Pavel Zeldovich graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute in 2010, in 2013 - the Vienna University of Applied Arts (where he taught Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher). Back in 2009, Pavel became a laureate of the IFHP International Urban Congress Competition, participated in several international exhibitions (including the pavilion at the 2012 Venice Biennale, curated by Zaha Hadid). After that, he worked as an architect and designer on Zaha Hadid's projects such as the Bolshoi Theater in Rabat and the 520W 28th Street Residential Complex in New York. And in 2015, as an employee of the New York bureau Asymtote Architecture, he worked on projects for a residential tower and a branch of the State Hermitage on the territory of the former ZIL plant in Moscow …
You studied long and hard … Because it was interesting?
- I entered the Moscow Architectural Institute twice, and it was not easy. Preparation for the drawing exam and pencil case with tools, razors to cut blots - all these images in memory are not the most pleasant. I managed to enroll for free, but I will never forget the stress of the exam.
The first two years I spent fighting my natural carelessness and infantilism. Academic drawing, sketching, material support - this required a completely different type of thinking than was given to me by nature. Because initially I generally wanted to enter the journalism faculty. I am a humanist by nature, I love to write, and I have not lost this passion during my studies at Moscow Architectural Institute, working as a journalist in Time-Out, Nezavisimaya Gazeta and other publications.
Architectural insight happened in my third year, when I went to study with a German teacher - Michael Eichner. He opened for me modern international architecture, most of the names of which every architect now knows. He taught me to distinguish good from bad and look at the quality of the project itself, and not just its execution. Because the average marketer has a distorted project assessment system in the first two years. I drew it beautifully, served it nicely - well done, get a medal. And the fact that the project itself is mortal melancholy does not bother anyone. Eichner taught me to look into the essence of the project: what is interesting in it, what has the right to life here? Since then I have looked at things much more soberly.
At the same time, I got a part-time job at the TPO "Reserve" with Vladimir Plotkin, one of the first post-Soviet architects with a European mindset. This experience superimposed very well on studying with Eichner in the sense of my interest in world architecture.
How did you get the idea to go to study abroad?
- This happened by accident. The Museum of Architecture hosted an exhibition of Viennese students Zaha Hadid. I went and was shocked. Of course, Zaha was a living legend for everyone - but these were students, young people like me, with crazy, cosmically unreal (as it seemed to me) projects. Plus, I knew the classic Zaha Hadid, a deconstructivist with roots in the Russian avant-garde. And these projects were something so new that there was nothing to compare with. Later I learned that this was precisely the birth of the parametric style in architecture. And the techniques that I saw at the exhibition then are now familiar techniques for many architects, including young Russians.
Among the teachers was a woman with Russian roots, Masha Vich-Kosmacheva, herself a former student of Zakha. She offered to try to enter the Hadid studio at the Vienna University of Applied Arts. If it works out, of course, since there was a portfolio review and then the entrance exams. My reaction? I was scared of this opportunity and did not want to go. I've had a whole life here, my beloved girl, loyal friends. I understood that leaving meant starting from scratch. I wanted to go and fail the exams, so that I could tell myself that it didn't work out and calmly return to my usual life in Moscow. But as a gambling person, I quickly got involved in the exams themselves and wanted to win at all costs. Happened.
I did not have a goal to go specifically to Vienna. If Zaha taught on Mars or the North Pole, I would go there. I was driven by creative ambitions, not a desire to leave. At that moment, it would be ideal for me if I could study with her and not fly anywhere, if Zaha taught in Moscow. But that option was not on the agenda in 2008.
How difficult was it technically? Were there any bureaucratic obstacles when preparing documents or leaving?
- The first six months I lived on tourist visas. It was terribly long and difficult to get them. It was humiliating to stand in these lines at the embassy on a regular basis. Then I gradually applied for a student visa and renewed it every year. Tuition cost 700 euros per semester, very cheap in comparison with the same paid department of Moscow Architectural Institute.
In general, Austrians give visas much more slowly and reluctantly than, say, Spaniards or Americans now. Friends first had to ask them to make invitations, for this they had to go to the local police office and report on registration and earnings - a dubious pleasure!
And when applying for a student visa, you need to sit out a kilometer long line at local magistrates - in a crowd of immigrants from all possible poor countries. At the same time, a lot of paperwork. But every year you get used to it more and more. The set of documents for a student visa is almost always the same: local registration, university documents, medical insurance, etc. The visa is given for a year and then renewed. Getting your first student visa is difficult because you apply for it from Russia. Then everything is easier: you repeat about the same procedure once a year at the same time. It is very difficult to obtain a work visa in Austria, but it is possible, as, indeed, everywhere. It's a matter of luck. As a rule, local firms do not like to fiddle with documents very much.
Was the adaptation to new living conditions difficult?
- Housing was one of the everyday problems. I managed to rent a good room in a student communal apartment only after a few months. Wandering around quickly found new acquaintances. There was even a period when I lived in different hostels. You wake up in the morning, and a dozen tourists are laying their socks next to you, the cleaning lady washes the floor, not paying attention to you. At first, I didn't like Vienna at all: everything is clean, too clean and people walk slowly, like after a hearty dinner. On the streets, in comparison with noisy Moscow, there is no one to the people. Some kind of sleepy kingdom, I thought. And for a long time I could not get used to the fact that the tallest building in the city is the cathedral. Without tall buildings around, I felt ill at ease. Therefore, I immediately fell in love with the local canal embankment - the only place with multi-storey offices and some kind of crowd near the metro.
