As many probably still remember, the theme of the Zodchestvo festival held in December by the Union of Architects of Russia turned out to be multi-component and provocative: “Actual Identical. To the 100th anniversary of the Russian avant-garde”. The curators, Andrey and Nikita Asadov, organized a discussion of the topic at the festival, and now they have provided us with its transcript for publication and further discussion. The conversation about the identical, conservative, avant-garde took place on December 20 in Gostiny Dvor at the Zodchestvo-2014 festival. ***
Andrey Asadov (architect, curator of the festival): The topic proposed by the expert council is “Actual Identical. To the 100th anniversary of the Russian avant-garde”- provides rich food for thought. Can the avant-garde be identical? Can a tradition be relevant? Are these concepts compatible at all? Comprehending this topic, we came to the conclusion that the avant-garde is a return to a living, initial tradition, which, like a deep stream, feeds the soul of the people. Each new avant-garde purifies, revives the tradition, gives the stream a new channel.
What, in our opinion, can make up the identity of Russian architecture is the ability to be all-inclusive, to accept any influences, to melt down the traditions of different peoples and give birth from them hitherto unseen. Just as insights are born at the intersection of different disciplines. As Andrey Chernikhov aptly put it, Russian architecture is a nutritious broth that melts any tradition.
Another question is, what is the recipe for broth in modern Russian architecture? What challenges does modern society present, what tasks does it pose? Is architecture capable of becoming a driver of the development of Russian culture, giving it new meanings? We would love to hear your answers to these questions.
Nikita Asadov (architect, curator of the festival):
I must say that the title of the topic, initially chosen by the expert council, was unclear to me, since the actual was not in any way connected with the identical, and it was completely incomprehensible how it all relates to the theme of the century of the avant-garde. In this sense, the “Actual Heritage” proposed by us sounded much more understandable and neutral. Now I understand that the choice of our version of the name would be a big mistake, since it smooths out all the rough edges and would not provoke this discussion.
Perhaps the best conversation on this topic took place yesterday after the performance of Stas Namin's theater "Victory over the Sun" with a security guard, who said that for some time he worked at the Tretyakov Gallery, when Malevich's "Black Square" was still hanging there. He said the following phrase: “I understand the avant-garde, but I don’t love it” and quoted a quote from the play: “Everything is good that starts well. The world will perish, but we have no end! " He perfectly understands that these words about the revolution, as well as the pathos of the avant-garde, are aimed at destroying the past, and we are surprised that this art remains unclaimed, and architectural monuments are perishing. In this sense, our society acts much wiser than professionals, ignoring the art that called for the destruction of the world. Based on the logic of the avant-garde itself, the best thing that can be done with its legacy today is to totally and unconditionally destroy it.
At some point, we, as curators, realized that the only way to rehabilitate the heritage of the avant-garde in the eyes of normal people is to recognize it as one of the components of the identity of Russian architecture. Yes, the constructivists did not spare the past - just as Tsar Peter and Prince Vladimir did not spare him, approving the new paradigm of the state, as they did not spare him 60 years ago, contemptuously christening all previous architecture "excesses". And today we are making the same mistake, placing in the forefront the pathos of revolution and the destruction of the past above the idea of creating a new way of life and a new person. Isn't it better for us, people who understand and appreciate art with all its contradictions, to finally recognize the creative moments that the art of the 20s carried in itself, instead of praising the courage with which the avant-garde artists broke the hateful past for the sake of a wonderful new world?
Andrey Bokov (architect, president of the Union of Architects of Russia):
There is no question here that is not asked, or suspected, or present without being asked. That is, you are offering us now to answer all those questions that have accumulated over a hundred years.
Andrey Asadov:
Better to do it now, before someone else has formulated the answers for us architects.
Andrey Bokov:
This is good motivation. I can, as these topics were called, comment on them. Firstly, both the European and Russian avant-garde really always tried to turn to the archaic - Khlebnikov, Picasso, etc. - this is quite clear. To search for roots, to search for foundations, to purify, all this began with purism, relying only on the foundations and only on the eternal. From this point of view, the avant-garde is an attempt to go beyond the limits of time, beyond the limits of space, beyond some limitations, beyond the context as such, and in general to create something different. This is understandable, and this gave an amazing result, built the architecture that filled the space of the 20th century and introduced into the circle of current topics, in addition to archaism, everything that was grassroots, profane architecture, everything that gave rise to modernism and other architecture outside the framework styles. Timeless architecture, pragmatic, cynical architecture, etc. and so on, which some today call design. And this is the world in which we live, which came before the industrial revolution, came with a new language, with new ways of making objects, made machines and other things glory. In fact, the world today is quite clearly developing between these two poles: the conservative, the traditional, and the opposite pole. It was described in a wonderful way fifty years ago, in a brilliant article that was poorly translated and called "The Mausoleum Against Computers." In what relationship is the avant-garde and some other tradition, monumentality. In principle, this is a war against time, this is our need to survive in any way, survive, etc. This is another way to find some kind of cure for immortality.
