Oleg Rybin talked with the permanent author of Archi.ru, Russian architect Elizaveta Klepanova and Austrian architect Peter Ebner.
Elizaveta Klepanova: How does St. Petersburg differ from other cities for you? What is special about it?
Oleg Rybin: It seems to me that the uniqueness of St. Petersburg is its generic property. We can talk about the planning structure of the city and its ensemble, which is probably not the first-born. But the peculiarity and uniqueness begins even with the decision: where is the city built? This is one of the few cities, and maybe even the only city, that was specially located in the delta. Because usually cities are located on the high right or left banks of rivers. Strictly speaking, if at that time, 300 years ago, there had been an examination of projects or the so-called district planning, such an option would never have been approved. The city has been struggling with floods for 300 years, there are special soils and seasonal or stormy changes in the water horizon - because of them, it becomes expensive to maintain. It is good that St. Petersburg was the capital, because that very capital rent helped to maintain everything: ensembles, squares, parks, boulevards. With the departure of the capital from here a hundred years ago, the city lost this additional resource and what happened next has two versions. It is good that the capital is gone, because it allowed to keep the city in this form. Well, and the second point of view: due to the loss of the status of the main city of Russia and the capital resource, all problems, including the historical center, have become more difficult to solve. But this is a too simplified understanding of the features. Of course, they are much thinner. Apparently this is what attracts - the incomprehensibility of design, existence and development …
Peter Ebner: I would like to ask you a question as a person born in a city with a very rich history [in Salzburg - approx. ed.]. The question is how to preserve the historical context, but at the same time give the city new opportunities and ways of development. You have been the chief architect of St. Petersburg for a year now and, of course, you have already sufficiently studied the city. And with your experience as a chief architect, you now have the opportunity to create something new. The question is, what is your strategy?
O. R.: This is exactly what the conversation is about: how to develop an existing city? At these latitudes and further to the north, there is no such city as St. Petersburg - with a population of more than five million people. All other cities are much smaller and much more compact. Petersburg needs to find its own unique solution, taking into account the realities we are talking about. And what kind of solution will it be? As in Moscow, which annexed new territories or, after all, the regeneration and reconstruction of the existing one? And this is fundamentally important, because there are a lot of depressive and degrading territories inside the city and, in my opinion, more attention should be paid to them.
P. E.: As a rule, a position like yours is given to people with a lot of experience. In this case, how can Moscow give the position of chief architect to a less experienced person? After all, this can be both a big breakthrough and a big risk?
O. R.: This is what Felix Aronovich Novikov wrote about. But the situation is somewhat different. The chief architect of Moscow just has a different role today. He is not the chairman of the committee, but the first deputy chairman. And he deals with a very narrow range of issues of architectural design, for example, holding competitions, meetings of the architectural council. This is, indeed, to a certain extent, a decline in status. And here, in my opinion, the administrative resource that the chief architect should have, blocking the wrong decisions, is lost in Moscow. But this is the decision of the city administration …
More than eighteen years of my work in the organs of architecture and ten years in the Council of Chief Architects of Cities allow me to draw some conclusions. We observed a lot of situations in cities and very different, including the "distribution of roles", as well as the consequences of these decisions. You know that before the revolution, the provincial architect in Russia was appointed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a law enforcement agency, and was called upon to keep order in cities, town-planning order!
P. E.: What results in the development of St. Petersburg within five years would you like to achieve? Are there any major projects?
O. R.: General plan. And I consider this to be our main task. It is necessary to change the paradigm of placing "unnecessary" housing: paradoxically, but this is a separate conversation. I would like to avoid the scenario of Moscow. The most valuable territories of the "gray belt" of industrial zones, which want to be totally built up with housing, should be used mainly for infrastructure facilities that improve the quality of life and, to a lesser extent, for housing and business buildings. For such types of infrastructure as social, energy, transport, parking, etc. If we free the streets of the city from parked cars, then we must understand where to place them.
E. K.: In Salzburg, when the townspeople were forbidden to come to the city center by car, they had a lot of problems. They simply cannot bring food from the supermarket to the house and are forced to carry heavy things on their own.
O. R.: Well, this is too harsh. Of course, we will not have this.
E. K.: And I would like to talk about whether new people, young people, are coming to the architectural community of St. Petersburg? Are there any competitions for this?
O. R.: We have a youth section at the Union of Architects. But, of course, there are some problems with competitive practice. When there is no need to hold contests at the legislative level, developers do not hold them or hold them very closed, inviting "stars". Young architects, as a rule, are not interesting for a large developer. Therefore, they, like in incubators, live in the workshops of famous architects. But I think that the one who wants to, will definitely achieve his goal. I have both sons - architects in Nizhny Novgorod. The elder constantly participates in competitions. He traveled to Venice, where he was selected out of two hundred people, to Eco-Bereg, recently successfully took part in the Dvor competition at Arch Moscow. Whoever wants, he moves towards his goal. It's a matter of motivation.
