At the beginning of the video version, below the text.
Archi.ru:
Your exhibition is called "Architecture off-line ". What is alive you show here?
Ruben Arakelyan:
- Our project is included in the program of the Moscow Biennale of Architecture. The idea is that usually people see the results of the architect's activities, and the kitchen, how everything happens, remains a hidden process for them. We found it interesting to lay bare this process of creating architecture. We have identified three stages in the life of an architect. This is education, when a person is taught architecture, a kind of inception. Then, when he learns, he can already generate architecture, become part of the design process, found a bureau, some kind of private practice. The last hypostasis is when he is criticized.
We decided to expose these three processes here. There are three leading architectural schools in Russia: MARCHI, MARSH and the Graduate School of Urbanism. We wanted them to show not specific projects, but the methodology of teaching students. For example, the School of Urban Studies presented an excellent project dedicated to the problem of studying waste in Moscow. MARCHI is represented by the studios of Andrey Nekrasov and Alexander Tsybaikin, as well as the project "Moscow: Intervals", where my students rethink abandoned places in Moscow, trying to suggest some interesting new function for buildings abandoned by the city. MARCH exhibits an experimental undergraduate course, in which I also participate. The peculiarity of the exposition is that the representation of schools in the exhibition space is the same, they are united by one material. Because schools and methods are different, but the goal is the same - to learn how to create a harmonious living environment.
In the center of the exposition is our bureau, the winner of the Next contest last year. We pulled on a transparent veil, presented ourselves as shadows. The shadows are material, the object is immaterial. Our stand has a perimeter - it's like frozen thoughts in the form of mock-ups, and the design process will take place inside: we will distribute assignments, brainstorm, criticize, and discuss projects. Also, meetings with customers and suppliers of our bureau will be held here. Why translucent material? Because the process is a little hidden from people, but important. It can be seen, but not touched. This world is close to people, but it is closed. We decided to show it outside.
How did the customers and subcontractors react to the offer to work here at the exhibition?
- We reacted normally, although, of course, we will remove important meetings and local issues.
What else will be here in the genre live? I know there will be presentations of student projects
– Now (the conversation took place on Wednesday) the presentation of the portfolio of the second semester bachelor student will begin. The inside will display the portfolio, and the outside will show the presentations we did this semester. All this will be shown on-line, it will be possible to approach, study what we are doing. And outside there will be a presentation, I will talk about the teaching methodology in my course.
Are MARCHI students represented here only of your course?
- Presented is the work of one student of my course, students of Andrei Borisovich Nekrasov, Alexander Tsybaykin and Yuri Grigoryan. The big house - of Grigoryan's students, it was an exercise in hyperdensity. We have tested it, there you can give 110 thousand per hectare. And here (on the projection) films are shown about what projects are being done by the students of the Moscow Architectural Institute, animation graphics.
The work of my student Alina Nazmeeva is called “Moscow: Intervals”. For our thesis we took Moscow, the center of Moscow, these pauses are city losses. We have placed Moscow, figuratively speaking, in the “river of time”, trying to understand those places where there is no time, gaps that have been thrown by society, developers and the city. We took them at the time of 2015. We decided to experiment with such a teaching function as a technical school, because this topic is now somewhat forgotten in our country. We decided to raise the culture of scientific work by analogy with the institutions that exist, for example, in Finland, we decided to rehabilitate the theme of the education of architects through manual labor. So that students form their own living environment for themselves. Let's imagine that these places are conquered by students, materials are brought to them from somewhere from factories and they are building an environment for themselves: they form departments, living quarters.
How do you manifest criticism?
- One day we want to invite an external expert to discuss our projects.
Who are the experts?
- I don’t know yet. Criticism will consist of two parts: criticism within the bureau, when we criticize ourselves, and we will take another external expert, maybe you, for example.
And when will it be, what day?
– Probably on the last day of the exhibition, on Sunday.
