Alexey Ginzburg is a representative of several architectural dynasties at once: on the one hand, he is the grandson of Moisei Ginzburg, the author of the House of Narkomfin, and on the other, the great-grandson of Grigory Barkhin, the author of the Izvestia newspaper building. Meanwhile, he manages to make a completely independent, carefully thought out, verified architecture, and even more - to constantly develop in several directions: from a small scale, such as the interior of an apartment or a monument on the Borodino field, to projects of residential and public buildings, large urban planning concepts and restoration as an additional specialization. Most often, journalists turn to Alexei for information about the fate of the House of Narkomfin, the history and reconstruction of which he has been engaged in since 1995. For us, his own works and his attitude to modern architecture are of primary interest.
Archi.ru:
In the spring of 2015, your project of a multifunctional center on Zemlyanoy Val won the Golden Section Prize. Please tell us more about it
Alexey Ginzburg:
- We have been working on it since 2007 and during this time we have made a huge number of variants. The site is located in a place that is complex in terms of context and important from a town planning point of view. It is surrounded by buildings dating back to several eras, so our complex must harmoniously enter into a dialogue with them.
Opposite is the new building of the Taganka Theater. How did you take into account such a neighborhood?
- We were guided by him from the very beginning, realizing that our complex needs to form a harmonious ensemble with the theater. It should be a finely constructed architectural dialogue in which each era retains its own character. I think the architecture of the Taganka Theater is magnificent, it is one of the best examples of Soviet modernism. My acquaintance with him began about 30 years ago, when my grandmother Elena Borisovna Novikova (architect, teacher, professor at Moscow Architectural Institute - ed.) Was making a book about public spaces. There were no computers at that time, and as a student I worked part-time by drawing "transparent" axonometrics for her. The Taganka Theater was one example. By drawing its projections on paper, I appreciated this powerful architecture and let it pass through me. Now, while working on the MFC project, I used these impressions, determining the general volumetric-spatial solutions of the new building, as well as the materials of the facade and their color. I didn't want to make a massive volume that could crush the surrounding buildings, but it was also impossible to split the building into many small blocks. Such a contrast with the theater would destroy the ensemble at the entrance to Taganskaya Square, which acts as a kind of propylaea in the form of a contrasting pair from our transparent, rhythmically structured complex and the massive wall of the theater. This project is very significant for me, and I paid maximum attention to it until I realized that the building turned out exactly the way I want to see it in this place.
What other interesting projects are you working on right now?
- There are two projects, although not very large in terms of Moscow scale - from 7 to 15 thousand m2but, from my point of view, they are quite large and contain many elements that need to be thought out. In addition, we are doing a project for a complex quarter development near the Ulitsa Podbelskogo metro station (renamed into Rokossovskogo Boulevard - editor's note). This is a budget housing, and it is not possible to use complex solutions and expensive materials in it, but from an urban planning point of view, it is extremely interesting: in addition to the houses themselves, we are developing public spaces, building a new system of interaction between the architectural complex and the city.
Are you also engaged in urban planning?
– Yes, and for a long time. But a real professional breakthrough in this direction for me was my participation in the competition for the concept of the development of the Moscow agglomeration in a consortium led by Andrey Chernikhov. It was like postgraduate, another course of study.
What functions were assigned to your office in this consortium, and what was the most significant in the work on the concept?
– Andrey Alexandrovich has assembled an excellent team, which included Russian and foreign specialists, including geographers, sociologists, economists, and transport workers. We analyzed a huge amount of information, on the basis of which we prepared a development concept. It was especially interesting and useful to evaluate the presentations of other participants. Some approaches did not seem close to me, but I immediately fell in love with someone's ideas.
Several years ago we took part in the RHD competition for the best sketch of an architectural and planning solution for a site in the Nizhny Novgorod region. We made a project and a vision of its development for the future, with detailed phasing, calculated the points of entry into the territory, the emergence of natural connections. This is how people who understand urbanism correctly work, and do not paint beautiful pictures. However, the jury of the competition preferred just the spectacular master plan, and our project was in last place, which in this case even made me happy, because our ideology is the opposite of what the jury wanted to see.
Since the word “urbanism” has already been spoken, I cannot but ask how you feel about the projects of improving the urban environment that are so popular now? Do you do the landscaping yourself?
