A week ago, Sergei Tchoban presented at Strelka a book he wrote together with the architectural historian Professor Vladimir Sedov, head of the Department of History of Russian Art at Moscow State University. The book is called “30:70. Architecture as a balance of power”and the main idea contained in it sounds something like this: modernism destroyed the balance that was before, shifting it towards contrast and iconic buildings. With "icons" it worked out well, but you can't fill the whole city with icons - there will be a cacophony; but the background architecture of modernism is boring. Therefore, in order to restore the disturbed balance of power, it is necessary to redevelop the background architecture. And so that she is not boring, she needs a decor - otherwise a person has nothing to stop his eyes on and it turns out as with the background architecture of modernism - monotonous and uncomfortable for a person. Sergei Tchoban compares this effect to the crown of a tree: at first we perceive it as a whole, as a silhouette and mass, but the tree would not be so good if, getting closer, we could not see the leaves - we would not have the opportunity to go deeper into detail.
In fact, there are two ideas in the book: balance based on contrast, and the idea of deliberately cultivating, cultivating the other half of contrast. “The Bilbao effect needs Bilbao itself” - a medieval town that serves as a frame for the icon of neo-modernism and makes it so attractive. It turns out that the star-building is a gem, and the old architecture is a framing, which, as a frame, is allowed to have different rocailles. But historical cities are finite - it sounds between the lines, there is not enough for everyone. This means that modern architecture needs to work on its own in order to create a decent frame for its pearls. And unlike the previously proposed nobly minimalistic, but boring options, the authors propose to turn to detailed architecture - citing as evidence an outline of its history from antiquity to the present day.
The eyes of the supporters of the so-called classics shone as if they were offered a resolution on excesses in 1955, but with the opposite sign - not about eliminating, but about saturating design and construction with excesses. Sergei Tchoban, however, even denies that this book is a manifesto, limiting himself to the modest definition of "essays"; By the way, at the lecture, he confidently said that he was absorbed in architectural practice and would not write anything else. That is, the purpose of the book is not very clear - not an appeal, but a statement, although in the conclusion the authors boldly say: we urge. “I am not calling for a return to the classics,” says Sergei Tchoban. "You can go back to anything." Art Deco, Art Nouveau … Towards the end of the lecture, one of the houses of the master of St. Petersburg Art Nouveau, architect Alexei Bubyr, appeared as a good example of the slide environment.
It must be said that the return of exactly what not to the classics, but to the decor is an old idea of Sergei Tchoban. When the SPEECH bureau was just starting to work in Moscow and offered the first decorated houses - on Mozhaisky Val or Granatny Lane - the first issue of speech: magazine came out with the topic
Ornament; it published a translation of the famous article "Ornament and Crime" by Adolf Loos, as one of the main opponents and curses of decorated architecture. This is how the dialogue began, and one must think that the book that has now been published is its continuation. Therefore, the assertion that the book is not a manifesto is not very hard to believe; whatever the authors assert, seeking to weaken the prophetic pathos, elements of social engineering in their essays inevitably contain. After all, if someone undertook to carry out a certain idea, manifestarity cannot be avoided.
However, this manifesto has a number of peculiarities, and the first is the denial that it is a manifesto. It is easy to explain: everyone is accustomed to the fact that manifestos are characteristic of the avant-garde and modernism, he loves to express himself with their help, and in the absence of manifestos, verbal or plastic, he is noticeably withering and sad. In this sense, the book of Choban and Sedov is an anti-manifesto, because it is not an avant-garde discourse, but a passeistic one in form and content. She, however, does not deny modernism, as the classics do in their statements, that is, it is not an antagonist of modernism, an antimodern statement either. It offers a contrasting balance, that is, not a compromise, but a kind of compromise - a kind of water truce scheme. This is its novelty, because the war between classics / ardeko / historicism and avant-garde / modernism has been going on for more than a hundred years, and no one - here maybe knowledgeable people will correct me, but it seems that no one has ever proposed the terms of an armistice. In reality, it came long ago; but not in heads, not in all heads. In the heads reigns: we - they, right - wrong, axioms, slogans and ostracism. No one has yet tried to propose the terms of the union and to motivate its necessity. Even the idea of contextual modernism did not offer an alliance as such, since it put in a subordinate position the craving of modernism for contrast and vivid expression.
Passionism is an important feature of the book, and it manifests itself in two ways. First of all, it contains the idea of a return: "we call for the return of the historically justified advantages of graphic plastics and the high density of detailing of the facades of the background buildings." But the book is retrospective in form, which is more important, because in this way it points the way, maybe even entices.
Let's start with history. Most of the essays of Sedov and Tchoban consists of an essay on the history of architecture, for which it is already unfair, but predictable
nicknamed "the Unified State Exam Cheat Sheet." Let's leave aside the fact that there is no USE in the history of architecture and is unlikely to be. But the history of architecture is a science, it develops in spite of pluralism with postmodernism within the framework of a certain degree of objectivity, tends to increase and accumulate knowledge, and, consequently, to expand and specialize research. To put it simply, the books are getting thicker, and their topics at the same. There are two exceptions: first - textbooks, "cheat sheets" - it is assumed that they should not outgrow a certain volume, but should be crème de la crème of objectivity; the second is an essay, their volume is the same as that of textbooks or less, but objectivity with the opposite sign is a fundamentally subjective thing, an essay is a personal view of certain things. Essays were popular with the authors of the Silver Age, during the heyday of personal views, language and position, then the personality went out of fashion just like essays, and everyone forgot about them, although some kind of longing remained.
