Archi.ru:
How do you assess the past year? At the international festival Arch Moscow, you were chosen as the "Architect of the Year", the English publishing house Thames & Hudson is preparing to release a book about "Studio 44". How significant are these events for you and for the bureau?
Nikita Yavein
- Thames & Hudson released an album about the reconstructed General Staff building. The book turned out to be quite popular. About 2.5 thousand copies have already been sold and the publishing house decided to continue the topic by releasing our monograph.
As for the status of "Architect of the Year", I think I played the role of Trump in this vote. This status and the fact that it was me who received it in 2016 can be assessed in different ways. “Architect of the Year” is after all “Architect of the Year of Moscow”. Traditionally, candidates are selected from among the leading Moscow architects within the framework of an in-house understanding of the hierarchy and quality of architecture. In this situation, it is rather curious that some group of Moscow architects chose a St. Petersburg architect, considering my work quite interesting and significant. I believe that the fact that we actively participate in exhibitions played a role here. First of all, at Zodchestvo, and have already received the main prizes there several times. Now the festival is going through a new period of its development, if not a serious crisis, and its character is changing. Some time ago, he had a controversial, but interesting period of searching and testing new formats. But now it is more and more clearly losing its all-Russian status. Let it be in a somewhat archaic format, but different regions were represented on it. Now the regional architecture is becoming less and less. Although right now, it seems to me, at least some kind of life or a desire to activate it has appeared in the regions. But the Zodchestvo festival is turning into another Moscow get-together, another platform for discussing Moscow problems and the problems that arise in the regions due to the fact that Moscow architects are actively exploring them. "Architecture" has become more lively, less official. There are pros and cons to this, but the festival has become less interesting for me.
However, the status of "Architect of the Year" is important for me, among other things, also because it will be necessary to make an exhibition. I have been thinking about this for a long time. Studio 44 recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. I myself have been in the profession for about 40 years. We have already discussed the topic of the exhibition with various museums more than once, but there was no time for everything. You run all the time, solve some endless problems, agree on something. And then there are no options. This will be the first exhibition that we will assemble ourselves, and we want to make it mobile. We will be able to exhibit and develop it. It will become an occasion for me to reflect on the path traveled.
How do you assess these 25 years, was it a straight line of development or a complex zigzag path?
- I think that it was and is, by and large, a straight path, despite the fact that from the outside it could appear somewhat zigzag. But all searches were carried out within the framework of one very clear vector. Looking back, I am even surprised myself with what persistence I walked along it, no matter what. I guess it has to do with family roots. According to the Confucian tradition, the son must fulfill the unfulfilled behests of the father. This is what I am doing hard, having created my workshop, and now we can say the school. Work experience at Studio 44 shapes architects. I see this in the example of those guys who got their own bureaus. And even if they themselves do not realize it, the influence of the "Studio" is felt in the behavioral and organizational scheme, and in the architectural one.
How do you build your relationships with young architects? An exhibition and conference was recently held in Moscow on the topic of architectural education, its problems and further ways of development
- This is a terrible trouble. The education crisis is colossal. When I graduated, there were at least 10 people on the course who were already established as professional architects. Today at the Academy I see no more than four or six people who are simply professionally qualified.
And how can this problem be solved? It turns out that the functions of education should be taken over by architectural workshops. If they want to have qualified employees, they must accept students and graduates for internships and teach them the profession
- We have been using this method for a long time. I teach and this gives me the opportunity to see the potential in students. Almost all young leaders of our workshop have been working here since the 3rd year. Our office has resources for development and training. Our three workshops have their own specifics and ideology. A young architect has the opportunity to try himself in different formats, learn a profession, find himself and his place in the process. Many of those who went through our school stayed in the office, 2-3 people left and founded their own companies. I am quite calm about this. The more good professional bureaus on the market, the better.
Aren't you worried about the problem of competition?
- You have to understand that those who leave to practice on their own, in most cases, go to interiors, or, at best, to cottages, and then somehow break through. The market is very tough, the market needs absolute guarantees and that is what is crucial for customers who really want something. In this situation, it is only within a fairly large design bureau that a young architect has the opportunity to take part in the development of the most serious objects, which alone they would have received no earlier than 50 years old. But in this case, additional incentives are needed. For example, a partnership, where a lead architect takes responsibility for a workshop within a bureau or for a major project. For example, Anton Yar-Skryabin almost independently made the Irkutsk competition together with three or four colleagues in 2 weeks and confidently won by a wide margin. Or Ivan Kozhin - a wonderful artist with whom we will make a small Moscow object. Or Vera Burmistrova; etc.
To what extent is it possible to preserve the individuality of the architect with such a system of professional growth inside the studio with a very bright and well-formed image? There is a feeling that there is a very shortage of original professional statements in Russian architecture
- As the recent WAF festival has shown, difficulties with individuality are everywhere. It was very clear there how all projects and all architectural solutions are divided into 8-10 types. Like rubble when sorting, they fit exactly into one or another cell. And what cells are in fashion nowadays, striped or checkered, she shoots. I think, in principle, with a huge variety, boring.
In our situation, everything is more complicated. Today the most important indicator is the level of education and professionalism, the class of problem solving. And already within the framework of this class, individuality arises. And if your personality consists in the fact that you do not know how to design, but play some kind of visual games, substitute one for another, then there is no need to talk about professionalism. This can be seen all the time. Especially at competitions.
“As a result, the backbone of the leading architects in the largest cities of Russia is made up of professionals who started working back in the 90s. Young people appear, but not as active as one might expect
- Here I would divide the market of large architecture and the design, interior market. In the latter, it is easier to work and advance. And, theoretically, you can grow out of it and take your position on the field of great architecture. But here the main part - half or even two-thirds of the work is carried out by design organizations at construction firms. They are the ones who really shape the faces of our cities. The remainder is accounted for by bureaus with a reputation and experience in implementation. Customers choose architects not for winning competitions, publishing in magazines or participating in exhibitions. And this explains the problems with the promotion of youth. One customer speaks with another customer, looks at how and what the other architect agreed, how he brought it, what did not. Twenty times will be rechecked to come up with a new surname. This is an absolutely closed club story, in which the competition is not in the field of quality or originality of projects, but in the field of efficiency and guarantees of approval. Unfortunately, such a situation does not contribute to the emergence of new interesting teams, or the creation of bright projects.
What is the situation at Studio 44? What did you manage to do in 2016, what are your plans for 2017?
- We entered a number of very serious orders. It is difficult to say whether it will be possible to build them or not. We'll see. But among them there are large residential complexes in which I would like to test and implement fundamentally new approaches to housing design. We are actively working with the regions, in Tomsk, Sochi and other cities. The Tomsk project, I hope, will become a truly breakthrough thing, first of all, in terms of technology. We set ourselves the task of rehabilitating wood as a material.
