FUTURA magazine this year changed its concept: from a collection of detailed texts on architectural topics, it turns into a platform for the publication of manifestos reflecting and anticipating new trends in the development of architecture.
In March 2015, St. Petersburg hosted
the first exhibition of the Architectural Club "Maximalism" under the motto "Not dreams of the past, but memories of the future." It took place at the EXPOFORUM Exhibition and Convention Center within the framework of the VIII International Forum of Urban Development and Architecture A.city. Among the exhibitors were architects from St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, the Urals and even China.
The materials collected for the exhibition became an incentive to change the concept of FUTURA magazine, as well as the basis for its next issue. Also, everyone is now invited to participate in this publication. You can learn more about the terms of participation
here.
He spoke about the new concept of the magazine Oleg Manov, head of the architectural bureau
FUTURA Architects, publisher of FUTURA magazine:
“Today, architects are increasingly turning to computers for help and are less likely to draw with their hands in the design process. When conceiving our magazine FUTURA and organizing exhibitions of hand-made graphics, we set ourselves several goals. One of them is to revive the tradition of hand-made graphics and to increase attention to what young and promising architects in Russia are thinking about today.
In my opinion, today, at the time of the crisis, it is possible and necessary to make plans for the future, to fantasize and experiment on paper and in layouts. In this case, in 10–20 years, these ideas and these solutions will be able to form the basis of a real architecture. Thus, a new architecture was born at all times.
Our plans simply have to be bold and ambitious, then in the future it will be able to give certain results. We can look at the shape of buildings, at the philosophy and reading the ideology of objects differently - from the point of view of how it will be perceived in 50 and 100 years. How will this building age? What new features will be available in it? How can public spaces develop over time?
A manifesto can be a new interpretation of the façade plane on the boundaries of the environments inside and outside. It can be new details, ornaments, designs …
A new slogan could be one sentence and a small sketch on a napkin that will allow you to look at the design process in a completely different way. For example, not as an erection of walls and ceilings around a rectangular living space, but as a complex process of human interaction in space and time. This system of interaction both inside and outside the building can dictate a completely new structure of the building, where there are a number of open and closed spaces. There is no endless repetition of windows and finishes. And, for example, as in living nature - we are living people - there is a certain volume, inside which everything is interconnected, as diverse as possible, at the same time organically and subordinated to a certain algorithm.
Answering the question of the Archi.ru editors about the "conveyor" and "publication in batches of manifestos", I can say that I am 100% sure that no one will send them "batches" to us. This is the result of a large, long-term work in the form of an analysis of the reality around us, the process of modeling the need for new changes in connection with scientific progress, and only then - the emergence of an opportunity to formulate a new manifesto in architecture. It is this process that we propose to deploy within the framework of our magazine, its presentation and subsequent exhibitions. Since we do not limit our colleagues either in materials, or in structures, or in terms of budget and implementation time, I am sure that we will be able to collect a rather interesting set of opinions and ideas on how the architecture of the future can develop."