Now the appearance of essays not about personal experiences, but about the entire history of architecture is an unexpected thing: authors write about the past of architecture as a whole, using a method that was popular a hundred years ago. At the same time, Vladimir Valentinovich Sedov is a fundamental scientist, the author of those very thick books and many articles, so it is not surprising that in a light and mobile text, from time to time, some redundant clarifications slip through, for example, the mention that in the 6th century masonry are used more often than before … Why is this needed among the evidence for the importance of decorating background architecture? Yes, why not.
The fact is that the text is not strictly subordinated to the proof of one main idea. Reflections on the history of architecture flow freely, shifting accents in places - for example, St. Sophia of Constantinople was transferred from the Middle Ages to antiquity - and the liberties of interpretations, again, have nothing to do with proving the value of the decor. From time to time, the authors, as if catching themselves, mention the ornament, but nothing more. Only to eclecticism does the leitmotif begin to capture the whole text, and even then not completely, in the rhythm of a walk, not a march. A simple objection may arise here: if you are arguing the importance of returning to decor, why not subordinate the entire book to it? Not to start from the moment X, that very historicism, when the abundance of ornaments began to annoy with insincerity, not to build the argument clearly and clearly, substantiating your postulates with reinforced concrete? But no, the authors seem to deliberately take a position of not-imposing, but personal reasoning.
The second element of passism - the book is illustrated with drawings by Sergei Tchoban. Not a single photograph (although they were in the lecture), not a single drawing. At times it gets in the way, because the graphics do not always accurately correlate with the text, but somewhere you can see how in the story, like knitting, "throws an extra loop", associating itself with the drawing, because it was - it happened with the Cathedral of Palma de -Mallorca. It may be the largest, but in the context of the history of architecture in general, it seems optional. On the other hand, it is the drawings - by definition, personal, with any degree of mimeticism - that enhance the element of essay, notes, reading, to a certain extent, in the text.
Here, however, the personality was split into two. The genre of the book with the author's drawings is as ancient as proskinitarians, where pilgrims painted, as best they could, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It is quite modern and popular in the 20th century. But the book, of course, has nothing to do with a fashionable drawing magazine. On the contrary, one recalls the art histories of the 19th century illustrated with engravings - "fused" with the personal view of the Silver Age, here they form a somewhat new view of history, deliberately hand-made and at the same time thorough, not too free. Drawings are an attractive, charming part of the book, they provoke a drawing itch - you read, and at the same time you want to sketch something, draw. But you start looking at the lines, and not the details themselves, you think about how you managed to catch such a clear shadow, and you distract from the subject of architecture, plunging into graphics.
So, in fact, two parallel texts coexist in the book: a verbal historical one and a graphic one. Neither one fully illustrates the other, they seem to coexist, sometimes crossing over, like people in order to discuss some idea of interest to both. Among the graphics there are drawings-reflections, closer to modernism there are more of them, in places they are ironic. Drawings speak, are included in the narrative - and also not only about decor and not only about contrast, but sometimes just about the specifics of space and plasticity.
Oddly enough, passéism makes the book modern, belonging to our time, when the manifesto of the modernist plan seems hopelessly outdated. But not only him. The book is probably one of the first to immerse, albeit in a rather specific way, architecture in urban issues. She views architecture not through the prism of the intrinsic value of its formal language - the classics as such, the decor as such - but through the prism of the city, posing the question not “what architecture should be”, but what it should be in order to form a harmonious urban ensemble, moreover, the authors propose a fundamentally new means of forming an ensemble: contrast instead of "hierarchy".
There are, of course, many questions to the proposed one. Modernism comprehended, among other things, the theme of a slum, poor housing, replacing it with an industrial one with amenities, but, yes, faceless, sometimes fundamentally neutral - it provided comfort to the body, ignoring the soul. Meanwhile, the problem of expensive and cheap, poor and rich housing remains, and the book takes it completely outside the brackets, as if examining the architecture within the Garden Ring or at least a business-class residential complex, bringing the rest into the category of construction. Not to mention the fact that the very idea of “creating”, developing the second half of contrasting harmony, taking into account its subordinate position by definition, requires a great deal of humility on the part of architects, who, on the whole, do not have humility. But who knows. It is significant that a book containing, it would seem, a recipe for a peace agreement will not lead to a truce. She was greeted by representatives of the "classics", as if not noticing that the direction they represent here occupies a background, and by no means an iconic position. By definition, the modernists will not be able to accept passism of this level. Not to mention that the idea of reorienting technology from ventilation facades to some kind of massive masonry, which itself will become the bearer of the decor, seems extremely utopian (in the latter idea, one can feel the legacy of the modernist love for the truth of the structure, replaced by the truth of fixing the decor). The building complex is a stable thing, it is doubtful that it will switch to any quadra, although Sergei Tchoban mentioned in his lecture that research in this direction is underway in Germany. However, there were not many famous practicing architects at the lecture, but there were many young people. I wonder what they think. After all, creating a phenomenon, even a “background” one, is a long-term task.
