Not having found the ARCHIWOOD award in the Arch of Moscow program, and an updated exposition in the Peripter pavilion at the entrance to the Central House of Artists, some spiteful critics decided that in the seventh year of its existence, the project was finally blown away.
And one could say that there is nothing strange about this. Why should everything be good for ARCHIWOOD, if everything in the country is not, thank God? The award has always associated itself with everything progressive, modern and European that is in Russian culture. With all that is backed up today. And although wood is considered the most ancient local material, the most "Russian" that can only be in our architecture, ARCHIWOOD has always declared broader and more relevant values. Yes, we love the architecture of the Russian North (and it’s not for nothing that the nomination “restoration” appeared in the award two years ago), but there have never been decorated huts among the ARCHIWOOD finalists. Or what other imitations, leaving only on the fact that they swear allegiance to the "national". Therefore, it would be ridiculous to believe that the prize will only rise in the light of new ideological attitudes.
It's actually not that bad at all. The exhibition, albeit with a delay, will appear in its rightful place (there were truly force majeure circumstances in this annoying overlap), and the awards ceremony took place on May 22 - albeit, alas, not in the format of a large open event. For which, of course, I would like to apologize to everyone who was left without the usual holiday. But if we leave aside the organizational and financial problems, then it is easy to see that, in fact, the prize does not reveal any decline in the field of wooden architecture. And this, of course, is the most important thing.
Even in purely quantitative terms, the award did not reach last year's indicators only a little, collecting 157 applications (in 2015 there were 176, in 2014 - 167). On the other hand, new names appeared on the award card once again: Vladivostok, Tarusa, Altai, as well as Cyprus and Japan. In addition, the curator had to enter 55 names of the bureau into the database - that is, the prize had about fifty new participants! And although 38 objects, as always, made it to the final, the professional jury had to sweat a lot, choosing the winners. This year it includes architects Totan Kuzembaev, Dmitry Dolgoy, Timur Bashkaev, Grigory Guryanov, Natalia Sidorova, critics Evgenia Gershkovich and Oksana Kashenko.
The festival "Drevolyutsiya", which decorated the Tauride Garden of St. Petersburg with its objects last summer, became the absolute champion of the award. Young architects from all over Russia created structures of varying degrees of unusualness under the strict guidance of Nikolai Belousov, six of which became finalists of the award at once. In the nomination "Design of the Urban Environment" the jury chose the "Theater of Shadows" Anton Yakovlev and his team as the winner: wooden ladders descend to the water and become a kind of amphitheater. The place, which instantly became useful and loved, of course, has analogues (for example, the Vologda Red Beach, which thundered all over the country in 2012), but at the same time its design is quite original and even cunning. The public, who voted on the Internet, preferred another masterpiece of "Drevolution" - "Ruin". This gentle nostalgic object, reminiscent of the ruins of a park gazebo, was invented by a team of 11 girls from Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Other festivals that traditionally figure among the heroes of the award also contributed to the shortlist: the Nizhny Novgorod "O'Gorod" and "Archstoyanie" in Nikola-Lenivets, as well as for the first time the "Yasno Pole" festival in the Tula region and the children's "Archstoyanie" Konakovo. And of course, it was these festivals that were featured in the Art Object nomination. Konakovskie "Nests" became the winner in the opinion of the public, and the Nizhny Novgorod "Hammocks" - according to the jury.
Was on the short list and a piece of the main world exhibition. This is the pavilion of Russia, which represented the country at the Milan EXPO 2015 (Sergey Tchoban and the SPEECH bureau). A spectacular swing of the roof, reminiscent of the Soviet pavilion at the 1976 Montreal World's Fair, but sheathed in wood, naturally won the Wood in Finish nomination (where objects that are not structurally wood compete). It was noted by the jury, and the public voted for another object from the territory of Konakovo River Club - a resort that has become a powerful rival to Pirogov near Moscow in collecting modern architecture in recent years. This is a residential building "Aston", a kind of spatial tetris, designed by the duet of Peter Kostelov and Alexei Rosenberg.
However, its participants work separately, and Alexey Rosenberg last year became not only a winner in two nominations, but also the owner of the first Grand Prix in history. Fearing to be caught in partiality, the jury (each year, note, different) could not resist and chose another Rosenberg object in the "Interior" nomination - Z-apartment. Z-shaped layout, and the tree twists in the same snake, complementing the branded podiums and creating an exciting layering … Thus, Rosenberg became the most titled - 5-time winner of ARCHIWOOD. Dmitry Baryudin and Igor Aparin (Kontora) became the best according to the audience in this nomination - they are no longer newcomers to the award, but for the first time the laureates. Their exposition of the Gulag Museum is not all made of wood, but its wooden fragments turned out to be the most powerful, which is understandable: wood was the main material of the camps and touching it allows you to feel something about the reality of that terrible life.