The avant-garde, as you rightly said, has very deep foundations, fear and fear deeply hidden in human nature, the desire to survive, all this feeds the avant-garde as well. There is one more theme, this is the theme of the connection between the avant-garde and utopia and how this avant-garde in a wonderful way integrated and entered into the fabric of the same Stalin period and everything else. Of course, he is much more mobile, contradictory, complex than it might seem at first glance. And in general, as I have said and say for a long time, it is necessary to represent the world not as a linear, offensive, one-way movement, but as a much more complex movement, directed at least in two opposite directions. In general, that's all I wanted to say. I believe that you managed to show this, demonstrate here, with which I would like to congratulate you, Andrey, Nikita, in particular, and all the curators who helped you with this. Let's think about what we will make the theme of the next Architecture.
Evgenia Repina (architect, participant of the special project "Future. Method"):
Good afternoon, my name is Evgenia, I am from Samara. It seems to me that the avant-garde is going beyond the usual framework and introducing completely unusual meanings into the profession - in space, in time. The avant-garde changed the position of the author and the position of the creator, instead of classical traditions, when an anonymous author, plus ethics, when the author presents not his concept, not his ideology, when he is as anonymous as possible and, oddly enough, this tradition is very ethical, we see cities and society that have resulted from this classic tradition. Especially European cities. The avant-garde of the 1920s, the classic avant-garde, he said: minus ethics and plus the author. Each creator wants to build his own universe and is completely oblivious to who it serves, to what it leads. It seems to me that the future lies in two pluses: plus the author and plus ethics, we need to take the ethical paradigm from the traditions, and the author's position from the avant-garde, and combine, although perhaps this is a paradox. The author needs to acquire a sense of solidarity, to understand where he is, who he serves, that his role should change, his position should not present a new universe, a new language, a new ethics, and, perhaps, get off this Olympus, or everyone should stand on Olympics, it is a society where all authors are geniuses.
Regarding the Russian situation, it seems to me that this idea is especially relevant in relation to what is happening in the country, in architecture, in the profession, I think the first thing is to become honest. The architectural situation in the province is a disaster. This is a very profitable symbiosis of power, which accounts for millions of square meters, not caring about quality. The whole catastrophe is that people are happy, consumers who get a low-quality environment. It is necessary to designate this situation, define it as abnormal, abnormal. The second problem that occurs in the provinces is that 100% of our students go to work in Moscow, or to complete their studies abroad, we are left alone all the time. This is a factory of professionals who do not stay in the city. The ethical idea, the problem of new ethics, the new position of the author, who is ready to become a district architect, an architect of the quarter, as we call him, seems to me very avant-garde. Plus ethics and plus the author. There should be many authors, because there are a lot of tasks, they are endless, we have the whole country. Somehow the number of jobs and the number of staff do not match, it somehow needs to be combined. For example, there is a local doctor or a local policeman, and there must be a local architect.
Sergey Malakhov (architect, participant of the special project "Future. Method"):
The position, unfortunately, is almost doomed to failure, since in the situation of colonial rulers, which occurs in the provinces, such intellectual and intelligent projects are almost impossible. They can exist only within the framework of individual, kitchen, conversations, performances of singles and breakthrough concepts that are brought to the exhibition and exist in the intellectual space. Naturally, we do not lose hope, we persuade students to stay, but we cannot promise anything. As for the avant-garde, of course, this is a very philosophical question, because avant-garde and tyranny are very close concepts, thus the concepts of an artist and the concept of a revolutionary became very close at a certain time, starting with the French Revolution, and maybe even from the Renaissance. In Russia, this manifested itself in a very strong and militant form. The Russian avant-garde in many aspects is inseparable from the European, say, the same Dutch style, but, frankly, we were probably more fond of the external form than space as the main category of modernism - what was Corbusier, the main artistic avant-garde artist of the 20th century, a man who in fact, he created all the key paradigms of a modern architectural project. As for the legacy of Corbusier, Malevich, etc. Is an artistic experiment that, apparently, in the Russian architectural culture will continue and strengthen. This requires both money and the personal heroism of individual authors. I think that this should be welcomed, because here I will allow myself to disagree a little with Zhenya, the artists will always remain, and they will need their own expression, so the artistic experiment will continue, and I think that no one has the right to prohibit the development of this brilliant Russian tradition.