It was not necessary to learn German. Almost everyone in Vienna speaks good English. This city has a rather rich cultural life and several first-class museums, where exhibitions of the best artists replace one another. A separate plus of Vienna is its ideal location in the very heart of Europe: to Berlin, Prague, Rome and even Lviv - about the same train time.
Vienna is a city that is surprisingly peaceful and static. Years later, I saw the list of the international commission on the comfort of living in cities where Vienna was in the first place - and I was not at all surprised. Vienna is the epitome of comfort. Such an ideal city where it is good to be a child or an old man. Everything is serene, clean, predictable … and rather boring if you don't know how to entertain yourself. And the locals know how to have fun. I have never seen people smoke or drink so much before. Even in the institute, there was a beer vending machine on each floor. Vienna has a huge number of creative and a little wild-looking guys. Now they are called hipsters, and 10 years ago such a word was not yet in common use. In Vienna, I fully compensated for my rather bleak student life in Moscow: there were so many parties in my life, neither before nor after. So these have been the most fun years of my life so far.
Well, how, in fact, was the study at the Vienna Institute of Applied Arts?
- The institute had three architectural classes named after its leaders: Zaha Hadid Studio, Wolf Prix Studio (Coop Himmelblau), Greg Lynn Studio. All managers are world-renowned architects. Once in many years, the main professors change, and with them the name and teaching direction of the studio. Now, for example, instead of Zaha - Sejima, the head of the Sanaa bureau, and instead of Prix - Hani Rashid.
The direction of training and the style of projects is largely determined by the head of the studio. In recent years, only the Master's program has been in operation. The student must be a bachelor at his institute, he enters for three years and at the end defends his diploma. In a semester - about one or two projects, the work is almost always group work, 3-4 people. The head teacher himself appears at the university only a few times a semester, for key screenings. By the way, the final screenings are held with the participation of all three chief executives and guests, including international architects and designers with big names. The main work with students is done by the so-called assistants - younger teachers who come to the university almost daily and advise the project. There is always an opportunity to transfer from one studio to another - for a semester or even permanently, at will. Therefore, you can start training with one teacher, and defend your diploma from another.
The Vienna University of Applied Arts (Angewandte, as it is informally called) is a 24-hour place. The volume of work for a project is always much larger, and accordingly, it takes almost all the time. Students sit in the evenings and at night. From here there is a feeling of a second home or club, and not just a place to study.
As for admission, the key thing is a creative and rather experimental portfolio, adequate to international progressive directions, well presented and quite radical. Therefore, many applicants redo their student work before entering: just a well-drawn boring project will not be counted. The second important factor is proficiency in 3D software such as Maya, Rhino, grasshopper and 3DSMAX. The more of them in the resume, the higher the chances (with a good portfolio, of course).
Is it possible to compare studies at the Moscow Architectural Institute and at the University of Vienna?
- First of all, the divisions of the courses differ. At Moscow Architectural Institute - the system is standard, according to seniority: first year, second, etc. In Vienna, everyone is in the same class and doing the same projects. The elders work in the same group with the younger ones. This is a big plus, since you learn from more experienced guys much faster, including computer programs. And also the standards of healthy competition are rising: you have to compete on the same tasks with much stronger colleagues.
The second difference is its openness to the international architectural world. MARCHI - like the entire Russian architectural context in general - is in isolation. New trends from abroad penetrate slowly and certainly not through teachers. We are still in the provincial post-Soviet matrix. In Angevandt, you automatically find yourself in the very kitchen of modern architecture. There are several reasons for this. First of all, the progressiveness of thinking is set by the main teachers, designers and architects of world renown themselves. The second reason is close contacts with the best architectural schools in the world, hence the number of visits and lectures from the most famous people in this field. In Russian architectural life, a lecture by a famous architect is a whole event. In Angevandt, this is the usual agenda. This openness gives rise to a huge number of potential opportunities for establishing contacts with these people and for career growth in the future, perhaps not in Austria, but in a completely different country. It is according to this scenario that my life has developed so far. In a word, while studying there, you are in direct communication with the whole world. This is perhaps the main advantage of this school.
But the fundamental training of the Moscow Architectural Institute ideally complements the sometimes overly experimental and unrealistic approaches of the Viennese school. If you have not passed the stage of normal earthly projects, brought to an end, as in the Moscow Architectural Institute, but immediately embark on fashionable experiments, then there is a risk of remaining a little amateur. Therefore, I am very glad that I was able to combine these two experiences and get the best out of each.
And what happened to you next? How did this study help your career?
- After graduation, the topic of which, by the way, was an alternative version of Zaryadye Park in Moscow, Zaha Hadid invited me to work in London. This was the second time I had to adapt to life in another country, but it was already easier, since the skills had been developed by that time. I was fortunate enough to work on several high-profile projects, in particular on the interiors of the main theater in Rabat, Morocco, which is now under construction, and Zaha's first New York project - residential building 520 W 28th Street. I have done a lot of interiors in this office, including working on the Stuart Weizman Boutique project in Hong Kong. The work, as a rule, began at the design level in the animation program Maya, and ended in Rhino and AutoCAD, at the stages of development and preparation of drawings.
Then I worked at Hani Rashida's New York office Asymtote on two Russian projects as part of ZILart - the New Hermitage and the ZIL Tower. I was responsible for both interiors and façade systems. Probably, it was in these two projects that I was able to show my creative face, since I was free from rather specific methods of working with geometry, as in the case of Zaha Hadid's projects. A separate pleasure for me as a designer and architect from Russia was the establishment of effective coordination between my American bureau and the Moscow architects accompanying the project. We managed to set up very effective communication and build many bridges between us.
