The reporting exhibition for the year is a new event for the MARCH architecture school, although it, of course, continues and develops the ideas of last year's exposition of the school's fifth anniversary at the Museum of Modern Art on Petrovka. Now the exhibition is located right in the MARCH school, in two rooms on the sides of the corridor, however, the corridor has been populated with pictures and statements designed to reveal the philosophy of the school and its approach to education. These are three components - on the right are bachelors, on the left are masters, in the middle is a corridor with "basic principles". By the way, this year the first bachelors graduated, some of them went to the magistracy, so now MARSH has finally confirmed its status as a full-cycle educational institution.
The exhibition is, of course, similar to last year's approach, since MARSH's approach to teaching has not changed. Students are immersed deeply in poetry, starting with simple poetry and ending with the poetics of everything-in-the-world: shadow, form, plot, thing, everyday life, routine. In the first year, bachelors do not work with a computer at all, all the work is done manually. The second task in 2018 for freshmen was to create an installation of objets trouvés, without spending a single ruble, consonant with one poem. There were incidents, someone dragged something from the neighboring territory, they had to give it back; without pipes, including drainpipes, of course, it was not without, but there is also a piece of a bicycle and a ladder with soft seats. In general, it is clear from what rubbish poetry grows. Then the author, together with his subject, had to choose a suitable fragment of the city and read his poem there: the recordings projected onto the wall create, if not listen too closely, the background muttering, working for the atmosphere of the bachelor's hall. However, you can switch and listen. The first task of the freshmen was to rethink a household item and give it a new life.
Of course, the exhibition is not like the usual exhibitions of student work. There are not particularly tablets here, and the pictures hanging over the tables are more likely to illustrate and give names than serve as a "complete presentation." The layouts placed on the tables do not always correspond exactly to the upper hanging, turning, rather, into cities-heaps of both fragments and layouts of various scales and materials. Therefore, the best way to perceive the exhibition is on an excursion, where everything is more or less explained.
Tours are conducted
on Thursdays.
However, the alternative is albums dedicated to projects on the tables. They are quite detailed, they are interesting to read, there is more than can fit on tablets, and there is also quite a lot of poetical, abstract, indirectly related to the project, filling it with depth. Research, references, analogies; stories about yourself and others. Albums alternate - or, to be more precise, they mix - with portfolio books, work diaries that students keep all year: here are drawings, notes, sometimes lecture notes and reviews, a mandatory leitmotif is a report on the presentation and criticism of the project in the course of work. What was recommended to change in the project, sometimes why. All these texts provoke to stay for a long time, without them the exhibition can be passed in 15 minutes, but nothing is particularly understandable. At last year's exhibition were the originals of the diaries, here the diaries are more often published, and the printing is varied, coated paper alternates with tracing paper, and so on. All this is also an encyclopedia of non-trivial presentation techniques, like Peter Zumthor's layouts at the Biennale - both for “paper” and for layouts: made of clay, plaster, wood, tissue paper, wire … then less, some huge layouts, on which the students worked together, simply did not fit. As a result, read - don't read, listen - don't listen to excursions, and the impression remains flickering, not final, leaves a feeling of misunderstanding - well, like almost any good poetry. Calls to return - to understand, and it can be assumed that this effect is not accidental, but quite calculated and is formed, in particular, by the method.
The school's methodology, which will be discussed below in the comments, of course, differs significantly from Russian architectural schools - first of all, in the value of “unnecessary” knowledge and feelings, which is instilled in students as one of the main qualities. Actually, this exhibition differs from last year's in that here, in addition to the main artistic component, in more detail - although, as already mentioned, in a somewhat flickering rhythm - the learning process is shown, tasks and their sequence are outlined. From poems and objects, first-year students move on to the ceremonial - an allegorical house that reflects everyday ritual. A common favorite is the long stepped pyramid, similar to the sleeve of a 19th century camera, dedicated to the ritual of falling asleep. On the fourth, final task, students, relatively speaking, changed personalities, and designed houses for each other, based on what they learned about their comrades, in particular, by working on the ceremonial. All houses are conditionally located in the Basmanny district, and the materials of the models had to correspond to the materials of the proposed house.
It is noticeable that first-year students here are, to some extent, the main ones - because, apparently, they are intended for introductory, "shaking" the consciousness techniques. This does not mean that less attention is paid to the rest, it is just that the stories become more complex further. What are, say, hedgehogs and foxes of the third year of bachelor's degree, who in the first semester were looking for one main idea in Novgorod, drawing, photographing and observing, and then revealing it, but already in Moscow. Or a plaster anti-glare of the voids of the city. Or the reconstruction of Sukharevka without a tower, but with an arcade across the street. Nikolai Belousov's master's workshop "Minimum" was, which is not surprising, with wood: here is a stove-house, a "far away" house on long legs, anchorage to tracts. Yevgeny Assa's workshop explored materiality as such - a project dedicated to bubbles appears here, and a working model, among the stories of a portfolio, folded like bricks from the authors' own bread baked by the authors: “every fifth row is buttered”. The studio of James O'Brien and Joseph van der Steen was devoted to the phenomenon of dwelling in the city - a project of dwellings for the homeless appeared in it, built into the frame of a 19th century hangar near the Kursk railway station, but not filling it entirely.
In a word, projects can be studied and counted, albeit not all, but they are "drowned" in the process - all the time you get lost in reading some stories, writing, looking at pictures. The ubiquitous inscriptions “thank you for not touching the layouts” are placed for a reason - I really want to touch it, it even seems that you have been deprived of something serious, not allowing you to touch them. But there are albums, books, sounds, textures, shadows, deliberately molded forms, materials - it was not for nothing that they called it a "show", this is not a reporting and re-election exposition.