However, the avant-garde doomed the artist to solitude, he essentially sits in his nest, that is, he is not a man of the profession. If there was no solitude, there would be no artistic experiment. The avant-garde is the position of a hermit who opposes society, and in this sense the avant-garde is tall. And in that vein, when he was interpreted in mass architecture, and brought it to a heart attack - this is the avant-garde of those figures who reduced architecture to mass madness. What Kazimir Malevich and Corbusier have become in the conditions of a mass profession is of course madness and absurdity. Therefore, a conversation at a lecture is perceived very strange, when they tell us: look, what modernism, what we spat on even 20 years ago, and now the Dutch come and say: "Oh, what modernism you have," about our neighborhoods, "Let's take a look at your modernism", please see, there is still a little bit left. This is not modernism at all, these are the consequences of modernism.
Dmitry Fesenko (editor-in-chief of the Architectural Bulletin magazine):
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the structure-forming basis of the avant-garde is a break with tradition and a break in gradualism, a break in perception. It is this feature that rhymes with the foundations of "Russianness". All Russian history is a permanent break of gradualness, and accelerating at that. Perhaps this break in gradualism can be associated with such a phenomenon as the split in Moscow in the 17th century. If we talk about a brilliant exhibition, I really liked the exhibition "Genetic Code" and the school "MARSH", it seems to me that these are two exhibitions where the theme proposed by the Union of Architects and curators, the Asadov brothers, is concentrated. One of the works, namely Timur Bashkaev, with his half-bridge, where the second slice appeared, was one, then the second appeared, they are very characteristic, this discontinuity of consciousness, characteristic of both the Russian tradition and the avant-garde. In another of the projects belonging to the PLANAR bureau, identity appears as an empty space. The annotation to this work says that it can be cognized only reflexively, that is, by other cultures or by a different time. Once inside, we cannot appreciate that very identity circuit. This is such a polemic with Spengler, who in his "Decline of Europe" said that all cultures, from Faustian to Eastern, are things in themselves, that is, fundamentally unknowable and hermetic relative to each other. There is, of course, a contradiction in this. As for the avant-garde, the interruption of gradualism and Russianness, it seems to me that these are three components that are dominant and unite, among other things, this exhibition and the curatorial project.
Andrey Asadov:
If possible, I would like to adjust the direction of the discussion and, in addition to the question “Who is to blame?” Related to the identity of Russian architecture, to immediately answer the second question: “What to do?”, That is, what challenges are facing modern Russian architecture?
Timur Bashkaev (architect):
This is a question that worries me, because I have no answer! First, I pick up on the theme of Dima Fesenko, that the avant-garde is a gradual tension. For me, the avant-garde is not equal to modern architecture, modernism. In the beginning, when modern architecture appeared, it was an avant-garde, a paradigm shift, a search for a new ideal. Now that modernism has established itself, it develops an ideal, and for me this is not the avant-garde. Therefore, when the question is asked - is it time for a new avant-garde and is it time to change it, the question arises for me - have the ideals that were laid down at the beginning of modern architecture changed? In this sense, for me it is not about modern architecture and classics, but the old-new paradigm. I would like to enter into a discussion with Andrei Vladimirovich Bokov - the avant-garde repels itself from the archaic in the sense that it does not continue the gradual growth and development of what was, but, realizing that the ideals have changed, it rolls back, cuts off those species that were, repels from archaic forms and still moves further, forward from a new position. Therefore, for me what we see now, such a stream of modern architecture, is not an avant-garde, they simply develop the ideals that were. And if we want something new, we must understand whether we have any new ideals in our society that the avant-garde should correspond to. If yes, then we must look, if not, then the mainstream will go, modern architecture, which used to be the avant-garde.
