Archi.ru:
Alexey Lvovich, recently you have hardly given interviews at all. Why?
Alexey Bavykin:
- Not only interviews, I hardly published projects either. But what can I say, in the last five years we have had very little work - only in 2013 we managed to get the workshop out of the situation of constant layoffs and start increasing the volume of work again.
Is it really the story with Mozhaika so knocked you down?
- To begin with, there was a crisis that hit everyone hard. The story with Mozhaika only added to the troubles. When in the fall of 2008 Yuri Mikhailovich at the Public Council criticized this project, calling it "ugly" and said that the city did not need architects like me, he actually wrote me a wolf ticket. It so happened that for me, and for most of the other architects, the customers were people close to Luzhkov. Many of them were present at that meeting, and indeed there were very important people there, and even more people read about Luzhkov's reaction in the press, and all of them, shall we say, reeled off the mayor's assessment. I was out of work. Later, I thought a lot about how bizarre fate is. After all, in my youth I terribly loved to read about the injured architects - Leonidov, Melnikov and many others, who actually remained outside the profession, and always empathized with them, and thirty years later suddenly I myself found myself in this position. Do not misunderstand me: I in no way compare myself with geniuses, but the feeling of being professionally unclaimed is now familiar to me firsthand. True, today the situation is such that our workshop is again engaged in Mozhaika. Although the latest version of the object, in the opinion of many, is not as cool as the first, because in 2008 we designed the ponte head office of a large Russian company, and now we are making a regular office and business center. “Ruin on the highway”, as Vladimir Sedov called our first project, did not take place. These are the metamorphoses.
Probably, after that you have special scores with Mayor Luzhkov
- Well, what are you, Luzhkov is a normal person. Frank. I did everything from a pure heart. After all, there was not so much guile in it, at least in relation to architecture, and it seems to me that it is worth a lot. Yes, he was very involved in projects, and the story of Mozhaika is a very vivid example of this, but it indirectly confirms that I did a really cool thing, developing the theme of “speaking Russian modernism” (Vladimir Sedov's term). In general, I consider myself a Russian architect, developing the Russian architectural language, and I hate “broken English”. Mozhaika was simply not covered by a strong customer, and Aleksandr Viktorovich Kuzmin was tired of defending my architecture from official conservatives. But it was through his efforts that such projects as a skyscraper on Selskokhozyaistvennaya, “Dirigible” on Profsoyuznaya Street and a residential building in Bryusov Lane were carried through. Luzhkov did not like all these three buildings, but Kuzmin, with the support of strong customers, broke through all these objects. For which I am very grateful to him. Incidentally, I am often asked what “Luzhkov's architecture” is, and I always answer that the term itself seems to me very controversial. Luzhkov, of course, was, and climbed into the projects, and tried to redo them, but after all, the architects painted his wishes and comments. All the "beauty" was painted by architects. And they are still alive and well, many of them continue to work quite successfully. So it's not about the term or the style, but the architects and what they think they can afford. In this sense, I cannot be considered a "Luzhkov architect", although our workshop received work from people close to him.
Your project of the residential building "Airship" is perfectly thought out and drawn, but the quality of implementation actually killed the original idea. As far as I understand, you do not even subscribe to the house built as a result - at least, on the workshop website, "Airship" is presented only in the "Projects" section
- This is a difficult story. Yes, the quality of construction is a well-known problem for Moscow, and there were times when it was impossible to fight it. Maybe I would have been able to defend the "Airship" if the new customers had not removed me from the project. It's just that the house was built by some third people who managed to change the structure of the building, the finishing materials of the facades without my agreement, and they, without exaggeration, mutilated the “Airship”. They inserted some ugly brown windows into it, reveted it with cheap porcelain stoneware. But, most importantly, in order to save money, they took, in my opinion, risky decisions on the construct. This is annoying. And although everything is mine there - from the name to the form - now I really try to distance myself from this house, since I am actually the author of the concept, who did not take part in the work at the stage of the project and working documentation.
And how many years did you hardly work in total?
- In 2009 and in 2010, I did little. Well, that is, nothing serious for the city. There were, of course, some orders, including we made a competition project for a WWII museum in Gdansk and an interesting private order on the architecture of a Protestant meetinghouse in Moscow. It was a very interesting job. I would like to note that all the last works I do in a creative union with my partners Mikhail Marek and Natalia Bavykina. In 2011, thanks to our efforts, the workshop began to slowly revive, a new circle of customers of the post-Luzhkov era appeared, and since 2013 the workshop has been gaining volume and growing. In general, it was not possible to send me to retire. I understood from the very beginning that the main thing in such a situation is to wait. And position yourself correctly. And everything will be restored.
That's right - how is it?
- You need to be able to talk with the customer. To be able to listen to him is one time, and to be able to convince him of the correctness of his decision is two. An architect is primarily a negotiator. I will not say that I am downright an ace of this genre, there are many great professionals, but I try. I study.
Three years ago, in one of your interviews, you said that “Luzhkov's architecture is not a style, but rather disorderly stuffing a certain number of square meters around the city”. What, in your opinion, is the current situation with the "shoving" of square meters? Can we talk about a more thoughtful, deliberate urban planning policy and intelligible rules of the game?
