Archi.ru:
Do you now believe that the Shukhov Tower will be preserved?
Alexandra Selivanova:
- The main threat has passed - now no one will dare to talk about dismantling and choosing a new location for the tower. I think the most important thing right now is not to let the process slow down; if you do not start restoration (and, first of all, in my opinion, inspection of structures) in the next year, the situation can become dangerous. It is also very important to determine the new owner of the tower - both financing and further scenario will depend on this.
And what about the prospect of creating a cluster on Shabolovka?
- We, the Shabolovka initiative group, continue to establish contacts and implement new joint projects; it seems to me that in fact something similar to a cluster already exists here. There are about four to five actively interacting educational and cultural institutions, small and medium-sized businesses are catching up to them. The recently opened Avant-garde Center in the branch of the Library "Education of Workers", the renovation and launch of the updated gallery "On Shabolovka" with an exhibition about the constructivism of the area, I believe, gave a new impetus to this whole story. Hopefully, the center and exhibition hall will become the tourist, scientific and cultural heart of the future cluster.
What will you show at Zodchestvo?
- Let's show the essence, key ideas of our exhibition “Model for a New Life, 1: 1 scale. Vanguard on Shabolovka . A combination of historical, archival material on the main monuments of the avant-garde in the region and their modern interpretation.
What can the audience expect from your exhibition, what is its main meaning?
- In fact, this is a two-part story: the project of the Shabolovsky cluster, which will be shown by Andrey and Nikita Asadov, and our historical outline is a kind of justification of the value and significance of the area, its tourist and cultural potential.
Your project definitely belongs to the “legacy” part, and meanwhile: in your opinion, the legacy of the avant-garde is only of nostalgic and academic interest, or, as the curators believe, is capable of impregnating modernity, and if so, how can this happen? Last time, renewal seems to have sprung from denial, not heritage study
- In my opinion, the unrealized and misunderstood (oddly enough) ideas of the 1920s avant-garde are still fruitful and meaningful. I'm talking, of course, about some kind of synthesis - design, art, intertwined with social experiments, scientific hypotheses. Our exhibition is attended by a group of young designers, students who are trying to comprehend the experience of communes, kitchen factories, crematoria and other components of the "new way of life" in the context of the life of a modern city and their personal lives.
How interesting! And how do they comprehend them: in practice, that is, on themselves, or theoretically as researchers?
“I gave them several excursions around the area, telling them in detail not only about architecture, but also about the formation of a new consciousness in connection with these spaces - from the“purity plant”and the“giant school”to the commune and crematorium. After that, the students wrote essays about how acceptable these norms and views are for each of them. Some of them are now engaged in the design and construction of a creative condominium - in fact, a commune - and therefore these topics are especially acute for them. Well, in general, it is obvious that for the mind of a young designer, such a completely designed life - from overalls and a folding table to a system of raising children and sterile disposal of remains - looks both frightening and attractive, thanks to a total (and totalitarian) design approach.
Don't you think the phrase “heritage of the avant-garde” is contradictory: a significant part of the meaning of avant-garde is in denying the heritage, but here it turns out the opposite …
- Yes, of course, this is an oxymoron. We, in fact, are engaged in the archeology of utopia: with trepidation we collect the fragments and debris of life that was not then destroyed, we are trying to preserve and save decayed architectural matter. For them, an idea, a thought was important - and we are trying to museumize material evidence and traces of this thought. The surviving fragments of realized utopias are very rare (for example, there is the Familister Museum in Giza, in France, the Garnier quarters in Lyon, there is the Marseille Unit …) - but in our country this is a truly unique in scale and multi-layered heritage that must be saved and explored …
Does your exhibition touch on the theme of this year ("actual identical") and if so, how?
- Probably yes - both individually and as a whole. We are working with urban protection topics - and this is extremely important for Moscow, unfortunately. And we are talking about the value of local history, completeness and integrity of a separate fragment of the city - in which, as in a lens, the whole essence of Soviet history, culture, and everyday life of the first half of the twentieth century is collected. The personal stories involved in the project, people's memories and, in general, the participation of local communities in the reconstruction of the memory of a place, it seems to me, are quite consonant with the theme of Architecture - 2014. ***
Boris Kondakov, co-curator of the exposition "Constructivism on Shabolovka", will present the project "Pedestrian Ring of Moscow". We asked him one question.
You are in charge of the Moscow Pedestrian Ring project. Tell us about the project, what is its essence, when it appeared (I remember about the project of the pedestrian route from Gagarin Square to Kievsky railway station, the architect Yuri Platonov was more involved there, your project is not related to that)? What is the volume of the Shablovka area as part of your walking route?
Boris Kondakov:
- To begin with, we do not invent anything from a blank sheet, but only pick up ideas that have existed in the fabric of the city for a long time, but due to their incompleteness are not readable. Earlier Natalia Bronovitskaya spoke about the idea of the ring. The ring, practically in the form we present it today, was first proposed by Shchusev in his 1923 plan. This plan is a wonderful urban planning document that we refer to over and over again, and each time we find this or that progressive idea.
The boulevard ring, as suggested by Shchusev, migrated into subsequent general plans, along it were built iconic structures and complexes, such as the Krasnopresnensky department store of the Vesnin brothers or Shukhov's Shabolovskaya radio tower. When mapped, the ring magically unites many of Moscow's constructivist ensembles into one idea.
The Shabolovskaya Tower occupies a special place on the ring route (I told about this in more detail in my blog). Not knowing how the ring was supposed to pass, it is very difficult to catch the logic of the installation of this lighthouse tower. The tower is the heart of a large avant-garde ensemble of the 1920s-1930s, which, to be precise, consists of five residential complexes (a complex of residential buildings in the area of Bolshaya Serpukhovskaya Street and Shchipkovskiye lanes; a complex of residential buildings "Mytnaya"; a complex of residential buildings RZHSKT "1 -e Zamoskvoretskoye Association "; a complex of residential buildings on Mytnaya, Shukhova and Khavskaya streets (" Drovyanaya Ploschad "); a complex of residential buildings" Khavsko-Shabolovsky "). Thus, it is the largest and, to a greater extent than the rest, realized ensemble of the Avant-garde era and, perhaps, the most logical place to create an art cluster around this idea.
Yuri Platonov's workshop, within the framework of the same idea, developed a segment of the ring (from the Ukraine Hotel to Gorky Park). This project has been implemented. Now there is not enough one more bridge near the hotel "Ukraine" ("Trekhgorny" bridge, planned back in the 1950s, but still not built) and then the ring will be closed.