Mikhail Filippov (architect):
It is rather difficult to appreciate all the aesthetic heroism of what was done in the 1920s. I am personally acquainted with some of the masters of constructivism and perfectly understand the entire artistic system, the values that we derive, and how it is built, according to what laws, etc. Therefore, I believe that the greatest misfortune of the avant-garde is that it has removed from the very artistic creation, which is architecture, the system of understanding how it is drawn. Because, if we talk about proportions, even with Melnikov and Corbusier it is rather difficult, and proportions are not a bunch of different spells: space, shape, volume, idea, etc., this is actually a technique that we owe follow when we make architecture big, urban and small. The avant-garde is a wonderful sprout that did not give a single school, none of the avant-garde masters gave a single school, it does not exist. This is my opinion.
The introduction of the avant-garde into the area of heritage creates some danger, someone said before me that we can enter into the area of heritage all our sleeping areas, and not only here, but all over the world. The avant-garde is also fraught with danger from the point of view of identity, since in the literal sense, identity is conformity. Architecture does not need any special ideological identity, it will still be identical, no matter what we try to hang on it. For example, Stalinist architecture, despite its masterly drawn order, still shows through it a constructivist grid, I will not speak now of a more rigid definition, let alone its origins, etc. - this is such a hypocritical Palladian facade, which is as hypocritical as the Stalinist constitution, the freest in the world. And from the point of view of our national identity, which we today associate with patriotism, I have a humorous proposal, here Nikita Yavein exhibited a jar of cucumbers at the exhibition today, such a jar of identity, I propose to add to this another exhibit: a double, connected jar beer and call it "Old Miller".
Alexandra Selivanova (art critic, curator of the special project "Constructivism on Shabolovka"):
I will try to approach from the other side. Regarding the question "Who is to blame?" I would like to say how much we generally understand the avant-garde, and what has happened in our minds over the past 50 years. I have a great suspicion - we see the form, but we do not see the content. I mean that the social, political that was contained there, as the ideologist of the architectural avant-garde Leon Trotsky spoke about, talking about the permanent revolution, etc., it was eventually brought into aesthetic admiration, and now all the problems with the heritage associated with this misunderstanding. It seems to me that in many ways we are still within the paradigm of modernism, because we do not separate form and substance and, rejecting substance, we do not preserve the monuments of the avant-garde. When I say “we,” I mean officials and a society that is unhappy with the legacy of constructivism; in fact, we are fighting the ideas that this architecture carries. Therefore, as to what to do about the heritage, it seems to me that you need to somehow distance yourself and treat it as something already passed, stop hating it and start appreciating it as part of the heritage, a valuable substance, and not an idea. When we were working on the Shukhov Tower, we were faced with the opinion that there is nothing wrong with it, we will take and assemble it again from other materials, in a new place, because the form is valuable, not the thing itself. We are faced with the same with the building of the People's Commissariat for Finance, and with other objects. This is the problem of the avant-garde.
As for architectural practice, I would not say that the avant-garde is a break in tradition, because everything is not so simple if you read their texts and carefully look at what they said and thought. This is a very valuable and still unconscious, undigested attitude to time and space, this is such a "Zen" experience "here and now", it seems to me, this should be extracted as an experience, not plasticity, not shaping, not experiments, namely, a sense of their involvement and, of course, the life-building pathos of the avant-garde, that is, the ambitions of an architect who is trying to move power from its place and even take the place of power. This is why they fought against the avant-garde in the first half of the 20th century. It seems to me that this pathos is very important for a modern architect, that is, to regain his dignity and comprehend himself as a person who can change the reality around him, change the structure of life. I believe this is what is lost in the profession.
Dmitry Mikheikin (architect, curator of the special project "Neoclassicism VDNKh"):
I would like to go directly to our urban and rural environment and see how our gigantic architectural heritage from all eras, up to the 80s, can help us generate this environment. We do not have a uniform historical understanding, every time we want to cross out, break, forget, modernism is bad, Khrushchev is terrible, there is not enough space. At the same time, in the 60s it was for the good fortune to get this apartment. You have to understand that in a few years people moved from the countryside and settled in cities, there was some crazy explosion of urbanism, of course, there were excesses, but you can't just scratch everything with the same brush and demolish everything else along with the Khrushchevs, as they did, for example, in the 30s: a huge number of churches were demolished, we can still see this, and Moscow is still alive.
