We have recently published a pavilion-ball, built in front of the Moscow Danilovsky market by students and curators of AA Visiting School Moscow, a temporary structure for lectures and master classes. After some time we received a letter from the co-author of the market, the famous Soviet architect and historian of modernism Felix Novikov: the author of the building, calling institutes a course on professional ethics. We gave the course leader of AA Visiting School Moscow the opportunity to respond, and as a result, a correspondence ensued, during which Felix Novikov once again praised the pavilion, suggested making it permanent and praised the recent reconstruction of the Danilovsky market, which, in his words, was revived "like a Phoenix from the ashes." … And, besides, he told the story of another market that he designed - a significantly distorted Perovsky.
The editors, observing the correspondence, decided to arrange a survey and collect examples of polar attitudes towards the monuments of modernism: respectful preservation on the one hand, and disrespectful distortions or losses on the other. Coming soon. We suggest sharing examples in the comments, but always from each commentator - paired, good and bad. In the meantime, we publish, with the permission of the authors, the correspondence.
Felix Novikov, 07/07/18:
Replica of the author “Wonderful ball was put in front of Danilovsky market by excellent students and excellent tutors, but nevertheless, with living authors, one of whom I am, and the other designer Viktor Fedorovich Shablya, it would be necessary to somehow interact with us. However, when I studied at the Moscow Architectural Institute in the second half of the 40s of the last century, the course of professional ethics was not taught to us, and now it is also not in the curriculum. If it were my will, I would certainly establish it in all art schools in Russia. It is useful to listen to it after the defense of the diploma and before the presentation of this document.
By the way, this course would be very exciting. Just imagine how many insults were inflicted on each other by architects, artists, writers, actors over many centuries of human history. How many unfair judgments, scandals, fights and duels happened on various occasions during the development of world culture in this very respectable intellectual circle. Felix Novikov.
Alexandra Chechetkina:
“Dear Felix Aronovich, From the editorial office of archi.ru they sent us your comment regarding the project of the pavilion near the Danilovsky market. First of all, I want to admit that we did not expect such an interested attention from you to our temporary building. Thanks for that! Students designed and assembled the pavilion with their own hands in just two weeks, and the pavilion will stand for about three months.
Unfortunately, your remark was ahead of our invitation to read a lecture on the design and construction process of the Danilovsky market. As part of the same event, we would ask you to give your assessment of the design solution of the pavilion, the starting point of which, of course, was the architecture and details of the Danilovsky market. It was this proposal that we sent to the administration of the Danilovsky market for consideration and waited for their response before writing to you. I think such an event would be inspiring for both the open public and the professional community. Such experience would be especially valuable for us - the participants of the educational course. Would you be interested in such interaction?
Alexander Chechetkina.
Felix Novikov:
“Dear Alexandra Igorevna!
Your letter convinced me that you did not mean to ignore the living authors of the market - me and the designer Viktor Fedorovich Shablya, but, on the contrary, planned our meeting and a detailed conversation about the history and engineering nature of this structure. And I hastened with my remark. Since I do not intend to visit Moscow in the near future, I will tell you something about the peculiar history of this project. It began 68 years ago, when I, a student of the Moscow Architectural Institute, being in the 6th year of the institute in 1949, chose the Covered Market in Moscow as the theme of my undergraduate project.
One of the sketches that I have preserved was presented in the form of a domed structure, raised on a stylobate and having eight formwork. My teachers - Academician Ivan Nikolaevich Sobolev and Stepan Khristoforovich Satunts, considered it a favorite and I, having completed this project, received an excellent mark for it.
Thirty years have passed. In 1979 I was the head of workshop No. 5 of MNIITEP and at the same time received an order to design the Danilovsky market. I knew that the scientific department of the institute was engaged in the design of the dome cover of the Druzhba sports hall, which was then under construction in Luzhniki for the 1980 Olympics, and the experimental base of the institute was performing its structural elements. Often driving along the metro bridge, I saw a construction site and it seemed to me that this structure would be more interesting with demoulding.
And then, bearing in mind that the construction site allows it, I turned to the head of the scientific department of the institute, G. N. Lvov, with a proposal to design the Danilovsky market in the form of a dome structure with formwork. The latter was my imperative. German Nikolayevich immediately agreed. Later, together with the architect of the scientific department Gabriel Akulov, we determined the parameters of the dome, and in the same year my workshop released the project of this object, which was approved. The authors of the project were also architects G. Akulov and L. Gilburd - an expert on market technology and designers of the scientific department E. Zhukovsky and V. Shablya. Subsequently, the detailed design and supervision of the installation of structures was carried out by the scientific department.
And now, Alexandra Igorevna, I will turn to the work with which you and twenty of your students have enriched the Danilovsky market. I liked it immediately. I will say more, as they say, this is what the doctor ordered. And even more - he was missing here. The ball complements the composition of the domed structure, emphasizes its scale, and I would like to extend its stay at this place. I think that in three months Muscovites will get used to it and, if it disappears, they will sadly remember Bulat Okudzhava's song "The girl is crying, the balloon has flown away …". Let's propose to the market directorate to replace it with a more durable construction. I think that the ball can serve advertising purposes all year round, and even a snow "skullcap" in winter will decorate it in its own way.
As for the edifying part of my answer - the proposal to teach a course in professional ethics, it is not accidental. The Danilovsky market was lucky that after thirty years of operation it was subjected to a highly professional reconstruction, freed from all the ugly buildings surrounding it and appeared in a renewed form, like a Phoenix from the ashes.
But I also had another market in Moscow - Perovsky - designed a year earlier than Danilovsky and built in 1982 four years earlier. There was a triangular section that determined the shape of the structure and the flyover crossing the railway from which he looked from above became the reason for the creation of the fifth facade, perceived when moving along it. The stepped covering of the building is made of light metal structures visible from the outside and from the inside, and the rear facade of the hotel protected the residential area from the noise of the landing stage.
I don’t know when the building became a “Hypermarket of Auto Parts”, who did the reconstruction project (no one approached me), but it was crippled by the tightly closed triangle of summer trade, various extensions that destroyed all the logic of building an object and advertising design, as well as the phrase itself, demonstrate the tastes of my uninvited collaborators.
