- Evgeny, what, in your opinion, are the main events of architectural Moscow? What happened this year, what can affect the development of the industry?
- I will not be original if I say that the word "renovation" has become the key word of the year. It is obvious that this experience, which Moscow is now mastering, will affect all politics inside the capital and beyond. It seems to me that the main experience that arose as a result of this project during 2017 is the experience of the inability and unwillingness of the authorities and society to dialogue. And this is the main lesson of renovation, which, in my opinion, has not yet been resolved.
Some serious efforts are needed to overcome this problem, which must be undertaken by both the executive authorities and the architects who are somehow involved in the process. We must reconsider the whole process of making urban planning decisions, find more effective channels of communication with the townspeople than, for example, "Active Citizen" and the like. The experience of hastily solving the problem of dialogue - the way it was done - seems to me unsatisfactory.
But at the end of the year there were open presentations of renovation projects for the townspeople. Is this not a form of dialogue? Or, in your opinion, this cannot compensate for the first statements and steps under this program, when the residents of Moscow were presented with a fact?
- It seems to me that it is more important not to catch up with the stone rolling down the mountain, but to prevent its fall. It seems to me that now it is impossible to compensate for the frivolity with which the renovation program was announced at the beginning of the year with private conversations. Moreover, it seems to me that few of the townspeople understand the results of the program. This requires a completely different interaction technology, which implies not a demonstration of projects, but a slow, long, painful procedure of finding mutually acceptable compromises between the interests of city authorities, citizens and the architectural community.
The second event, which is also very instructive and provokes the most heated discussions, is Zaryadye. It seems to me that this project is a symptomatic event, which we will discuss and analyze for a long time: what happened and what happened, what is the highest meaning of this enterprise.
If in our conversation we began to “measure” the significance of the architectural events of the year by such a parameter as the presence or absence of public dialogue in it, what is the situation with it, in your opinion, in Zaryadye?
- Now we see the "dialogue" that the townspeople demonstrate - "with their feet." People visit the park to show their interest in this event. Which does not mean at all that Zaryadye is an unconditional victory. In this configuration, I am interested, on the one hand, in the issue of making a decision, and on the other hand, in the meanings inherent in this project in the context of the development of the Moscow center and the social history of the city. Five years ago, when the competition for the Zaryadye park was announced, in one of our studios at the MARSH school we made a graduation project called Perezaryadye. Then we tried to comprehend the role of this place in the space of Moscow. In the process of work, a natural desire arose to make the Zaryadye region a full-fledged part of a living urban organism.
What, from your point of view, should have been in this place?
- We assumed there a full-fledged urban development: housing, public buildings, an active city life - restaurants, cafes, educational institutions. Our project was a quarterly structure, but not literally reproducing the historical one, but taking into account new realities. In particular, in our project there was one of the ideas that came true in Zaryadye - a puncture under the embankment with an exit directly to the water mark.
One of the meanings of our "March" experiment was the desire to desacralize the center of Moscow, to free it from unnecessary symbolic meanings, with which it is already overloaded. Now Zaryadye Park is involuntarily becoming another symbolic space alongside Red Square and the Kremlin. On the one hand, the fact that public spaces are now appearing in this place - a park, a concert hall - all this is good. On the other hand, I miss the daily natural life there. This area remains a kind of attraction, rather for the outside public than for the everyday use of Muscovites. You can't go there just for a walk. The sacredness of the place has not disappeared either. After all, the Zaryadye park in its current concept is such a model of Russia, there are additional symbolic loads.
What experience can be learned from Zaryadye for understanding and developing the architectural and urban planning industry? Is this a victory or a mistake of 2017?
- It seems to me that you are proposing not quite architectural categories. It will be a victory if, after 200 years, the project is mentioned in architecture textbooks, but we obviously do not know about it. As for errors, they are of different properties. There are mistakes that lead to the collapse of a building. And there are mistakes at the decision-making stage. In the case of Zaryadye, perhaps the latter took place.
I appreciate the project itself. It seems to me that both the work of landscape designers and many of the architectural ideas that have been implemented there deserve all kinds of compliments. Probably, I could express some comments to the authors in the discussion, but on the whole everything was done in an extremely professional manner. It is clear that this is an event. But from the point of view of urban planning and social policy, it seems to me that this territory should have been discussed and developed differently. I understand perfectly well that by saying this, I provoke a fire of criticism, because a lot of problems would arise in the implementation of our very idea of building this site as an ordinary urban space.
Judging by the context of our conversation, how decisions are made and how the dialogue is built in Moscow's architectural and urban planning policy is one of the most important, if not events, then the phenomena of the year. How, from your point of view, does this mechanism work? What is lost when using it? What is the ideal management model?
- I am not ready to discuss and build ideal models. Moreover, there are proven management mechanisms based on urban democracy. But this requires a very developed civil society, in which the citizens are aware of their responsibility, and there is none that has been established over the many years of the existence of Soviet power. Namely - the attitude to the townspeople as to small children, whom the authorities give some pleasant gifts. This type of attitude towards residents, in my opinion, should disappear. And he disappears as the "children" grow up, become responsible, understand what they want, and if they do not understand the details, then they turn to experts. Experts, in turn, get involved in the activities of civil communities. There is a counter expertise on the part of the authorities and the civil society - and somewhere at the intersection, difficult but effective decisions arise and are taken. This is how it should, in my opinion, work.