There is a problem of misunderstanding - what to keep in general, after the same plan by Corbusier, when he wanted to erect several towers in Paris and demolish all buildings, and leave only the best architectural monuments. We had these plans in the 60s. This shocked people so much that now the architect is still, to a greater extent, the enemy. With all this, we now have a measure of architecture - these are square meters. It is necessary to build, for example, an office center or housing - you need to squeeze out a maximum of meters. The result is completely faceless high-rise buildings that really have no identity, because this is not even architecture, but some kind of handicraft copying. It is clear that we save a lot, but the same avant-garde shows how to get out of this situation brilliantly.
Here, I gradually approach the problem from society as a whole to the architectural workshop, because we have a formal, abstract, compositional approach to design. Now there are just these sprouts to identity and the search for something special, which is actually expected of us by an ordinary person who wants to live in a beautiful house, in a beautiful space. Here the problem is twofold - architects often, not knowing the history of architecture, simply look at the visual range, examples of European architecture, which is brilliant, no doubt, but they create their own identity there, and when we copy them one by one, we lose ours. But at the same time we look little, study and understand the same Leonidov, Pavlov, Zheltovsky, Vlasov, many of which are comparable, and maybe even more powerful than the same Corbusier with his five principles. They cooked in the same porridge, they met each other, developed and throughout the 20th century generated a new identity. Now I represented VDNKh, and there it can be seen: the architecture is brilliant. Yes, these are pavilions, this is the best, a lot of funds and the best architects have been invested there. But even where community centers were created, etc., there is always an element of identity. Even if we take, for example, the development of Pitsunda, among all this modern shell there are megaliths and Abkhaz legends. There, architects begin to react to the old fortress, the whole city is formed in a single key and it is wonderful to be in it, because, thank God, it was not touched by the time of the 90s, and this environment lives brilliantly.
What I propose - let's be very attentive to the master plan, let's try to demolish as little as possible, regenerate areas, I understand that this is very expensive, but let's try, because it's very important now, because I don't even have time to photograph. I'm not even talking about the architecture of the 60s and 30s, this applies to all architecture. People have no choice but to buy apartments in these awful panel houses, faceless, although they can be completely "face", even with such a number of storeys.
Alexey Komov (architect, curator of the special project "Architecture of Crimea"):
If you answer the question "Who is to blame?", The architects are always to blame. As for the avant-garde, for me the avant-garde is the desire to take risks, the desire to break through, and identity is the desire to take responsibility. If you feel a part of tradition, if you have knowledge, and you do not have a return ticket, you risk being responsible for those proposals and for those things that you do. Therefore, for me, both identical and avant-garde is just traditionalism, there is nothing more avant-garde at the moment than traditionalism and architectural dignity. That's all. And if we talk about stars and heroes, then Melnikov and Leonidov are heroes, they are Atlanteans, not stars. Stars are something temporary, they are something from show business, they are something fleeting. If you just compare, from 1917 to 1940 is 23 years, how many schools there were, how many interesting trends there were, how many big breakthroughs and varieties, denials, interruptions. It seems to me that this should be guided by.
Nikolay Vasiliev (historian of architecture, curator of the special project "Architecture of Crimea"): Our conversation reminds me of a nonsense game - everyone gets something from the previous one. What I think is important is, firstly, about proportions - if we take proportions in the narrow classical architectural sense - this is a technical problem that no one but architects cares about, bad architecture may have good proportions. In fact, this is a conversation about the relationship of an architect with the outside world, with society, with specific people who will be customers, residents, spectators, whatever. Without a doubt, the great success of the festival is that it brought here many things that gave us the opportunity to gather and show what is, but more for us. It’s a bit of a failure that we didn’t collect enough external visitors, that is, we didn’t build relationships with the outside world, for which architecture exists.
Regarding the avant-garde, it seems to me that the most important point is the understanding that the avant-garde exists in any case, that the avant-garde is a timeless concept. A beautiful dotted line of five vanguards shows that the vanguard exists in a completely paradoxical situation. As Boris Groys well noted: “what does not look like art is not art, but what looks like art is kitsch, real art is somewhere in between,” the same is with the avant-garde, the avant-garde is very important in relationship to life, to current problems.
Alexey Klimenko (architecture critic):
The basis of life is movement, the basis of culture is a draft, there is no culture without drafts. Now there is endless talk about isolationism, and if this tendency wins, the country will suffocate, there will be no movement, and then you can draw a bold cross. Just as the main thing for the river is the movement of water, and not the same as in the Moskva River, but real, strong, so that all this abomination in the bottom sediments does not kill the river, so renewal is necessary for life, a vanguard is needed, a shake is needed …It is necessary for society to wake up from time to time and realize that if what is happening from all sides, on television and in the press, this is the path to death, to death. The avant-garde arises when society realizes the need for shaking, changes, movement, therefore the avant-garde is necessary, necessary for our life.
