the professional revolutions of the early 20th century looks like an anecdote today. No matter how carefully this anecdote was stylized according to the chosen sample. Styling has every right to exist, since someone likes it. But…
The art of architectural stylization and the art of architectural design are by no means synonymous. I would say that these are two different professions. They have fundamentally different systems for assessing the quality of work. It seems to me that this became clear to Ivan Fomin almost a hundred years ago.
But there is one moment in this story in which I fully agree with Grigory Revzin.
I quote: “The jury's recommendation contains a wish to the winner“to refuse direct use of the forms of the architecture of the past”. It is like suggesting to write "frost and sun, wonderful day", abandoning the use of hackneyed expressions "frost", "sun" and "wonderful day". It's funny when people in their right mind write such nonsense in an official document and sign it."
Indeed, in their right mind they do not write that. However, I will allow myself to assume that there were at least two sane minds (more likely even two collective minds). One insisted that the first prize be awarded to the antique stylization, and the second insisted that, as a recommendation for further design, the winner should be advised to abandon the antique stylization.
Schizophrenia, of course, but indicative. And pointing, in my opinion, to the source of all the troubles in the great Russian architecture.
At one time, 80 years ago, Soviet architecture ceased to exist naturally when it was placed under state control and artistic councils of a bizarre composition were introduced. Until now, in the Russian bureaucratic and cultural community there is a "consensus" (God forgive me for the rude word) that this is how it should always be. That the chief official of the architectural department has the right to be the chief censor and to regulate the artistic activities of lower-ranking colleagues. And the departments themselves exist to establish order in the work of lower-level architects. Let me suggest that in the form of absurd recommendations like the one above, we observe exotic manifestations of intradepartmental conflicts.
The fact that in the entire civilized world, architecture and state power are linked by completely different relationships, still remains outside the scope of public understanding.