– Landscaping is an organic part of any large-scale project, residential and public. Competent developers are interested in the development of high-quality landscaping, because, along with facades, they are decisive factors on the basis of which clients make a decision to buy or rent real estate.
Urban beautification is something else. It must be democratic and reflect the spirit of the city. Do you know the history of the reconstruction of the Arbat? It was based on the ingenious concept of pedestrian streets by Alexei Gutnov, but its implementation perverted everything beyond recognition. Arbat began to resemble, for example, Jomas Street in Jurmala - lanterns, paving stones. This is not Moscow. The correct idea was distorted due to the limited capabilities of the Soviet construction industry. Things are different now. The range of solutions, the choice of materials and technologies has expanded, and other, higher standards are in force. So the current beautification campaign is welcome.
But, frankly, the idea of the importance of urban space has a long history. Even Elena Borisovna Novikova told me that a city is not only houses, but also the space between houses. And now in our projects, especially when we work in the center, we try first of all to analyze the urban space, to feel it, to convey its uniqueness and originality, the spirit of the city.
And what is the specificity of Moscow for you, this very "spirit of Moscow"
– For me, Moscow is a complex multi-layered city, and each layer can be perceived sequentially, as a process of backwashing, or similar to how cultural levels are revealed at an archaeological site.
Moscow is like a layer cake, and the creators of each layer probably heard curses in their address that it was they who destroyed the real old Moscow and created a new Babylon in its place. As a result, we got a “cake” of monstrous complexity and density, with which we need to work extremely carefully. You never know in what place which layer will come out - you have to "dig out" a little bit and evaluate what has survived, what is not, and what is the most adequate expression of the place. Moscow is not St. Petersburg or Yekaterinburg, it is not a project, but a growing city. There is both interest and complexity in this, for which I love her. Moscow does not have an average general spirit. To work in it means to feel the layers of this pie.
Is it difficult to deal with a customer who wants, for example, to destroy the lower layers? Or do you not work with such clients?
– Architects cooperate with different customers, this is also professionalism. There are certain methods and techniques for solving complex issues, but the most important thing is to be able to build communication. And, unfortunately, many of the architects do not know how to do this. We are simply not taught this. I lead a group of graduate students at the Moscow Architectural Institute and try to explain to them the need to defend their project, tell them what and why you are doing, what theses can be used. An architect must always communicate with the authorities and the customer - the buyer of his professional services, with builders and the city community, as well as with journalists. We work at the intersection of various information flows and act as a guide, translator and communicator.
The ability to convince oneself in the rightness, in the proposed solution, is one of the most important elements of an architect's work. The developers, the commercial customers that we mainly deal with, build to sell. If you manage to explain to them how what you offer increases the market value of the project, its relevance, then you become allies and you achieve the goal that you set - you promote your architecture, your solution.
You said you are promoting your solution. How do you feel about the thesis that architecture should shape a new way of life? Grigory Revzin recently told me about an essay from MARSH school, in which students, when asked why they want to become architects, wrote about their desire to "change life." In his opinion, this is rather a minus, because of which architects are not liked …
– There was a modernist paradigm in which the architect perceived himself as a mentor and tried to shape the way of a new life. For this, like all mentors, they were not loved, and now they exploit this dislike not only in our country, but also in other countries. And nevertheless, the new era quite objectively demanded a new way of life, a new design, and the architects were among the few who were ready to offer something. Today, what seemed like futurism in the 1920s has long since become a reality. A hundred years ago, people lived in a completely different way.
It seems to me that the answer of a person who wants to become an architect precisely because he wants to change something is very honest and correct. It is great to hear that young people can articulate this so precisely. An architect creates an environment that changes a person's life. Modern architecture is evolving - now the approach is not the same as in the 1920s, after the war, or in the 1970s. For me, these periods are stages in the development of a large style described by Moses Ginzburg in his book "Style and Era", which arose with the change of the era and society. But one should not be proud of the understanding of the fact that we are changing the environment - it is rather a responsibility and a burden. But this is part of the profession.
Could you tell us about the history of the formation of your bureau: how did it all begin and develop?
– The first two years of the bureau's existence are the most important and valuable for me. I started working with my father, Vladimir Moiseevich Ginzburg, to study with him. At the Moscow Architectural Institute, my education was influenced by my mother, Tatyana Mikhailovna Barkhina, my grandmother and great-uncle - Boris Grigorievich Barkhin, who was my teacher. Working with my dad, I could compare different teaching methods, it was incredibly interesting, although not easy, and I am very sorry that it only lasted two years.
