An exhibition dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the SPEECH bureau opened yesterday at the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum. It is located on the third and fifth floors of the renovated museum, on the balcony of the fourth floor between them there is a chamber exhibition of old photographs of Venice from the collection of Pavel and Anastasia Khoroshilov, which opened on the same day. Both expositions were opened jointly: MAMM Director Olga Sviblova, Director of the Museum of Architecture Irina Korobina, Presidential Adviser Pavel Khoroshilov, and SPEECH founders: Sergei Tchoban and Sergei Kuznetsov (who now, having become the chief architect of Moscow, does not participate in the work of the bureau). The opening was crowded - if not all, then very many heads of Moscow architectural workshops gathered for the SPEECH bureau's holiday.
The SPEECH jubilee exhibition turned out to be light and laconic; in this she echoes the white, airy design of MAMM spaces. In the first part, the architects showed buildings, starting with an office building on Leninsky Prospekt and Atlantic Apartments on Mozhaisky Val, and ending with the Lotos business center, the Sochi Actor Galaxy complex, the Nevskaya Town Hall and the VTB Ice Palace. Not all buildings are shown, only the most beloved ones, and without drawings, only photographs - large, in simple wooden frames. The photographs are by different authors, but they are united by a common tone and approach, probably selection. All of them, against the neutral white, well-lit background of the hall, are very active and to some extent take on the functions of organizing the space: either they strive to escape from their picture plane, or they lead the viewer into perspective or take a perspective breakthrough into the sky in the spirit of Rodchenko, - or amaze with the texture or plasticity of the details. Some take on the role of colorful wall hangings. But all are extremely far from melancholy, bright and voluminous, each like a magazine cover. The selected panoramas and elements emphasize not so much the architects' enthusiasm for ornamentation and stone surfaces - everyone knows about it, but it is somehow erased here, as their ability to subordinate a building to a large form, an energetic gesture, even when working with stone. There is a lot of plasticity, reversal and foreshortening, gesture. It is organized strictly: pictures of almost the same format are placed on volumetric tablets, similar to stretchers, as if it were painting.
The architects explain their exhibition course by the desire to show the quality of buildings, including their details. According to the authors of the exposition, Sergei Tchoban and Agnia Sterligova, the first part shows "the results - sometimes a very difficult struggle - for the quality of the built architectural environment." That is why there are no projects, no concepts, no visualizations at the exhibition. There are no other elements of fashionable media culture - only static photographs, which these days, especially when combined with pictorial associations, may seem respectable to the point of being conservative.
In the middle of the hall there is a large table of light wood with seven models on it; the principle of "built buildings" is slightly violated here - among the layouts are the headquarters: IFH "Kapital", attracting attention with a wide span of wing-consoles, which is planned to be completed in 2018, as well as the already dismantled pavilion of Russia at Expo-2015. The models complement, but do not overwhelm the room: for the reporting one for ten years, it is noticeably small, there is no desire to collect and show everything, but rather, on the contrary, some kind of reasonable self-restraint.
The second part, on the fifth floor, could be called meta-architecture by analogy with metaphysics ("what is after physics" according to Aristotle - ed.) - here is collected what architects do in addition to the design and construction of buildings. As you know, they do many things. They publish speech: magazine - copies of it are laid out on a table similar to the one where layouts are placed below. Here is the SPEECH catalog, written by Falk Yeager and published
JOVIS in 2012. On the left - photographs of installations, including the Milan series, objects that Sergei Tchoban and his colleagues made for the annual Interni festival in Milan; here is the pride of the bureau, the pavilion-Pantheon from the 2012 Venice Biennale, which is now used for the exhibition of the Zaryadye Park project, and the pavilion-column, the Museum of Peasant Labor from last year's Archstoyanie - the oculus of the column and the Pantheon overlap. On the opposite wall are details of buildings, doorknobs and facade carvings from the Museum of Architectural Drawing and the House in Granatny Lane. The effect created by the photographs here is similar to the lower hall with buildings - the enlarged door handles and corners of the buildings are pushed towards the viewer, not without a touch of hyperrealism.
The second longitudinal part of the hall is divided into two halves: the graphics are shown here, on the left by Sergei Tchoban, on the right by Kuznetsov. The exhibitions are solved in the same simple way, although the only media element appears here - a screen with a "talking head" of the author telling about his graphics - and they are arranged in a completely mirror-like manner, so that Choban and Kuznetsov, speaking from the screens, turn out to be, relatively speaking, with their backs to each other and facing the viewer. The graphics are not exactly alike, although certain rolls are observed, nevertheless, the authors sometimes even go to the open air together. But there are also differences - for example, Sergei Tchoban has fewer details and more than half of the sheets contain fantasies on themes of modern volumes, towers, consoles built into the landscape of the historic city. Sergei Kuznetsov has no design elements, pure admiration for nature. In addition, the authors have exhibited their works for several years, which encourages thinking about the evolution of handwriting - for example, in recent years there are fewer details, but the color is more active. But Sergei Tchoban's favorite material is pastel, while Kuznetsov's is watercolor. They are about to move on to painting, but they do not take this step, and here, too, a certain independently set border is guessed, similar to how the buildings in the first hall were selected. But the most interesting thing is that both authors exhibited fresh works, for the sake of them it also makes sense to come to the exhibition.
Thus, the plot of the exhibition develops from the reality of incarnated buildings to the ephemerality of graphics - fantasy and reflection of reality, gracefully looping around with the statement from the first hall - that the architects who draw on buildings look differently, noticing the eternal. The most attractive measure in this exhibition, probably, remains a restrained measure, but placed in the framework of energy, which is felt in everything: the plasticity of the shown forms, the angle of filming, the variety of interests, and especially - in the fact that both photographs and graphics are actively related to to the viewer and to the space. I did not manage to feel a fraction of melancholy at this exhibition; rather, on the contrary - a confident line, volume, a step forward and an invitation inside, into the picture.
With regard to the content, something similar is observed, everything is shown, but in moderation - the authors partly leave us in the dark, offering to respond to "what they managed to do." And look, if necessary, for information elsewhere. Moreover, SPEECH is the largest, well-known, and undoubtedly the most dynamic Moscow bureau in recent years, which has developed very quickly. The energy of this development, multiplied by the effect of a large form - even the ornament, a favorite SPEECH technique, also turns out to be quite large, generalized and vital - somehow it is very much felt, at the same time with some dignitas, self-control of dignity that restrains it. A good move to showcase a large bureau with a wide range of interests, so that the material can be covered - well, almost at a glance.