- Now, it seems, everything is becoming somewhat more reasonable and not so adventurous. It has become customary to think about the city - and thank God. Wait, Moscow, poor thing. Although, of course, certain excesses still occur. I see a lot of fashionable projects and buildings whose fate is exactly the same as that of Luzhkov's architecture - everyone will soon get tired of them. The shed, painted with pixels and ornaments, remains a shed. True, I myself have recently made such a project in the suburbs - the residential area "Molokovo" for 12 thousand people. The customer has a modest budget, and there is nothing there except for super-economical planning solutions and pixels. But at the level of the general plan everything was done correctly: this is a block building with private courtyards, completely freed from cars. And this, of course, affects the quality of life more than pixels and ornaments.
Is housing, as before, the main typology you work with?
- Yes. And I must say that this typology is also changing for the better. Finally, customers are beginning to focus on family people and design not only studios and small apartments. Some time ago, I even heard the opinion that small apartments are best sold in Moscow, since the main buyers of real estate in the capital are girls of easy virtue and gay men. And this really annoys me: maybe it is so, but then what will happen to all of us? The basis of the state is a family with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and thank God that today it is customary to think about it again. In the same "Molokovo", for example, we first, at the insistence of the customer, designed extremely small apartments, literally cut the floors into cubicles, and then we were able to convince him that housing within the same house should be different.
What is your attitude to the numerous architectural competitions that have become so popular today? Do you think that in their current form they are capable of creating conditions for fair competition in the professional community?
- Yes, absolutely. Of course, there are some excesses here, but I believe that a little more and the system will be debugged completely. By the way, we also recently participated in one competition - we made the concept of building the territory of the Nagatinsky backwater. A very correct initiative, I think, is to build not only offices there. We made a mixed-development area, designed a green boulevard, hid the noisy city highway running along the embankment in a tunnel. We made the project together with the German company Uberbau and young Moscow city planners. In my opinion, the work was a success and we are not ashamed of it.
Given our very capricious climate, do you yourself believe in the potential of public spaces?
- Now this topic is, of course, relevant. But, I think, over time, the pathos will subside, and places for both summer and winter leisure will be formed in the city, a kind of balance will arise that will make social life more meaningful and rich. I personally have no doubts that people need to communicate. By the way, in the competitive project of Nagatino we focused on the quarterly layout - a huge residential complex is being built practically in an open field, and if people will perceive any space as "their own", then only the courtyard. Also recently, a complex of apartments on Kozhevnicheskaya Street was designed, and there the same theme became the main one - the courtyard, the landscaped territory of which gave hope for comfort combined with the openness of the complex to the vastness of the Moskva River. Unfortunately, this project seems to remain on paper.
What is the main difficulty in designing in the historical center, in your opinion?
- Of course, there are difficulties, so you need to see and hear the context, carefully look around. And if the situation requires it, you can even write an order - Grigory Revzin once wrote that this is exactly what I did when designing a house in Bryusov Lane. God knows, maybe he did. But my main task was not to express myself, but to tactfully insert the house into a unique already established environment.
But in the project of a house on Poteshnaya Street, on the contrary, do you work more aggressively?
- Yes, well, there is no environment, one soviet mental hospital. That area was in dire need of a benchmark, and we came up with it. Therefore, color is actively used there (we took colored ceramics), and active plastic is given to the facade due to balconies and remote communication nodes. I honestly looked around, but there really was nothing to cling to. It is quite another matter - our hotel on the street of Yamskoye Pole. It seems to be not the center, but the Second Watch Factory is being reconstructed very close to the project of the SPEECH workshop, and it would be strange not to take this object into account. In fact, we interpreted our house as a continuation of the house of colleagues, creating an interesting full-fledged dialogue between two objects of modern architecture. We got such a painted Max Dudler. I generally like Dudler, although for Moscow his style is, perhaps, a bit too much in the direction of German severity.
Ie. Is modern Moscow, in your opinion, architecturally not omnivorous?
- This city was so mutuzili that, perhaps, it can endure everything … But you don't need to get excited. Many colleagues suffered from this in their time. I don't think you need to rape a cow with golden horns. The city should be treated more tenderly. Hard movements always have a very bad effect on the environment. And I am glad that now, in most cases, the attitude towards the city is really changing.
Not so long ago you left the post of vice-president of the Union of Architects of Russia. Can you comment on this?
- Honestly, I don’t want to. I named in my statement the main reason - "disagreement with the position of the union leadership" - and I published this statement, so consider that I have already commented on everything. Moreover, I remained in the elective position of a member of the board of the Union of Architects of Russia and the head of the Council for Education.
Yes, I just wanted to ask about education at the end of our conversation. How would you describe the state of the Russian architectural school today?
- First of all, I want to say that among the young there are very good architects, a whole galaxy, and with them I associate great hopes for the development of Russian architecture. As for education … I would say this: the main problem of our architectural universities is the teaching staff. Children are talented, but they do not always do what is needed, because they are often taught by people who are far from the practice and modern trends in architecture. It should not be. What can the union do in this situation? Now a decision has finally been made on the accreditation of architectural universities at the Union of Architects. This is something that has existed for a long time and has been successfully working in all civilized countries - the accreditation of the institute with a key employers' organization helps to build continuity and thereby transfer the accumulated experience and knowledge to the next generation. In addition, as far as possible, I make some personal contribution to the development of our architectural education: I have been teaching at the Moscow Architectural Institute for six years as a professor. And when working with students, I try to focus on solving real problems. My ideal is Zholtovsky's school-workshop, about which I heard a lot in my youth and from which young people who were absolutely prepared for it came out into real life.
