They are young, talented and fearless. Their strengths are the ability to hear the demands of the time and respond promptly to them, the willingness to solve several problems at the same time, including areas that are unconventional for architectural bureaus. They believe that architecture can improve the world around us, that lack of mercy will pay off sooner or later, and work can and should be a daily holiday. And, most importantly, their own six-year experience fully confirms all these wonderful things.
The founders of the People's Architect bureau Alexei Kurkov, Anton Ladygin and Dmitry Selivokhin and GAP Nika Barinova-Malaya are taking part in the conversation.
Archi.ru:
How long have you been working in the team?
Anton Ladygin:
- About six years. We started with the fact that the three of us, with Mitya and Alexey, made a presentation for developers on the topic of economical housing. We were still working in different places at that time, we were employees of three leading Moscow workshops. For some time they acted in such a mode, and after a year or a year and a half they moved completely to our bureau.
Dmitry Selivokhin:
- By the way, it was a great time, rock and roll like that. After all, we started from absolute zero - no office, no established base, nothing at all. It was just that they called developers from the phone book, who at first did not even want to meet with us. And they didn’t want it soon.
Why did you decide to embark on this adventure? What was the idea that inspired you to overcome all these difficulties?
Anton: We studied in the same course and at that time we were still doing some projects together, and quite successfully. It has always been very cool to work in a team that we ourselves have created. This is a completely different level of motivation than serving in a large office.
Dmitry: I worked from the second year, in serious workshops, but by and large I could not imagine the essence of the profession. I was always interested in how it works from a business point of view, and after graduation I was already seriously thinking that I should try to do something myself. From the point of view of personal comfort, it is very important for me to work with friends and like-minded people. We have a laboratory of ideas, we can afford any experiments. We pour tea, sit down at the table - and there is a brainstorming session. This, I believe, is one of the components of happiness - when work becomes a way of life. Even if there is a lot of it and time pressure, we still have a holiday here all the time.
Did you immediately imagine what exactly you want to do?
Anton: At first, we focused on a certain undeveloped segment, an unoccupied niche, into which large bureaus simply do not fit. We are talking about the design of country houses - not mansions, but specifically summer cottages for the mass consumer. High quality modern architecture for little money. As a result, this idea did not work, the queue for our projects did not line up, and our strategy was transformed: we began to think about small, lightweight park projects in terms of intimacy, which can be made in the mode of a small team.
Dmitry: But here, too, it turned out to be not so simple. It seemed that one had only to start - and everything will work out by itself. But then it turned out that in fact it is almost impossible to fit into this niche from scratch like this, because everyone works through the department, through the ministry, so it is not enough just to come to some park and explain how well we will do it. And quite unexpectedly, our story began more with museum design than with park architecture, which is now associated with us. It turned out that this field is much less conservative than the urban beautification segment.
Anton: Museum design, as a rule, exists on the verge of several genres. For example, exhibitions are architectural specifics, graphic design, and something else … Or, for example, navigation projects - on the one hand, these are pure graphics, technology, and on the other, spatial thinking, the logic of building a 3D space. We were really carried away - the variety of challenges forced us to develop in several areas, which, in fact, predetermined our interdisciplinary approach to working with museums. On the basis of our team, a whole design department has even emerged, which does everything - from IT design, Internet projects to complex rebrands of museums.
And how did you manage to break into the field of park construction?
Dmitry: This is an amazing story. So we called everyone on the list and everywhere received polite answers - they say, send a letter to the post office, we will call you back. And suddenly in Izmailovsky Park they tell us - we need to do
pavilions. Draw, show. We drew, drew, of course, everything is free. And at some point, they suddenly told us that it’s good now, let us conclude an agreement with you. It was a shock for us, we did not know how to conclude contracts then. But from that moment on we went, as if the stars began to fold in the right direction.
Anton: The situation so developed that we were in the right place at the right time - and received a rather large tender for us.
Dmitry: In fact, of course, it was not so accidental. By that time, we had been hitting the same spot for more than a year - not having a single contract, no salary, no special prospects, and, frankly speaking, our nerves began to fail slowly …
Do you think persistence is the secret of your success?
Dmitry: Not only, of course. We both then and now differ in that we do not just make a project, but simply lay our bones on it, mastering, if necessary, any adjacent areas.
Anton: We actively use all the advantages that such an interdisciplinary vision gives - on the one hand, the architectural and spatial, and on the other, the qualifications that were added with new employees who are more competent in the field of design.
Dmitry: We do not hesitate to initiate projects ourselves that seem interesting to us. We do not have a rigid financial framework, we try to work on the basis of the task, not the budget. By the way, life has shown that promising projects often entail financially interesting stories. In the medium term, all of this is justified. Although in the short term, of course, it may seem that we are just such unmercenary fans.
Anton: Some kind of mission must be present. We have to like what we do, even if it's not very pragmatic.
