The themes of the festivals are usually vague, such is their genre, but this time Bart Goldhorn offered an especially safe one: "Architecture and Life". Life is everywhere, and you can interpret the topic as you like, but Arch Moscow lives its own life. The exhibition together in the Biennale easily fit inside the Central House of Artists: on the first floor of the Arch Catalog, a long-standing and well-deserved enterprise, it was once created with a desire to open its non-Western stars, since then the project has taken root: now it greets incoming people, naturally introducing new projects and office buildings, of which there are about thirty. Here are famous masters in Moscow: Evgeny Ass, Totan Kuzembaev, Nikolay Lyzlov, Ostozhenka, Vladimir Plotkin, Sergey Skuratov, Sergey Choban, Nikita Yavein; and the next generation, relatively speaking, forties: DNA, Atrium, TOTEMENT / PAPER; and "young": Grigory Guryanov or Ruben Arakelyan. I am not listing all of them; Of the thirty-one bureaus selected by the curators, not all were exhibited, and there are two or three blank spots on the stands. From the rest, many brought layouts, so the catalog looks beautiful and rather impressive. For a cut for 2015-2016, it probably would have been enough.
There are three curators: the permanent Bart Goldhorn and Elena Gonzalez, and Ruben Arakelyan, who also became the winner of the Next program last year, he is both a co-curator and a prize-winner. Arakelyan and the Wall bureau are in charge of the "Off-line Architecture" exposition on the second floor, in the intersection space, as a rule, it is assigned to the architect of the year. In the center of the lobby, a cube enclosed by two layers of translucent fabric, inside which Wall bureau plans to really work, even meet with customers and subcontractors, over the next three days, starting on Friday, the popular technique of the live exhibition is recognized. On the supports around the screens are installed, broadcasting what is happening inside the cube, so it will not be necessary to go inside.
In the interlayer between the layers of fabric, fragments of something unfinished (I managed to see a piece of a wooden female torso), symbolizing the creative process, are laid out, and moving images are projected onto the fabric, superimposed on the shadows of people inside the cube. It turned out similar to many previous exhibitions of "architects of the year", taken together, but in some lightweight, generalized version. Stands of architectural universities (MARCHI, MARSH, and VSHU) along the perimeter are part of the curatorial exposition Wall, they are united by plywood paths and stands; here, in one way or another, approaches to learning are demonstrated. MARCH exhibited works of bachelors - this year the institute teaches freshmen for the first time. At the MARCHI stand there are works of students Yuri Grigoryan and Ruben Arakelyan. Presentations of universities will take place at the stands - are already taking place.
The third floor is completely devoted to architectural and non-commercial expositions, and, of course, the most prominent stand here is the Moskomarkhitektury. Never before has the department shown such a spectacular exposition at Arch Moscow, and perhaps nowhere else at all. A competition was held for the stand, CITIZENSTUDIO won, the result was one of the intrigues of the current exhibition. To be honest, according to the text of the description of the project, it seemed to me something wrinkled and small, so I was pleasantly surprised. The stand occupies the entire huge wall of the entrance, large hall on the third floor. It is white, perfectly illuminated - it adds light to the whole room, and its plastic is clear, but not unobtrusive, and at the same time resembles the Moscow metro stations and the pavilions of VDNKh - two favorite subjects of the Moscow architectural committee.
Changes in the form of the stand echo its content, where, I must say, a lot has been collected: the high-rise construction of the PIK according to Buromoscow projects - and Western examples of social housing, with a lesser number of storeys, I must say. Moscow TPUs, which are not very well known to the public, include the projects of Werner Zobek and Mosproekt-3. The dwelling is placed on perspective portals that resemble the Sretensky Bular metro station, TPU in large flutes. Competition projects related to culture, among them the well-known competitions at the NCCA and the State Tretyakov Gallery, turned out to be like a narrow tunnel (culture in the dark), which outside turns into a large voluminous heading with the name of the committee. And finally, the part devoted to competitions at the Moscow metro station is solved as a half of the tunnel. It is difficult to compare with such a stand, and the hall of development projects in front of it looks like only preliminary shading.
Another definitely noticeable exposition is located on the left and opens a circular line of halls - the speech: Norway exhibition, sponsored by Anna Martovitskaya. It was designed by Sergei Tchoban and Andrey Perlich for the exhibition dedicated to the Norwegian program for the improvement of the country's tourist roads. The photographs are very beautiful, and one is tempted to immediately give up everything, go to the fjords, to the mountains, the nature is so beautiful; viewpoints, many of which were designed by famous architects, are also impressive. The exhibition stand itself is similar to a fish: large wooden lamellas are lined up in two arcs that enclose the exhibition in a kind of "brackets".
The curatorial project of Elena Gonzalez occupies the second part of the large hall, it is dedicated to "architecture and society" and is easily decorated against the background of the two previous stands - all the information, which is quite a lot, is placed on ribbons hanging from the ceiling. The workshops of MARSH-Lab are presented here in some detail, and Alejanro Aravena's social housing is adjacent to the little-known project of modular housing Prefab by SPEECH bureau and projects of the Stroyproekt company. The WOWHAUS bureau is quite active at the exhibition, it shows next to the developers' stands its Wowfactory project, dedicated to improvement projects and how they affect the sales and subsequent functioning of the project.
At the very end of the hall-corridor of the third floor, before turning to the bustling design hall, a project by the Ostozhenka bureau perched on the wall, which is directly related to the theme of the exhibition, if we understand it as “housing” - which is also possible, because “life "And" housing "are at least consonant (somewhere you have to live, you can't go anywhere, housing is now a priority for customers, and the housing issue is still not resolved … well, not everyone has solved it). This project is in the spirit of the research priorities of Ostozhenka: for the Kortros company of the Renova group of Viktor Vekselberg, the architects have developed a set of ideas, let's say, of an ideal district with block development. It turned out that the ideal option would be: eight or nine-storey houses, private enclosed courtyards, building along the red line - the themes, frankly speaking, are familiar, but the architects have developed something similar to a "manual". The pages are displayed on the stand, you can tear them off and take with you, study.
The first cinemas on the stairs of the Central House of Artists (Living Architctures film festival) are calling to study or to relax. “Archigraphics” is still good, the project is calm, almost classical. As expected, the program is rich - 60 events. It is a pity, however, that there was almost no room for the ARCHIWOOD award - we, you know, are already accustomed to the fact that it is solemnly held in the main conference hall. But what can you do, life is life, we work, we study - to the best of our ability.