Totan Kuzembaev (architect):
In general, I think so, but are there any other countries where they discuss what identity is, looking for roots? Or is it only in Russia? After all, I want to discuss something new, but not that there are roots, there are no roots, identity, not identity, right? About the avant-garde, it seems to me, any architecture, the same avant-garde, it did not arise out of nowhere, it was some kind of demand, demand from society, shock, revolution, and it was they who came to this time, and saw a bright future there and etc. And they thought, maybe architecture can really change life, teach people to build, etc., but it didn't work out. As I understand it, an architect and architecture are such servants of rich people, no money - no architecture. It seems to me, based on this: who pays, he dances the girl. What to say, avant-garde, not avant-garde, style, proportions, listen, now it’s like this: you paid, what they say, you do it, you don’t do it, someone else will do it.
Therefore, perhaps, start forming a competent, educated, smart developer? How to deal with this, I do not know how to generate demand? Maybe our system is not like that, the system is not like that, I don’t know. I remember all the time - when we played tennis badly, Boris Nikolaevich came, started playing tennis, and we became the first in tennis. We fought badly, Vladimir Vladimirovich came, and now we are putting everyone on the shoulder in SAMBO. Maybe we need to finally choose a president-architect so that he also comes, and there will be a demand for good architecture?
Nikolay Lyzlov (architect):
First, I want to thank and congratulate both Andrey and Nikita on a wonderful and successful job. Since we are talking about the vanguard, three components of this phenomenon are important for me: protest, social orientation and pragmatism. Today they remembered Shukhov, and I sat and thought that the man was engaged in the fact that out of three components he chose two: benefit and strength. All this turned out beautifully, like mixing two colors produces a third. The main thing is that time has passed, but there is no benefit, there are great doubts with strength, but beauty remains. This is such a correct movement, honest and pragmatic, like the beauty of any organic creature - a horse, or some hand-made object, the same tank. When they do it, they don't think about aesthetics at all, but it is born by itself, as a reaction to the right actions.
The avant-garde, in my opinion, Andrei Bokov was very correct in saying that he relied on archaism, like any protest, like a reform in the church, that is, it is a denial of the recent past based on the origins. But this is an absolutely built-in thing, it does not break, but continues, it forms a kind of stepping stone to moving forward. I totally agree with Disraeli, whose last words were "Love progress." I love progress, it seems to me that everything that is done is being done for the better, and the avant-garde is a certain step into the ideology of the revolution, and since, in my opinion, the revolution is still going on, the avant-garde is a kind of support, it has a past, he has a future, he is absolutely natural, completely built-in, and this, in my opinion, should be our gratitude to him. And the fact that it is poorly preserved is history, such is life, death is inevitable. Everything in life should not freeze. The vanguard would not be the vanguard if it did not die, this is a logical continuation. Traces of the avant-garde remain, some artifacts and monuments remain. It seems to me that there is no tragedy, there is no need to specially protect it, now, it seems to me, it is more urgent to protect the heritage of Soviet modernism, because a huge number of magnificent houses, like the Akhmedov library in Dushanbe, have already been lost.
Mark Gurari (architect):
I would like to thank the organizers for including Leonidov's theme, because when I read “Actual Identical”, Leonidov is the first to come to mind, thank you for several young people here leaning towards this topic. Leonidov is not the most innovative, of course, but we forget that architecture is art, and today the most pressing problem is professionalism in all spheres of life, right down to art. Many people talk about Leonidov with a tremor in their voice, he raised the bar of professionalism, above all. We held two workshops within the framework of the festival and are glad that we passed this on to someone. Yuri Volchok talked about how the whole world is already using Leonidov's findings, Nikolai Pavlov told about the connection with world civilization, and I noticed that Leonidov is unusually identical to Russian civilization. In general, I mainly deal with wood, wooden architecture to a great extent, its freedom, its spatial module, because the frame cannot but exist in the form of four connected logs, it will not hold. It was this spatiality of thinking that determined Shukhov's feat. You know that the Shukhov Tower in terms of metal consumption per unit of height is three times less than that of the Eiffel Tower, which is also a wonderful work. It is this freedom of spatial thinking that distinguishes Tatlin's project, with all its foreshadowing of deconstructivism. The harmony of the People's Commissariat for Heavy Industry is so strong that both Volchok and I worked as ECOS experts for twenty years, fighting not to allow a single large building in the center of Moscow, and then, without a word, wrote an article about why this project was wonderful. Of course, everything that was said here is correct, but today, when professionalism is disappearing everywhere, from lawn cleaning to city management, the professionalism of architects, high exactingness, high standards are the most urgent.