Of course, we have a mechanism for public hearings - a rather risky and not always expedient and effective form of interaction. Because quite often people come to hearings, not just illiterate in the area under discussion, but simply mentally inadequate. And God knows what is going on there! From the outside, everything looks like a democratic procedure. But in reality, there is neither joy nor benefit from this. And it is almost impossible to persuade each other within such procedures. There is practically no mechanism for compromise.
What is the alternative?
- The alternative is the laborious building of a complex relationship between civil society activists and the authorities, the creation of local communities interested and responsibly understanding what needs to be done. This is a very long process, but it seems to me that it is absolutely necessary.
As for the current decision-making mechanism, they are being adopted today rather voluntarily. It seems to me that expert advice is clearly insufficient in adopting them. Moreover, we can say that in many respects the architectural and urban planning policy is adopted and implemented by the urban planning and land commission, which issues the GPZU, which are often not confirmed by any expert assessments. When we sit in the Arch Council and the question arises: “Why do we need 40 thousand square meters of retail space here?”, No one can answer this question. Because the GPZU has already been issued. And then it turns out that it is impossible to drive up there, and in general there is no demand for such a volume of space. Here, in fact, is one of the typical examples of failures in the decision-making mechanism …
Let's move on from the results of architectural Moscow to the results of the architectural school. What are the main events that took place at MARSH this year?
- In 2017 we celebrated five years, which is a lot. This is an important milestone for us, because for the first time in the fifth year we recruited a full set of students - we collected all courses from the first to the fifth. Now the school has reached its design capacity (as it was said earlier in Soviet reports). We have learned to "walk", to reason, we have formed our own opinion. The first five years were very important for our development. Much has become clearer to us.
For example, we were able to figure out how to recruit the teaching staff, how to build our programs for the courses of each year of study. We were able to formulate basic educational concepts. Starting the MARCH, we understood what “water” we were entering, but could not fully appreciate it. Of course, now we are still continuing our search, but something has become more obvious to us.
Overall, we are very pleased with the way our activities are developing. We have very interesting students, especially junior courses. We formed the teaching staff for the first three years of study almost entirely from our graduates. It seems to me that this is very important. Firstly, there is a tradition, a kind of continuity, and secondly, new teachers - young, energetic, treat the matter with enthusiasm and great drive and pass it on to students. By age, they are almost the same age, this ensures a kind of joint seething, which, I think, is very important for the educational process: students feel themselves inside a "cauldron" where big ideas are brewed.
Now a completely new stage begins for us, because for the first time, starting next year, the master's program will be formed from our graduates. Until now, we have recruited students who have completed their bachelor's degrees at other universities for the master's program. And it was often very painful. I had to spend the first year on "detoxification". Only by the second year the masters were freed from all the "poisons" with which they were fed and could move on to a different type of understanding of architecture, which we are trying to introduce in our school. Preparing for a new type of master's degree at MARSH requires a lot of stress from us, because we have to actually reformat the master's course, which will now be largely designed for our bachelors.
Having completed all the courses, we can say with confidence that we will not grow in breadth - that is, we will maintain the existing number. We now have about 150 students in all courses. Another news of 2017 - we opened a preparatory department, which turned out to be in great demand among applicants. Accordingly, taking into account this department, the total number of students is about 200 people. Add here the students of temporary courses ("Digital Design", "Light Design", etc.) and it turns out that about 250 people circulate in the MARSH area at the same time.
Eugene, in 2017, did any new names appear on the architectural scene?
- I can answer your question by telling about the new names that have appeared in MARSH. This year, for the first time, we began to invite the younger generation of Moscow architects to teach in the master's program. In the past, our long list of guest starring studios consisted of celebrities. Practically all leading Moscow architects taught here: Sergei Skuratov, Sergei Tchoban, Vladimir Plotkin, Alexander Tsimailo and Nikolai Lyashenko, BuroMoscow - you can't name all of them. This year, for the first time, we began to recruit from young people - from those who have shown themselves interestingly in recent years. Now we have one studio in the magistracy is run by the Praktika bureau - Grigory Guryanov and Denis Chistov, the second - by Alexander Kuptsov and Sergey Gikalo.
For the next semester, we invite the young FAS (t) team, headed by Alexander Ryabsky and Ksenia Kharitonova. Next year we intend to invite the guys from Citizenstudio who won the Russian Youth Architecture Biennale. It seems to me that today it is these young people who promise some interesting future for Moscow architecture. We want, without offending the "old people", to involve people with youth enthusiasm in teaching. With all due respect to my peers and colleagues, I understand exactly how the studio in which they will teach will develop. But with young guys it is completely incomprehensible, and it is very interesting to me. ***
The presentation of the anniversary prize of the Moscow Archcouncil will take place on December 20, 2017 at the House on Brestskaya (State Budgetary Institution Mosstroyinform, 2nd Brestskaya, 6). The best projects that received an approved architectural and urban planning permit (AGR) in 2017 will compete for the victory. The selection is traditionally held in 6 nominations: an economy class residential building; residential building of superior comfort; object of education and medicine; public object; office and administrative facility; object of trade and household purposes. The jury under the leadership of the chief architect of Moscow Sergey Kuznetsov includes members of the Arch Council, leading architects of the capital, heads of major design bureaus and foreign experts.
