In the post-Olympic week, the main site of online discussions was the Facebook blog of Grigory Revzin, who had returned from Sochi the day before with photographs and a series of architectural notes. Like the previous Sochi article about the opening ceremony of the Olympics, Revzin was in no hurry to publish his architectural impressions in the official media - “because people are nervous, and if you say that you don't have to spoil other people's projects and build anyhow, then you are reproached for lack of patriotism, and if you say that the Bolshoi Stadium and Iceberg are excellent work, they say that you are the singer of the fascist regime. " Moreover, Grigory Revzin this time immediately lowered the degree of discussion, saying that he would be mercilessly banning for “an illiterate modernist blizzard that this is secondary, and real innovation and creativity is redrawing glass cubes with spirals and curves from Western magazines … … I do not want to argue here, I have argued on this topic for the rest of my life."
The Olympic Park, according to Revzin, was originally designed erroneously, and therefore the impression is very ambiguous: it looks great from afar, like a world fair, but closer - “it looks like Cherkizon after being cleared by riot police”. The master plan turned out to be similar to a saucer plate on which stadiums are laid out, adds Sergey Kavtaradze in the comments; it was conceived, apparently, as an eco-tech, "smooth forms, delicately altering and putting in order the terrestrial landscapes, but on a round asphalt field they look like those put up for sale." However, with the architecture of individual stadiums, according to Grigory Revzin, sometimes it turned out even well, although much did not take place here: the interestingly conceived Fisht, for example, as a result of a total redrawing for the opening ceremony now looks “almost a ruin after 20 years barbaric exploitation,”the critic concludes.
The main architectural event of the Olympics, in his opinion, was not the Park, but Mikhail Filippov's “Gorki Gorod”, built in the distance, in which he managed to create “a full-fledged urban space, with the correct streets and squares,” not in the least reminiscent of Luzhkov's historical cartoons; “This is an original architectural language, which is enough for the whole city,” Revzin adds. “Many character houses marry, quarrel, bring together and separate the streets as storylines,” writes Elena Gonzalez in the comments. "What comes out as a result doesn't really depend on the luck of the individual buildings." - And according to Mikhail Belov, Filippov has got Serlio's enthusiasm revived. Okay. Even neglected Turks did not spoil the general feeling. " By the way, the architect, unlike the critic, is ready to continue the discourse with the opponents of neoclassicism and in his blog debunks another myth about two "scarecrows" of modern architecture - eclecticism and stylization. Both, in Belov's opinion, are good, because “combining different elements, styles, past and present is the greatest programmed activity of human culture”; and if the progressive half of the architects considers eclecticism to be evil, then, according to the author of the blog, "the process of permanent stylization in reality continues and never stops."
Meanwhile, Sergey Estrin, for his part, chose the traditional side in the dialogue with the actual. His recent post is about a funny story of one work by Anish Kapoor, which was accidentally thrown into a landfill, mistaken for a pile of garbage. According to Estrin, there is no drama, let alone a crime, in what happened; much more surprising is that garbage installations can not only be purchased by collectors, but also grow in price; the architect himself, by his own admission, is frightened.
In the meantime, Ilya Varlamov's blog also posted a critical post about Sochi, although this is not about architecture, but an attempt to create a friendly and barrier-free environment in the city. Varlamov believes that it has failed: the separate ramps and lifts that have appeared in the city did not make it more convenient for the disabled; but on the Sochi horizon, many new high-rises were growing, demonstrating the intention "to turn a small resort with a population of 400 thousand into a metropolis," the blogger concludes. How unfortunate such a scenario can be, Varlamov writes in a post about Astana. This is a city that is beautiful only in its layout and from a helicopter, Varlamov believes: living in it is bad both for the inhabitants of futuristic skyscrapers and “ghettos for losers”. “Ian Gale has a very precise characterization for such architects: birdshit architects,” adds the blogger. "Architects, like birds, throw their creativity on the heads of the inhabitants."
Meanwhile, Perm, perhaps having lost an architectural masterpiece, having refused to Peter Zumthor with the project of the Art Gallery, is now actively discussing the current version of adapting the River Station building to exhibit the collection. Recently, this project was discussed by the local city council, as the Perm human rights activist Denis Galitsky wrote about in his blog. The author of the blog does not get tired of repeating that the very idea of reconstruction and demolition of an architectural monument does not stand up to any criticism, not counting the sketches presented for the project, in which the collection of icon painting is proposed to be exhibited under a glass dome. Blogger ar_chitect calls this dome "a sort of neutral glass three-story jagged sack of bright blue glass." Meanwhile, according to Galitsky, the idea of exhibiting in a new building on the basis of an unfinished shopping center collapsed - on the eve of the City Council, it was abruptly removed from the project. However, the blogger is sure that the idea of moving the gallery to the station building will not be implemented in any case, it is so bad for both architectural and urban planning considerations. And Alexander Lozhkin adds that the option with the adaptation also leaves no room for the station itself, i.e. ticket offices and a waiting room in a historic building, although the very idea of reviving passenger navigation on the Kama is rather shaky.