When I was left alone in 1997, the old customers disappeared. But I could not give up the business that we started with my dad. Then there was no work at all, moreover, there was a feeling of total isolation. It was a very difficult time for me, and I remember very well the people who at that time helped me, still a very young man. I was very lucky that my wife Natalia Shilova became the main assistant and partner in the workshop. I got the opportunity to work calmly, knowing that I was supported by a loved one. We took on projects that no one else has undertaken. The most difficult reconstructions, where the volume is small, and there are a lot of headaches and fuss. As a rule, these were not architectural monuments, but Soviet buildings that they wanted to somehow rebuild. Some of these projects have been implemented, and I have learned a lot during this period.
Over time, larger and more interesting projects began to appear: the shopping center at Abelmanovskaya Zastava, where there were serious contextual and planning tasks; complex development in Zhukovka in the late nineties, where the task of creating a full-fledged environment was solved. The next stage of the bureau's development is associated with a series of projects that we have developed for the southern regions. In 2003-2005. we were approached by clients who owned four plots in Sochi; on one of them we built
the house is probably the most difficult thing that I had to do, tk. the relief drop at the site was 25 m with 9-point seismic. We had to drive more than two thousand piles under the building. It was a classic "southern" gallery-type house. And we were able to make apartments on the top floor by analogy with type F cells of the Narkomfin House. The only thing that could not be realized due to the crisis was the jalousie walls of the double wooden facade, which were the main highlight.
Then, for the first time, we went beyond the boundaries of the Moscow region and found ourselves in the world of southern architecture with different ideology, logic, context and people. We worked in Sochi, Anapa, Novorossiysk, Gelendzhik. Then we did a number of projects for Montenegro and Croatia. We have developed something like a southern specialization. I laughed - Moisey Ginzburg was building sanatoriums, he even has a book, "The Architecture of Soviet Sanatoriums," and now history repeats itself.
The most interesting moment in this work was the opportunity to expand the professional range in terms of shaping, planning, working with relief, etc. This is a different level of complexity and thinking.
What other projects from your practice can you mention and why?
– First of all it is
residential apartment building in Zhukovka. In it, we tried to fit the building, modern in its architecture, into the natural environment as correctly as possible. We took into account the arrangement of trees on the site and used natural materials in the decoration of the facades.
I also want to note
project of a recreational complex on an alluvial island in Dubai. It was not quite typical for us experience of creating architecture, rather associative, partly postmodern, bearing a pronounced image. This approach was inevitable. We took part in a competition for a famous artificial island, which was designed by the Americans in the form of a world map. Architects from different countries were asked to build some symbols associated with a particular country or part of the world. The Italians on the island of Italy repeated Venice, the Egyptians erected a pyramid. And we got Sri Lanka. We used a shell from the Indian Ocean as an analogue, interpreting its shape into a functional structure with villas standing above the water on pillars, an artificial lagoon in the center and many more unusual ideas. And we won the competition. Unfortunately, the crisis has suspended work on this project, but we hope that it will still be implemented.
The interior of our workshop in the old "Artplay" on st. Frunze. All the work then fell on the shoulders of Natalia. The workshop was very busy, and she had to act both as an architect and a technologist. She managed to create a miracle - to fit into the attic, partitioned off by powerful wooden racks, beams and braces, an absolutely functional and comfortable office layout. It turned out to be a very beautiful space in which our bureau worked happily until the very demolition of the factory building. I also happened to design Jewish community centers - one in Sochi, the other in Moscow. For each, we made many options, together with our customers we were looking for the right balance of tradition and modernity. And it seems to me that we succeeded.
On the eve of the southern, "resort" period, we made an interesting project on the relief in the Moscow region. We have built
a country house right on the edge of a steep ravine, so that almost half of the building seems to hang over the cliff. We decided to play the theme of the relief as effectively as possible inside the house, making several levels of different heights, and outside, building an artificial stream and a "floating" terrace.
Still, it is impossible not to touch upon the subject of the House of Narkomfin,
the restoration project of which you have been working for a long time. How are things going at the moment?
