A retrospective exhibition in honor of the 25th anniversary of the architectural bureau "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" opened on October 11 in the Marble Hall of the Ethnographic Museum of St. Petersburg. Competitive designs, models, photographs of completed buildings - the exposition consisted of about sixty works reflecting the creative evolution of one of the most famous architectural firms in the city.
Before the opening of the exhibition, Evgeny Gerasimov gave a press conference, at which he spoke about current projects, the situation in the housing and project services market, and the history of the bureau's formation. The history of the bureau began in 1991 with only two architects. Over time, the team expanded, won competitions, implemented projects. Now Gerasimov has two partners: Zoya Petrova and Viktor Khivrich, and the bureau employs 120 people. The evolution of the workshop proceeded in parallel with the development of the real estate market and economic transformations in Russia. When the bureau was just being created, there was almost no competition, but few people understood what post-Soviet architecture should be like,”says Evgeny Gerasimov. - The work was carried out "blindly", with the task of probing the market. In the 2000s, the situation changed. Now the consumer was buying everything - the speed of construction came first. Now, as the architect noted, competition has grown. The buyer, like the developer, has become more thoughtful about his money. So professionalism and quality of architectural work comes first.
According to Gerasimov, the architects of St. Petersburg are now going through a difficult period: there are fewer orders, prices for design work are falling. However, the bureau "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" is still hiring new employees and feels quite confident. The architect highlighted several projects under construction: a joint project with Sergei Tchoban "Europe City", in which, through an open competition, young, novice architects also managed to participate. House "Verona" on Krestovsky Island. An important project for the bureau is the large residential complex "Tsarskaya Stolitsa": an attempt to successfully gentrify the area on the site of the freight yard of the railway station, relatively affordable housing in the city center. The construction of two Legend complexes with more affordable but high quality housing is underway.
It is the quality that Evgeny Gerasimov called his main credo. The style of the workshop's works is extremely wide: from neo-Russian style and classicism to international modernism and postmodern experiments. As the bureau has repeatedly emphasized in the descriptions of its projects, it is the organic integration of the new architecture into the existing buildings that is the main priority in its work. With such an openness to different styles, it is quality that is the measure of aesthetic success. According to the architect, "quality neoclassicism is better than bad modern style." Gerasimov sees the prospects for the development of world architecture in the “turn to the roots” and the search for a new synthesis of the old and the new, as opposed to the “European boxes” of international modernism.
The employees of the bureau were invited to the opening of the exhibition, as well as a number of famous people in the architectural world. Congratulations were made by the chairman of the Association of Architectural Workshops (OAM) Anatoly Stolyarchuk, who noted the high professional level of the workshop of Yevgeny Gerasimov. The chief architect of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Grigoriev, in his congratulations shared the memories of his joint student youth with Yevgeny Gerasimov. According to Grigoriev, it is easy and pleasant to work with such architects as Gerasimov as the main city planner of St. Petersburg. Sergei Tchoban spoke about the fruitful cooperation and the positive influence of his colleague. In a commentary for archi.ru, Sergei Tchoban spoke about how his collaboration with Yevgeny Gerasimov developed. The two architects met in 2002, when the already famous St. Petersburg architect Gerasimov visited the famous Berlin architect Tchoban. A few months later, the architects were working on "House by the Sea", which Tchoban called "very expensive" for both architects. “Since then we have been actively working together, we felt that one plus one is more than two. I can say that I learned a lot from Evgeny Lvovich, and I think that for me personally this cooperation was unrealistically fruitful,”said the architect.
The exhibition turned out to be very successful in terms of composition. The exposition is built on the principle of "home in a home" and is intended to reflect in its structure the nature of the work of an architectural workshop, architectural work as such. The idea of the exposition is to move from the center to the periphery, from the future to the present and the past, from the living creativity of the architectural team to the materiality of completed buildings.
In the center of the hall there is a covered tent with a small “room” inside. There is a table with working models of buildings. On the walls are portraits of the workshop staff. Metaphorically, the viewer is thus in the "heart" of the creative process, discussion of projects, "brainstorming". Portraits on the walls create the feeling of a noisy gathering around architectural models - options for future buildings. There are many familiar things on the table: projects of residential buildings, hotels, public buildings. The design process is presented here in the simplest, easiest for understanding and unobtrusive form: you can see how ideas are embodied in small pieces of foam.
Outside the walls of this part of the exposition there are stands with already built buildings, with those that are still under construction, and projects that have remained only on paper or have been postponed indefinitely. The exposition occupies the entire space at the bottom of the Marble Hall, as well as the entire perimeter of the side galleries. The greatest impression is made by the most striking buildings of the bureau: the building of the head office of the bank "St. Petersburg", a sample of elite residential development - "House by the Sea", new buildings of the "Europe City" complex. Twenty-five years is a serious period, and some buildings look like a memory of another, bygone era. Such a specific charm, in many respects already belonging to history, is possessed, for example, by the first construction of the office - a residential complex at Bukharestskaya, 59. Or "Green Island" - the first elite object on Krestovsky Island. The building on Kamenoostrovsky Prospekt, once provocative, today looks like a monument to early post-Soviet postmodernism.
Of the unrealized projects, the Legend residential complexes, which solve the problems of middle segment housing in a new way for St. Petersburg, are of particular hope. An interesting project for the building of the Olympic Committee. An ambitious project for the reconstruction of the inner territory of Gostiny Dvor could become important for St. Petersburg. It remains only to wait what of this will be embodied and how.
For the anniversary, an impressive catalog has been released, in which the bureau's work is covered in more detail. Each building or important competition project is provided with a detailed description and visuals. The composition of the catalog pages follows the general logic of the exhibition: from a small sketch to a detailed development of the concept, layout and details.
The exhibition will run until October 23.
