Mikhail Filippov, the author of the project of the UP-quarter "Rimsky"
Lara Kopylova:
How appropriate is such a sophisticated, sophisticated classics in democratic housing?
Mikhail Filippov:
- Mass housing determines the appearance of the city, so it should be beautiful for contemporaries and descendants. What is being done in mass housing now is project hack. And here the question is not that this is a cheap construction, but that the architect is obliged to make intellectual efforts. He is obliged, for example, to make a master plan in accordance with the building lines of the building itself. When we do a city planning assignment, it is no different from how we would do the interior of a room. You want your ceiling plan and floor plan to match the openings. In the most sketchy version of Palladio's villa, you can see how he places windows, vaults, ceilings. In fact, the interior design is done simultaneously with the sketch of the house.
It seems to me that architects have long forgotten about such things as axial construction and symmetrical composition …
- Architects have forgotten their profession. We have all interiors, no matter what they do - in the classics or in modernism, are corrupted by the so-called free, abstract compositions. Therefore, even the tiles in the toilet are poorly made, which starts from the corner and ends anywhere. Previously, tilers started from the center, from the axis, and they got the right angles. Tile is the most primitive example of hack. I'm not even talking about urban planning projects. What is the difference between the classics, in the first place? She has volume. If a cornice is placed somewhere, you need to know how the cornice looks, where its extreme point ends, so that it does not fit either the window or the opening, but sits symmetrically where necessary. And when modern architecture is made, it seems to work out on its own. The facade is called elevation, it just rises. There is a plan, then constructions and a curtain facade are placed. It has no shape other than a simple prism.
The classics are often reproached for all mortal sins: similarity to Disneyland, not reaching the level of historical prototypes. Can you articulate what a real classic is and what is your method?
- The correct use of the classics is an axial construction, which the architect is obliged to do both in the design of the premises and in the design of cities. This is one and the same method, and this is what I use in Roman. The structure of the historic cities that we like is the intersection of the rectangular coordinate system and the radial coordinate system. Such an intersection gives rise to a huge number of problems that are masterfully - or not very well - solved. This is the correct architecture, because the square-nest design of identical courtyards is not a classic, but at best a bad replica of Stalinist architecture. I'm not interested in this. See how the halls and courtyards intersect at Bramante in the Vatican. The solution of these corners, the intersection of two systems, the imposition of the ancient walls of the palaces on them, which were there before - this is a real classic. This is a difficulty that has been solved masterly. Because the classic is not a cage or an intersection of breaking cells. This is the intersection of forms. Real! And the solution of these issues is the most responsible thing in architecture.
But even among modernists, the form is often built on the intersection of volumes …
- The intersection of volumes is not enough. What is the Old Facade? It is not the number of columns. It always has its own little composition. And this composition consists of micro-compositions. Look at any palace - you will see three or four correct compositions, which make up one large one. If we build, for example, the restoration interior of the correct palace, in it all the windows and doors fall where they need to, the columns stand between the windows at an equal distance, and the door opens into another hall, and, belonging to different compositions, remains correct in both. Each element of the city is designed in the same way, that is, the facade. It should be beautiful, it shouldn't be too long, or short, or tall, or oversaturated with details. And it should be just beautiful in the traditional sense of the word. Beauty is a very cold, tough concept. It is created as correctness, with the help of geometric consciousness, Pythagorean, not algebraic. You don't need to calculate anything. I draw with a compass and two squares, as was done in the old days. Then it turns out well and quickly.
But you need to know the proportional ratios?
- It is better to do not delirium with the golden ratio, which does not exist, but to build, like Bramante, with the help of a compass, on the basis of simple and clear proportions. You can study these laws in one evening, take Mikhailovsky's textbook, everything is there, but for decades people have been working and do not know that arches have proportions (that two circles, or one and a half, or one should fit into the arch). These proportions were invented by people who could not read or write, did not know the square root, and they did not need it. How did the Pantheon or Colosseum come about? They like to shoot mysterious films about them, allegedly created by aliens. And you just need to take the square.
What are the town planning features UP-Quarter "Rimsky"? And why is it called that?
- The layout of "Rimsky" is based on the superposition of a rectangular and radial coordinate systems. This is not done in order to play with beautiful plans, but in order to get a micro-ensemble in every corner of every courtyard. It's not just about the intersection of coordinate systems, but about giving them unexpected, complex completeness. I peeped this thread in Rome. There is an interesting phenomenon in Rome. There was a ceremonial composition of the ancient palace and the baths of Diocletian. From it, on the ancient ruin system, four churches, courtyards and a semicircular Republic Square were obtained. She determined the town planning view of the part of Rome. If the modernist Termini station had not been soldered there, everything would have been fine.
Or the composition of the Champ de Mars. These were powerful developed ensembles such as the Pantheon temple complex, which became the ensemble around the Pompey theater. Roman city planning before the Renaissance is generally quite random. But then, in the 16th century, a powerful urban planning composition of the new Rome was made - a three-beam system that starts from Piazza del Poppolo. And neighborhoods and houses appear around them, which are painted in a picturesque way on the remains of ancient structures, compositions and foundations of the Field of Mars. And this creates an unexpected number of interesting corners, especially around Largo Argentino. The Pompey Theater overlooks the urban planning system that arose from the Renaissance, from Via Julia. The rectangular system is superimposed on the huge semicircle of Pompey's theater. And you get the effect that you can see from Campo del Fiore. A semicircular volume runs into a rectangular regular square, to which is attached a huge palazzo in an unexpected picturesque system. If you think about the system of overlaying grids, you can come up with even more interesting than in Rome. No, it won't get any more interesting, Rome is still very well built.