P. E.: You know, in Europe, everything basically goes through competitions. And, designing all over the world, I certainly prefer invitation contests. But when I was just starting my professional career, the Austrian Union of Architects wanted to show in one of the competitions that only architects should win architectural competitions. And they made a competition for a student residence in the historic city center. The jury consisted of five architects and four developers. Five architects voted for my project, and four developers voted against me. I was a student. The project was implemented and I was able to open my office. So this opportunity helped me start my professional career pretty quickly. I think that it is necessary to compel developers to invite 10–20% of young people to participate in competitions, at least for the design of small objects. It is necessary to pass on knowledge to the next generation.
O. R.: It seems to me that a very important point: who is the judge, who is on the jury. You mentioned five architects and four developers. 12 years ago, in 2002, I studied in Boston. Massachusetts is a New England state and an explosive mixture of English laws and American love of freedom. We studied "planning and communication": how the legalization of the project is going, how the hearings are going.
P. E.: From my point of view, America is not the best example in terms of architecture.
O. R.: Then I caught myself thinking that I should go to America to learn how not to do it in Russia. There are more developers than architects on the jury. They have a different policy. They are more focused on the developer and money, without which "nothing will happen." It's good if the understanding of a comfortable living environment is the same and obvious for everyone, but it happens just the opposite …
P. E.: How does it happen at competitions in St. Petersburg?
O. R.: This is not spelled out in government orders. Time and price matter. And that's the problem. Unless, of course, there are such exclusive contests as for the 2nd stage of the Mariinsky Theater or for the renovation of New Holland. When the competition is run by a private investor, he appoints the jury. Of course, the international rules, according to which there should be two-thirds of architects on the jury, is correct, but they are not yet applied in our country. Now we just want to form a competitive practice by changing the vector. It is important for developers to understand that the best architectural solution is achieved through a competition. And without me as the chief architect, they can organize competitions on their own. Someone selects the winning projects himself and brings them to the town planning council. Someone cannot choose and bears everything … Fortunately, the understanding comes that good architecture is needed not only for coordination, that it is a competitive advantage of the developer.
E. K.: Are foreign architects involved in the work in St. Petersburg now?
O. R.: It happens. I'll start with a very simple example. The latest version of the project for New Holland went off with a bang. This is how the Dutch architects West 8 made it. And this is an album with the work of Studio 44, made three years ago. Let's find ten differences. The same park, the same blocks, the same transport solution to the issue. This project could have been approved in this form three years ago.
E. K.: Why was it not approved?
O. R.: I don't know, maybe because he is Russian and these are Dutch.
P. E.: Conceptually, there are really very small differences.
O. R.: Small ones. In addition, the Dutch were told to remove the trees along the facades. These are trifles, of course, but in Yavein's work, surprisingly, this was already taken into account. We first need to understand the value of our architects in order to learn how to better evaluate foreign colleagues. This is a mental problem. Appreciate your own, respect yourself, rejoice for your own, trust your own. This will change a lot. In the meantime, we even have sayings: "There is no prophet in his own country", "People to see and show themselves." If a cottage is being built on Rublevka, then only Zaha Hadid should design it. Famously! How do you like that?
P. E.: Very simple. People sometimes want to get brands. And, in the case of such an architecture, you can always say: this is a brand. But you know, when we flew to you, we read interviews with Hadid on the plane. As an architect, I am of the opinion that it is important when working not to show how wonderful I am, but to emphasize the beauty and individuality of a particular place. And Zaha Hadid is an architect with a very dominant design, for whom it does not matter if it is St. Petersburg or some other city. But she answered the questions of the journalist in this magazine the way I would answer them. But what she says in interviews and what she does are two big differences. The brand architecture must change. It is imperative to study the beauty and problems of the place, otherwise, the design makes no sense. You can wear a suit for a huge amount, but this will not change the character of its owner.
O. R.: You know, Andrei Bokov performed in Nizhny Novgorod in 1997, when Kharitonov was awarded the State Prize in Architecture for the creation of the Nizhny Novgorod School of Architecture. Both Bart Goldhorn and Grigory Revzin dedicated another issue of Project Russia to Nizhny Novgorod. They saw the phenomenon of the Nizhny Novgorod architectural school. But when Andrei Vladimirovich was asked how masterpieces are created, he said: “Architects must do their work conscientiously. And masterpieces are created by journalists, art historians and critics …”- like all brands.
