Archi.ru:
Anatoly Arkadyevich, I am not asking what the past year was for you - I know that it was not easy. Most of us feel the ongoing crisis, so I propose to reflect on its nature and causes. Personally, I am convinced that the economic downturn that hit the architecture and construction industry hard is just one of many consequences of the general crisis in culture. Do you agree with this?
Anatoly Stolyarchuk:
- The year, indeed, was not easy - the crisis hits the architectural and construction industry painfully. Architecture is one of the expressions of culture, but without the financial component it is simply impossible. Is the economic downturn directly related to the cultural crisis? Yes and no. On the one hand, the rapid changes are obvious, the world has literally turned upside down before our eyes. Cultural decline is seen everywhere you look. There are many reasons, different reasons, but if we want to preserve architecture as part of culture, we need to somehow resist it.
The general course of events unfolds in such a way that the future, which until relatively recently seemed bright and beautiful, no longer calls us and does not attract us. It is scary. Meanwhile, in architecture, the "myth of the future" proved to be surprisingly tenacious. The avant-garde forms that still feed modern architecture are directed forward, and the techniques of a century ago are still perceived as symbols of the future. Why do you think?
- I can say that the future has never seemed bright and wonderful to me personally, I foresaw the problems that always take place. Including those that we are laying down ourselves. I also disagree with the fact that avant-garde forms are perceived today as symbols of the future. Architecture is rapidly evolving in the wake of computer technology, and what seemed cutting edge yesterday looks hopelessly outdated today.
Speaking about the “myth of the future”, I mean a certain social paradigm, which until recently was communism and which still remains the idea of progress, implying that everything develops from simple to complex, from worse to better. The attitude towards the "future" is characteristic not only of avant-garde, but of all modern architecture, while I continue to insist that the figurative (and not technological) component of the avant-garde is still perceived as a symbol of progress today. So, for example, Sergei Skuratov, presenting his “Sadovye Kvartaly” residential complex in St. Petersburg, characterized the reception of a console that was strongly brought forward in the school building as a symbol of the future (I don’t remember literally, but the general meaning was that)
In my opinion, a substitution of concepts took place here. First, the idea of heavenly paradise - the prototype of traditional beauty - was replaced by the myth of the earthly future as universal material prosperity, and then it, in turn, was supplanted by the idea of scientific and technological progress as such. At the same time, the growing consumption of high-tech goods by an abstract human unit is in no way linked to a long-term public good
What should an architect do in these conditions? Adapt and survive? Accept the terms of the game? Leave the profession?
- Architecture is the answer to social demand. Including an imperfect request. However, today the standards are very different from what was built 50-60 years ago. Parking lots, kindergartens, greenery - no one will disturb all this. If we talk about ecology, green technologies are also developing, although there are few people willing to “waste money” in this direction. It all comes down to funding. Thus, the architect is forced to accept the terms of the game.
It seems to me that the society has experienced a global “settings failure”. Just as modern music rejects tonality and rhythm, becoming indistinguishable from non-music (an arbitrary combination of sounds), fine art and architecture rejects the unconditional categories of the beautiful and the ugly, when the beautiful is a reflection of the highest objective reality - divine universals (it is this thesis of Plato, developed by Christianity, became the basis of European aesthetics)
What do you, as an architect, mean by the concepts of “beauty” and “beautiful”?
- I think the question of aesthetics is subjective. There are indisputable examples, but in general, you will not say that a building in Art Nouveau is less beautiful than a building in the Baroque or, say, high-tech.
Architecture is not a fine art, but a creative one. It does not depict, but creates - of course, proceeding from the wishes of the customer, the town-planning situation, typology, functionality … But it does not depict, but creates. Of course, this does not mean that we should not be artists. We must be able to draw with our hand (fortunately, while they still teach this - at the Academy of Arts, for example). But this is only a means to creation.
What is "beauty"? This is the most difficult component of the Vitruvian triad, although there are indisputable positions, for example, harmony. Harmony is compliance with a place, environment, function (although sometimes the function changes). Architecture is read in space, in motion, in the alternation of volumes and pauses, light and shadow. The Japanese have such a concept as the architecture of the void. Beauty is elusive. It can be achieved by absolutely ascetic means, like in Corbusier, or it can be manifested in an abundance of ornamentation. So, not being a lover of the Baroque, I was amazed in Rome by the spatial power of Bernini's churches - and this architecture is already about five hundred years old!
Anatoly Arkadievich, do you really extend the idea of progress to architecture? But what about Ancient Egypt, antiquity? Gothic?
- In general, modern architecture is an unconditional progress in comparison with historical architecture. From a technical and technological point of view, today there are buildings from which you can simply go crazy. How they act aesthetically is another matter. But it is also important to remember that there is a constant revaluation of architecture in society. In general, if you “erase the random features,” modern architecture is an unconditional progress. In matters of technology and technology, this is obvious, as for aesthetics - here the comparison is inappropriate, because it is the other aesthetics.
What is the essence of this difference? In my opinion, it is that traditional aesthetics are inextricably linked with ethics. In tradition, the beautiful and the ugly were figuratively expressed the fundamental categories of good and evil. Modern aesthetics, indeed, is subjective, since it essentially rejected these guidelines
- When new buildings “in styles” appear in our time, I treat them at least with caution. Firstly, you need to be a great connoisseur to work "in styles", and secondly, historical forms are reproduced today using completely alien materials and technologies. A concrete building with plastic decorations screams with all its appearance that it is a fake!
On the other hand, for example, the architecture of Albert Speer served imperial ideas in the worst sense, but it is impressive …
Obviously, because the architect was not talentless. But I'm talking, of course, about the genesis of tradition, and not about specific semantic messages or intentions of certain architects. The fact is that today tradition, as a rule, is identified with certain formal features - first of all, with the order classics, but it seems to me that tradition turned into a style already during its decline, whereas initially the essence of tradition was a fundamental orientation for "eternity"
- I perceive traditional elements more in an applied sense. I will give an example from my practice. In 2011, we received a diploma for the building of a rehabilitation center with the following wording: "For the development of tradition in modern architecture." This building arose on the foundations of a typical polyclinic, which was supposed to be on this site. To keep the building from being boring, we came up with a colonnade that unexpectedly gave it a very special sound. Then many colleagues expressed their surprise that the customer agreed to the extra expenses.
This is to talk about the rational and the irrational. Even such a small step, incomparable with tall samples, gave expressiveness to this generally ordinary building. This is the potential of tradition, and this irrational component should be present in architecture.