Eduard Kubensky (architect, editor-in-chief of the Tatlin magazine):
I am a writer, and I would like to read three small excerpts from my story "Futuristic War": "I dream that the 1st futuristic war is going on, I head the headquarters of the will-dwellers, on the other side of the aesthetic front, the prodigals. The war has been going on for almost 100 years, there is no one alive who would remember how it all began, scraps of memory bring to us the names of Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, Daniil Kharms, Vladimir Tatlin, Ivan Leonidov, Konstantin Lebedev and many other heroes, who did not spare their lives and laid down their heads on the battlefields. Our first revolutionary general was the famous Russian engineer Vladimir Shukhov, he invented the hyperboloid, this formidable weapon rendered us a good service 100 years ago. With his help, we took Shabolovskie Heights, rebuilt outposts in the centers of the largest Russian cities. Many of them are still on the defensive, but a lot has been lost …
What to do with the house on its feet? The Proshlyans have already fenced off their legs! - one of my commanders intervenes, - with this it is more difficult, most likely you will have to leave the height, no, almost no chances, the author of the building plants cucumbers in the country and brings up grandchildren, I will try to visit him tomorrow, perhaps he will return to battle. Yet, while the author is alive, the prodigals must agree on a redistribution - I desperately convince myself, although, of course, war is war - no one owes anyone, if you are not ready to die yourself, others will surely kill you.
Gentlemen, I want to present to you a new model of proun - by unrolling electronic paper over an interactive map of military operations, I begin, - this microscopic organism is able to grind porcelain stoneware and composite aluminum in a matter of seconds, simulating the original forms that were once destroyed by the traitors of futurism. We will test it on the facades of one of the modern houses. How long will it take? - the young officer of the theoretical regiment is interested. By the way, I must add that most of our army today is women, men either died in postmodern battles at the end of the last century, or surrendered to the prodigals, for stability and the ability to build, or do not understand at all that there is a war going on … From 2 up to 10 years - I declare, but I think it's worth it, because without the past there is no future."
Julius Borisov (architect):
The discussion is interesting, if the word "avant-garde" was replaced, for example, with "gothic", it would be even more interesting, because the gothic was just as avant-garde, you can put the baroque here, and any word. In fact, for me it is a language. The problem with avant-garde artists is that they thought they were creating something completely different, but they all talked about the same thing. The quality of architecture is for someone proportions, for someone beauty, but for me it is harmony. An architect always makes a new harmonious world out of chaos, and in this case, if you look at the avant-garde artists, they are the same classics, they make beautiful harmonious spaces for living. Yes, of course, they became hostages of society, as Totan said - let's teach the government, let them show how we need to design. The problem is not in the government and not in the developer, the problem, of course, is in the people, they are now so far from the sense of harmony, maybe they listen to bad music, maybe they don't go to the Tretyakov Gallery a lot. Architects are such Don Quixotes who are trying to tell them something about how to live correctly, to preserve their huts, to understand that they are beautiful. This is our heavy cross at the moment. I absolutely agree with my colleagues that the only way out now is to work well. We must learn, learn from all the masters, both the classics and the avant-garde, learn to do their job correctly. In this case, this is the only chance to somehow show the benefits of architecture to society, including the fact that the avant-garde is beautiful, and only in this way, perhaps, we will be able to protect it and repay our teachers.
Vladimir Kuzmin (architect):
You know, I have a strange impression - on the one hand, everyone talks about their own things, moving away from the topic declared by the curators. On the other hand, this topic that excites everyone looks very multifaceted. I have two statements in my head - about the district architects and what Totan said. I respect everyone at this table, but when we say education, avant-garde, this, that - everything is fine, but the point is gone. The actual is momentary, the identical is eternal. Can the actual be identical or can the identical be actual? Does this have anything to do with what we do with you on a daily basis? It seems to me that you need to go and work on it!