– It has always been a family duty for me. All this time, since the late 1990s, we kept in touch with the owners of the building, discussed the difficulties of reconstruction, the need to use special technologies, different approaches, etc. But lately, after reports of the extension of the pool, underground parking, incorrect work at the facility - redevelopment, double-glazed windows, overseer repairs, I somewhat distanced myself from this story. I hope that in the end it will be possible to overcome all obstacles and return the house to its former appearance.
Is the laundry restoration project yours?
– Yes, we made it. Initially, the laundry was part of a single complex of a communal building, and at that time provided the most advanced automated services. Now the building of the former laundry is in disrepair and legally belongs to another company. In our reconstruction project, we propose to work out the entire technology of conservation and recreation of building materials, with which Ginzburg and other constructivists experimented in their homes.
With reeds?
– Reed was also used in laundry - as a forerunner of modern insulation. The material was experimental, poorly studied at that time. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be not very stable. Moreover, the unfortunate laundry has been without heating for the last 20 years. We will definitely leave the reeds in some place as an exhibit, but in order to preserve the maximum number of original elements, experiments are required directly at the construction site, in particular with conservation compounds.
Is your interest in restoration primarily related to the legacy of constructivism and the work of your ancestors?
– I became a restorer and continue to master this most interesting profession, initially dealing only with the monuments of the avant-garde, because there are very few experienced restorers who would specialize in this. In fact, my father and I created this workshop precisely in order to deal with the restoration project of the Narkomfin House. I came to a full-fledged scientific restoration not so long ago, about five years ago, realizing that for certain works a unique professional is needed, for example, in the field of highly specialized restoration technologies and materials, and it is better to do some things yourself, fully controlling the result.
Much becomes clear only during construction. No matter how many probes you make, it doesn't matter when the process begins, surprises come out and you need to make decisions promptly. This is how the process goes
restoration of the Izvestia building. There are many extremely important points from both an architectural and a historical point of view. I plan to make a book about the revival of this building, built by my great-grandfather Grigory Borisovich Barkhin. The restoration process is now in its final stages: the facade is already visible, but there is still much to be done inside. Now we are engaged in the restoration of the main staircase, for which we have to look for people who know old technologies and are able to perform such work.
For me personally, this experience of working not only as an architect, but also as a restorer gives a lot for understanding architecture. The restorer has his own approach, the architect has his own, it is believed that they are incompatible. Indeed, they are multidirectional. But they can be balanced by understanding what and how to save, and where you can add a new one.
Your workshop is definitely not typical, at least in terms of the range of your specializations: modernist architecture, urban planning, restoration … Recently I saw an apartment you designed on the AD magazine website. Do you continue to work on interiors too? What for?
- Interiors are a special genre, interesting not so much from a commercial point of view as from a creative point of view. It takes a lot of time, and you don't always get satisfaction from the result. But he gives a special understanding of space, its proportionality to a person and his needs.
It is interesting to change the scale of projects - from an apartment to an agglomeration, from economy-class quarters to an elite mansion. This gives flexibility, elasticity to the vision, does not allow to be locked in the rigid framework of the once chosen typology.
I have always been interested in people who feel free in different disciplines. Let's not talk about the Renaissance, let's take a much closer example. Andrei Konstantinovich Burov, my grandmother's teacher, was an excellent architect, but at the same time he was engaged in chemistry, anisotropic crystals, wrote books in various fields. I try to learn this approach.
To talk about diversity, I can cite one more unexpected example from my practice in recent years. We were approached by a man whose ancestor commanded the Life Guards Cuirassier Regiment on the Borodino field, with a request to make a monument. The deadlines were extremely tight. But the task was so inspiring and interesting that we managed to finish everything in two months, and by the 200th anniversary of the battle, the monument was already on the field. Natalia found a wonderful piece of light gray Vorkuta granite, which we shaped into a natural boulder. The monument blended into a series of monuments in honor of the cavalry regiments, standing out against the backdrop of greenery or dark trees in winter.
So you're deliberately cultivating versatility and professional flexibility?
– Absolutely meaningful. Otherwise it can not be. You need to control yourself very clearly, your sense of the scale of each project and the professional tools that you use to solve a particular problem. The profession of an architect is historically universal. And although now urbanists, restorers or interior designers are taught at different faculties, we understand that our education, especially the one we received at Moscow Architectural Institute, gives you great freedom of self-expression and self-development. I don't know if universalism is an intrinsic or innate quality, but I try to cultivate it in myself.