Why did you choose this name for the bureau?
Anton: We initially liked the idea of making professional modern architecture accessible to everyone. Park construction is also aimed at a wide audience. And the museum is a public space, these are such palaces for millions. We actively listen to the opinions of the residents of the districts where we work and participate in discussions. There is an institution of public hearings - it is usually considered a profanation, but why not use it too to explain your ideas and get feedback?
Tell us about the projects that you are currently working on
Alexey Kurkov:
- At the moment we are actively involved in the restoration project of the Zvenigorod Manege. This is the oldest brick building in the city, where, after restoration, the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum should be located. It was originally a warehouse, a utility building from the mid-19th century. Then, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the building was reconstructed, some openings were laid, new ones were opened - and turned into an arena, and from the 1920s they began to show films. In the 1960s, the building was quite radically reconstructed and now it looks more like a provincial house of culture than an architectural monument of the 19th century. Our project involves the clearing of walls and the exposure of historic brickwork with characteristic arched openings. This part of the volume will become the basis of the composition, and we kind of level the rest to emphasize that this is a monument, and everything else is later layering. We want the building itself to be a museum piece.
Alexei: In St. Petersburg we are reorganizing the basements of the Yusupov Palace, the very ones where Rasputin was killed. They will now become available for visiting, a whole additional exhibition floor will appear. We also develop navigation there, which extends both to the first floor and to the manor park - thanks to this, the information frame of the museum is created. And immediately we do the interior design, in the recommendation mode. This is a strategic museum project that involves several genres at once.
Dmitry: We are doing landscaping of the Terletskaya oak forest - wooden architecture, all sorts of fashionable features, a navigation system. All this is on the territory of 11 hectares. Designed for Gorky Park
improvement of the Golitsyn pond, built there a house for swans with ready-made facades.
Almost finished
improvement of the central part of Troitsk. This is a science city, and we came up with everything there on the topic of science - benches in the form of sinusoids, asphalt lighting, installations … Not a very typical story for such towns, but residents like it.
Plus, as if less significant, but for us, maybe even more important objects are
courtyard areas in the Biryulevo area. We are making a cultural environment out of indoor areas, which, I believe, directly affects the life of the microdistrict.
In general, we always focus on the cultural component. This includes restoration work, and attention to cultural heritage, and at the same time, we often integrate architectural elements characteristic of this place earlier. For example, we have designed wooden structures that now surround the monument to Yuri Dolgoruky. If you look closely, these are variations on the theme of the Stalinist Empire style, which is quite appropriate in the context of Tverskaya Square.
What is good architecture in your understanding?
Anton: Architecture is an applied discipline, and we would like it to serve to improve the world around. And here the concept of relevance is very important. For example, the Zvenigorod Manege project from our side is absolutely not ambitious, we tried to bring a minimum of our design into it and, conversely, to highlight the object itself in its historical form. And somewhere, on the contrary, it is simply necessary to make an art object deliberately out of context, and maybe even sacrifice a function for this.
Nika Barinova-Malaya:
- I think architecture should always answer the question posed. There is such a concept of "challenge-response", it says that civilization develops only when it has questions to which it must answer for the sake of survival. It seems to me that this can also be applied to architecture: the task of an architect is to hear the question that is right here and now and to answer it adequately. It is a matter of professional intuition and talent.
What is the strategy for further development of the bureau?
Dmitry: We are planning to expand the direction of museum design. We offer a unique set for museums, in this area there are not many associations offering complex services, so there is enough work for everyone. We are one of the very few teams that can do everything on a turnkey basis - from door handles to the concept of museum development, which, of course, is not exactly architecture. Of course, we are planning to seriously promote the area of improvement.
Are there already any projects in this direction?
Dmitry: Of course. We made a concept for the development of Gorokhovets - a completely unique small town, where a unique concentration of churches and monasteries, as if they had collected all the most beautiful from all over Russia. We made a complete architectural and artistic strategy for the city's development and defended it at public hearings, in the Federation Council … We hope it will be implemented one way or another.
Alexei: We also have plans for a direction related to vocational education. We are now at the final stage of negotiations with Moscow Architectural Institute in order to hold several lectures there on how to launch a project in real life: after all, the process of bringing a project from the concept stage to construction in the status of a general designer is fundamentally different from everything that an architect usually does and what is taught in institute. We have gained this experience very harshly, we have filled a lot of cones, and now I want to pass it on to the next generations.
What are your own professional guidelines?
Anton: We, of course, love our avant-garde, like the modernism of the 1960s, Pavlov, Belopolsky …
Dmitry: Japanese, Swiss, Peter Zumthor …
Of course, we have great respect for our Russian colleagues who work in the field of precisely the modern form. The difficulties they have to face are now obvious, while they still manage to make high-quality and interesting architecture, and not only in Russia.
In general, I really like what the guys from our team are doing. You can say I'm a fan of them!
