The project "Signs of cities" is organized by the agency "Rules of Communication" by Yulia Zinkevich at Arch Moscow; it consists of a small exhibition, an award and a conference that will last the whole day on May 19 in the conference hall of the Central House of Artists. The conference is organized by ArchiPeople by Lyudmila Malkis. It is intended, among other things, to show the participants of the Moscow real estate market successful "cases" of other Russian cities. All stories are collected on the site of the project "Signs of cities", among the projects will be held a competition, open Internet voting. We asked several questions to Yulia Zinkevich.
A ticket to the conference can be bought on the project website.
Archi.ru:
Tell us, please, what happened with the collection of cities?
Yulia Zinkevich:
– We have two parts of the project. There is an exhibition, but we will talk about it separately, but there is a conference and an award, and we have collected 113 applications from all over the country in the long list of the project. Moreover, some projects came by gravity after the announcement, but many were recommended by members of the expert council. It seems to us that the set is impressive, because there are housing and public buildings: museums, airports, and so on; and public spaces: embankments, parks throughout the country; and very cool examples of reconstruction, renovation and other good ideas for the development of cities. There are cases that inspire us a lot, we look, admire what is gathered.
Large scale. How did you limit yourself chronologically?
- Ten years. It seemed to us that it was very important that the project was already implemented and proved its viability. They were selected according to two human criteria: decent architecture and social significance.
It is written on your website, 113 applications have been received and 113 applications have been accepted. How much is left overboard?
- Since the criteria were set, there were no projects that we ultimately did not take on the long list. We will now select the shortlist and then choose the winners. And for the review, we included them and posted them on the site.
Will the experts choose the winners?
- Voting on the site has already been activated. We see how attentiveness to its walls is manifested in different ways in different cities. Tatarstan is hyperactive, there have been 231 likes for the Smena center since the morning. Vladivostok, Nizhny Novgorod are now also becoming more active, the Red Beach in Vologda is in the lead in voting, there are always young cheerful guys. Now we will send releases to other cities, and they, hopefully, will also be activated. One way to identify the best is the love of the people: whoever has assembled a team to vote is a fine fellow. And the second way is more professional, we will explain to experts the different nuances of these projects and, as a result, we will get their consolidated opinion.
How many nominations do you have?
- Six. Five are about implementation - housing, public spaces, public buildings, new resorts, reconstruction, renovation, and the sixth - about good ideas for the development of cities.
This is a large-scale beginning, are you going to continue this further?
- We'll see how strong and passionate we have, because this is a story about enthusiasm. There is our team, in which there are quite a lot of people and it is clear that everyone works just for the idea, because it is interesting. And there are a bunch of people whom we involved, who agreed to unexpectedly make an exposition for us for free, create lampshades on which we will have pictures about cities printed, come to the 26th hall of the Central House of Artists to admire what Mukosey came up with, and the lights helped to bring it to life. And there are also a bunch of on duty in the cities themselves, who helped us with texts, pictures, advice. These are dozens of people, they are all in the process, everyone loves it. The question is how long we can hold out on enthusiasm. If we manage to enlist some kind of support, then it will be a different story. While we are at the beginning of the path.
Besides Ilya Mukosey, who else helped you?
- They helped us with the exhibition. Ilya came up with an exposition and an unexpected move, which, I think, will entertain you all. Saros is a lighting company that has illuminated Mamayev Kurgan, most of the new airports and has done a lot of projects throughout the country, they print our exposition for us on light boxes and lampshades. The pictures for the lampshades were drawn by students of the British Higher School of Art and Design, led by teacher Victor Melamed. Each city had a duty officer for Nizhny Novgorod - Marina Ignatushko; in Voronezh - the guys are journalists, in Krasnoyarsk there are also journalists - editors of local media. In other cities, somewhere there are architects, somewhere museum workers. We have compiled new city guides, not the kind that you can find analogues on Avto.ru, but those that isolated Soviet mosaics from the entire urban massif, the Shukhov tower on the Oka, street art on wooden houses, leaving nature - some such non-tourist signs of cities, but very lively.
You have collected a lot, what seems the most interesting to you? There are well-known things there, such as the Nizhny Novgorod NCCA. What do you think is the most interesting of the little-known?
- I am very happy that Denis Gerasimov is coming to us from Novosibirsk. He is an engineer by training. And when several years ago we were a large architectural company in Novosibirsk, Alexander Lozhkin showed us several buildings in the center: “this is our parametric architecture”. These buildings were so noticeable against the background of the Stalinist buildings, and at the same time with good taste, unusual shape, we remember them, they burned. And then I discovered that this company built a lot of things later in Novosibirsk, it also made the Spartak stadium in Moscow, in Novosibirsk there is now another Innopolis building with some kind of extraordinary bioclimate. This is all one company, such Kulibin, a wonderful talented engineer, who, among other things, turned out to be a talented developer. Absolute Russian know-how. And so he comes, he first goes out into the public space, he will tell how he does it and what possibilities this technology has. This is my favorite story.