Rome seemed to me powerful and similar to the style of deconstruction, but based on classical material. It was no coincidence that the deconstructivist Peter Eisenman let students analyze the Field of Mars
- When Corbusier got to Rome, a monument to Victor Emmanuel had just been completed there. Corbusier said quite rightly: Rome is a combination of powerful cubic volumes. And he also said that an honest man, if he sees a monument to Vittorio Emmanuele, will never use a column and a warrant in his life. In this sense, I agree with Corbusier, because it is the most monstrous building that has ever arisen. What I am doing is directed in principle against the monument to Vittorio Emmanuele, against Stalinist architecture, against the stupid discrediting of the classics. But Corbusier's prophecy "did not turn around." Corbusier's prophecy gave rise to the so-called cubism in mass construction - this is Orekhovo-Borisovo. All this freedom of intersection of volumes is good when each volume has its own composition, its own made facade. Then this is interesting. Or like Venice with a crazy layout has no logic, but since each house is set next to each other and has its own composition, sometimes grandiose, like the Palazzo of Longena, then it works. When these are just the same windows, intersections of the same volumes, chaos occurs. Our urban planning reminds me of the following: as if someone scattered cubes on the table, then put them on the priest and calls it a free composition. Then he begins to grind out incredible compositional ideas. Even such a great talent as Corbusier, who completely discredited himself by Chandigarh, cannot cope with this urban planning.
Corbusier said that whoever sees Vittorio Emmanuele will never do the classics. But the problem is that most architects in all modern classics see Vittorio Emanuele
- I have never imitated the Parthenons or palaces. I like the city, and the city, unfortunately for modernists, consists of beautiful buildings … If they show me at least one city that you can walk in, which is made of modernist buildings, it will convince me. But he is not.
Some say Tel Aviv
- An ugly city that overlooks the sea with hotels of the 1960s –1970s, turning the capital, in contrast to the seaside cities, into some kind of provincial resort. Tel Aviv has the charm that it was built by the constructivists who fled from Europe, but apart from that there is nothing.
Let's go back to the Rimsky UP-quarter. In it, a lot of things have been invented in planning, in details, and in materials, but the most unusual invention is a two-level city. Of course, there are two- and four-level cities (La Defense in Paris), and even eight-level cities (in Japan). But in "Rimsky" he is completely different. What is the uniqueness?
- The fact that a master plan is planted here on the lower level, which has intra-quarter driveways, entrances to houses, and so on. And only special vehicles can enter the upper level. The master plan on two levels has never been done. This created incredible design challenges. To create a full-fledged lower level, a huge amount of effort was made to make it light, it has a huge number of holes and rises. The axial system of squares and streets, which I spoke about, is also present below. There will be no need to do navigation, draw arrows in the direction of the entrances, because everything will be visible anyway. Thanks to the openings through which natural light penetrates, you can read the urban planning system as if on the ceiling. This also gives natural ventilation. It should not be stuffy there; on the contrary, there is some danger that there will be a draft.
As far as I know, for the first time the idea of a double master plan was first proposed by Leonardo da Vinci in drawings dedicated to an ideal city. And, oddly enough, the idea of the Chambord staircase was also invented by Leonardo, although he did not design it. He lived and died at Chambord Castle. What do you think of the connection with Leonardo?
- Leonardo painted a double city not for the sake of beauty, but for the sake of social structure - so that the service of the city was on a different level than the level where people walk. He spatially divorced horse-drawn transport, sewers and the front level. Chambord is designed as a translucent "glass" that is illuminated from both sides and creates a compact section. One under the other are spiral staircases, they do not intersect, they have internal and external windows. I have already built one Chambord in a residential building - but there it is one-sided, and there are four floors (talking about the "Roman House" in Kazachiy Lane, - ed.).
New traditional architecture is often criticized for the lack of quality in construction and handicraft work. For inconsistency with historical facade materials. How is this issue resolved in the Rimsky UP quarter?
- We invented fantastic material here with one company. Stone-like plaster with full illusion of Roman brick. With the help of wet plaster, we make an absolute stylization under the Roman stone masonry. How - I will not say. This is a secret, know-how. And it costs like wet plaster - a penny.
Will the craftsman handle it?
- Of course she can. This is a continuation of our theme in a large philosophical sense. I am quite sure that facades are a return to man-made technologies. Worshiping a prefabricated home - from various materials brought from various places in Europe and America - is fundamentally wrong. A house is an organism that cannot be assembled from brought elements that do not take root, because each of these elements is made in a different structure. Their combination has no historical verification. Even reinforced concrete is only a hundred years old. How he will behave over the centuries is not known. How stone and brick behave is known. We make facades using old technologies. We do not make products for the facade somewhere, in any case, we reduce it to a minimum. It is impossible that some people are responsible for the product, while others are responsible for its position on the facade. There are inconsistencies. Everything will be done as in the old days: plaster is thrown, and profiles are stretched. They knew how to do it back in Stalin's time. My mom could do it. She climbed up the scaffolding and pulled the profiles.
Do you know where beauty comes from? I have an Italian superintendent at one site. Fortunately, he is not an architect, so he studied Palladio's Quattro libri and sent it to all his contractors. Because beauty, as Mandelstam said, is "not a whim of a demigod, but a predatory eye of a simple carpenter."