By the way, this is the only Moscow winning object, which reflects the abatement of the rapid process of humanization of the city with parks and wooden objects, which took place in 2011-2014. True, the shortlist of the award included a good postmodern farm at VDNKh (WOWHAUS bureau) and a stylish coffee shop CoffeeCrew (GikaloKuptsovArchitects), but thanks to Drevolution, the northern capital took over the palm. Another object of which is the Fujifilm store ("Vitruvius and Sons"), whose actual recycling interior is assembled from cable reels (turned into tables and racks), only slightly lost in the voting to the Gulag Museum. And in terms of witty hooliganism, the side table, which is attached directly to the fences of the Nevsky embankments (Rhizomegroup + Verstak), could compete with him - to “drink in St. Petersburg,” as Shnur orders.
Equally witty (or even humorous) is the guest house “Drovnitsa” by Rustam Kerimov, who was the only one to make a “double” this year, winning the sympathy of both professionals and non-professionals (nomination “Small Object”). So, allusions to excessive PR perpetrated by the author (and the object really collected a record number of votes in the entire history of the award - 98.5% in its nomination) were immediately debunked. The facade of the house is a woodpile for firewood, that is, it is not only multifunctional and picturesque, but also changes in accordance with the season.
Almost a Moscow object can be considered a bicycle rental point (bureau Alpbau), which is located in Meshchersky Park near the Moscow Ring Road, - the winner in the category "Public building". Its simple but intelligible tectonics was appreciated by the people, and the jury voted for the eco-hotel Altika in Gorny Altai (authors Aleksey Smirnov and Konstantin Stefantsov), whose absolutely modern architecture is in paradoxical harmony with the beauty of the region. The authors were the debutants of the award, like all the heroes of the Subject Design nomination: Alisa Minkina, Anna Feoktistova, Sergey Morozov. The first won with the enchanting collection of wooden furniture Sagano (the choice of the jury), the second - with a much more simple-minded, but so charming lamp "Tumbler" (the choice of the people).
An important event in the national restoration was the long-term battle for the revival of the Porzhensky churchyard in the Kenozersky National Park. Located in the remote outback of the Park, for many years it has been a sad (albeit extremely romantic) picture. Therefore, of course, the new look of St. George's Church - multi-colored, in accordance with its appearance at the end of the century before last (as confirmed by spectral analysis), confused many connoisseurs of romantic wilting. At the same time, it is obvious that in a few decades the image of the building will become more familiar, but if it had not been tackled, then nothing of any appearance would have remained. Therefore, Porzhensky's victory in the "Restoration" nomination (public choice) is absolutely natural. The jury focused on the restoration of the coachman at the Bryanchaninovs Estate Museum in the Vologda Oblast: this object was nominated for the award last year, but due to the lack of competition it was removed by the Organizing Committee halfway through and postponed for this year (Electra firm).
Finally, the main nomination of the award - "Country House" - turned out to be the strongest. Here, new objects of the winners of previous years - Nikolai Belousov and the FAS (t) bureau competed for the prize, as well as newcomers to the shortlist: Muscovite Alexei Ilyin, Petr Safiullin from Kazan and the legendary architect from Samara Sergei Malakhov. And if the people made their choice quickly (according to the results of a public vote, "Swedish dachas" won, they are also the ecological settlement "Day Gilbert" in Samara), then the jury argued for a long time, unable to find flaws either in the new house of Nikolai Belousov or in a minimalist building by Alexei Ilyin. However, the favorite in this nomination was determined at a meeting of the Expert Council of the award, who gasped with one voice when he saw the guest house of the FAS (t) bureau. An effective construction in the spirit of transparent houses of Mies and Johnson, but made of wood, as if floating in the air it is not clear how carrying its huge glass. The amazement of the experts was so great that they had to additionally interrogate the authors in order to make sure that everything was honest, everything was made of wood, just the original structures with pinching were applied. Alexander Ryabsky and Ksenia Kharitonova have already won in ARCHIWOOD 2012 with the Chess Club in Neskuchny Sad; the new object raises the bar even higher and makes one believe that despite any cataclysms, modern wooden architecture in Russia continues.
Rossa Rakenne SPb (HONKA) is still the organizer and general partner of the project.