I am very glad that Yeltsin Center is coming to us. I recently attended the "Island of the 90s" festival, which was made by Colta.ru in Yekaterinburg, it was held at the "Yeltsin Center". It was an unfinished office. And they called Boris Bernasconi to dress this dull, idle building in a new shell, and now it is the main point of the cultural life of Yekaterinburg. Life is in full swing there, there are very interesting lectures, an interactive museum from the same operators as at the Jewish Museum in Moscow. Power point: all meetings take place there, all major concerts and so on. The building has become pleasing to the eye.
From small forms I really like the project "Winter's Dacha". We have such a category - new resorts. There we talk about "Rosa Khutor", "Konakovo River Club", Nikola-Lenivets, about the resorts of Altai. Among other things, representatives of the "Winter's Dacha" project come to tell us about themselves - this is a project from Karelia. I met them all the time on social networks. Every tenth friend of mine checked in there, posted some beautiful views of the forest. They are very cute, they are in the reserve. When I talked with the authors of the project, it turned out that this is such a marketing ploy. With them, I wanted to talk about how they managed to launch such an effective word of mouth that just from every iron, but at the same time through social networks, through people, we learn about them. I would like to talk to them about marketing.
And about marketing, I really want to talk with the famous company "Brusnika". She is building in Tyumen, Yekaterinburg, now she has come to the Moscow market. They are notable for the fact that they are said to have a vacuum cleaner at a construction site, Dutch architecture. They also re-branded Ilya Oskolkov-Tsentziper, and now they have a very beautiful corporate identity with lingonberry berry. They are building mainly economy class, very viable, of good quality. But now they have begun to build a business class in Yekaterinburg, and they also cultivate an active cultural life around them. They are very lively and they are such trend creators. I noticed such a move that now many companies first put their skills in the regions, prove that they know how to build better than others, then come to the Moscow market. Regional companies come to Moscow with a great reputation, which has reached Moscow, and Brusnika is a prime example. And we are glad that they will finally reach us, and we will ask them about everything.
And what is Brusnika doing in the Moscow market?
- We do not know yet, now we will ask everything. They are only coming out now.
All this will be announced at the conference, do I understand correctly?
- Yes, the conference sessions are the same as the awards: housing, public buildings, new resorts, renovation, reconstruction and good ideas for urban development. In the section on public spaces, I also have several reasons to be proud. Firstly, it is very interesting to ask Tatarstan about the results of the year of parks and squares in Tatarstan, because it was a year, but I want to see what is left after. And now Natalya Fishman comes to us to tell us what the results are and how the implementation of the project on the embankments of Kaban lakes is progressing, where the Chinese bureau won. We want to know the details. It is not very obvious from Moscow, but here he will come and tell.
And in the same section there are several interesting cases. For example, from Voronezh - the Alye Parusa park, which was formed in parallel with Gorky Park five years ago. They did not make any competitions, they just immediately called a French architect. The result is amazing. Visually very pleasant space, aesthetic, European, light. An absolutely marginal area has become a favorite place for family citizens. There is a lively life, a cultural program. And it seems that this French architect was invited for other parks in Voronezh. A rare case: they did not think for a long time, they immediately decided on a standing candidate for the author. The owners of the street art museum in St. Petersburg, which is located at the operating laminated plastics plant, also come to us. This is also an interesting case, because usually they deal with gentrification after production is withdrawn. And here the plant works, they paint pictures on the walls, all at once. And it is also very interesting why they do it, and what will come of it.
I admire. In addition to beautiful pictures, will all this material be presented at your exhibition?
- Not. We have this material presented on the site. You can watch photo galleries, go to sites and study the issue. The exhibition is small, the space did not allow us to tell about our entire long list, therefore the exhibition is about something else - about such milestones in fourteen cities, these are the first cities that came into the scope of our attention. Our exhibition is a toy. And the work around the conference is pretty serious. I love our set of moderators, we invited them and they all kindly agreed. Perfect journalists from RBC, Vedomosti, Kommersant, Business FM - they all became our moderators. I think it won't be boring. Not a single session will pass without thorny questions. All the work is in our hall, there will be video recordings, and on the site we collect all this, and then we will additionally highlight the winners.
And the exhibition is just for relaxation. You can come there and have fun, look at the lampshades. On the lampshades, we did not draw the signs of cities, not buildings, but drew city dwellers, that is, together with the illustrators, we were looking for characters. For example, Hoffman was born in Kaliningrad, which few people know about. And Platonov in the city of Voronezh was the youngest land reclamator in the Soviet Union. At the age of 26, he invented such a super-technology of irrigation that he was promoted and transferred to Moscow. They didn't know him for writing. We collected some such stories and tried to record them in illustrative form. I think it turned out to be quite fun.
Do your sessions run in parallel or sequentially?
- Consistently. On average, an hour for one session, 7-12 minutes for a report - a rather succinct story. But we hope that if we just tell people that there are such amazing cases, then interest can appear and then it will be easy to go to the project's website and ask questions. I have been working with Moscow developers for 10-12 years, the situation of a vicious circle is terribly oppressive, because from month to month we hear about the same cases, we know everything in detail. And at the same time, very few echoes of successful regional projects reach Moscow. We really want to tell Moscow developers about some unexpected ideas and business steps. It is hoped that such communication will mutually enrich everyone.