The exhibition will run until July 30. Below are the comments of architects and teachers.
Repin Evgeniya
PhD in Architecture, Professor of the Department of Innovative Design, SamSTU
“Several remarks about the reporting annual exhibition March_2018
The annual reporting exhibition MARCH is a happiness that should not be missed by anyone, especially students of all artistic directions. However, this exhibition is an independent phenomenon and without any educational contexts. The phenomenological school of thought has been beautifully embodied in Russia. This is a very European and very Russian exhibition. On the one hand, it offers end-to-end quality down to the smallest details of projects and expositions and a high degree of intelligence, and on the other, it is all made of the elusive and painfully familiar “our”. You need to come to this crypt for a long time, perhaps more than once (read the explanatory notes highly recommended), and immerse yourself in meanings and beauty. What is this architecture about? It's about you.
But for architecture students from other universities it is extremely risky to be here, since the cultural, professional gap of the MARSH is so huge that it already seems insurmountable. While MARSH was slowly but predictably flourishing as a phenomenon in the educational landscape, other Russian schools were increasingly degraded due to a large number of factors (and this is a subject of special analysis), and it's great that there is a mirror. The leadership of universities and regions should send delegations of their teachers here for open defense, if they do not want the final marginalization of architectural faculties and, as a consequence, the environment of cities. However, traditionally architectural education was elitist, since, in addition to good technical training, it requires a wide cultural background, the ability for intellectual activity as such. MARCH returns this status to the profession and is doing the right thing. ***
Sergey Mishin
architect (based on a post in FB):
“Several intentions in the works of MARSH students seemed close and important to me.
The first is the idea that architecture is no longer viewed as a separate discipline, but as part of the general cultural landscape: poetry, music, literature, painting, philosophy. As it was in the Renaissance. And this, apparently, is the only chance for this profession to survive, having saturated the juices from the common tree of culture and giving its juices to the common cultural organism. Such an exchange of physiological fluids. Of course, this imposes on the architect a seemingly worthless obligation to be much more educated than he is now. Know something else besides BIM and Grasshopper, regulations, nodes and materials. We need unnecessary, superfluous, extraneous knowledge.
The second is sensuality. Sensuality is not in the sense of sexuality, although in this sense too. Sensuality is the ability to react, resonate and analyze these personal resonances and then somehow materialize them. In a broad sense, this school teaches the skill of reflection, whatever that word means to you. Capture the signals of the world, noises and vibrations of the continuum. Be an ear, a nerve, sometimes even a wound. How poetry can be a nerve and a wound. Such a school of development and adjustment of sensuality. This does not in any way cancel out purely craft knowledge and skills, but we see how they are becoming less and less needed, now only half-blindly does not see the withering away of architecture as a craft.
Third: the realization that the project is not the ultimate goal. Purpose - research, excavation, dismemberment, sampling by mouth, scent, eye, constant revision of what was previously adopted. Fixing the process of finding a solution. As in a novel, the main thing is not the epilogue, but the novel itself; in a piece of music, not a cadence or coda, but the piece itself; as in life the main thing is not its outcome, not a box with orders and certificates of honor, but life itself, bitch. So the project is only the final part of the overall composition, which includes first impressions, and first touches, and first sketches. And that is why the final layout is accompanied by notebooks and research diaries, what in ordinary practice goes to the basket, but here it is given almost priority importance. ***
Undergraduate 1 year
Teachers: Sarah Levy, Anna Kiparis, Andrey Fomichev, Anna Shevchenko, Artem Polsky, Natalia Kuzmina, Maria Serova.
Theme: Free workshop
The result of the training was not so much a project as the process of forming architecture based on the analysis of everyday life, at the junction with other disciplines: urban studies, anthropology, journalism. Relevant specialists were involved in teaching.
Theme of the second project: The Object of Poetic Response
The task: to integrate one of the poems of seven modern poets into the object, the object had to be found, select a certain point in the city and read the poem. The result was a video performance - a video with the performance of a poem.
Theme of the third project: The Ceremonial
It was required to study and reflect on a daily ritual, for example, the ritual of falling asleep, and find an architectural form for it. The model had to be built from the same material from which the house was designed.
Theme of the fourth project: 42
Here each student became a customer for his classmate. Based on the description of the ritual of his "client", each student created a residential building in the Basmanny district. The magic number 42 is taken from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
Undergraduate 2 years
Teachers: Nadezhda Korbut-Smirnova, Anton Petukhov, Maria Kurkova, Daria Gerasimova, Anton Timofeev
Theme: Arcadia
The aim of the second year of study is to work with urban fabric. The name Arcadia reflects the idea of a place that embodies paradise, bliss and purity. Several groups first designed places in the city, based on ideal ideas, and after drawing up a general plan, each got a project for a house, and its place was determined at the time of working with fabric, and the function was given randomly.
Undergraduate 3.1
Teachers: Kirill Ass, Anton Gorlenko, Yuri Palmin
Topic: Novgorod
The "game" is based on the line of the poet Archilochus: "The fox knows many secrets, and the hedgehog knows one, but the most important one." In the first semester, the students were "hedgehogs" and studied the architectural detail, having gone to Novgorod, and then created their own on its basis. In the second semester, they became "foxes" and turned circumstances into a design tool.
Bachelor 3.2
Teachers: Ruben Arakelyan, Evgeniya Bakeeva
Topic: Periphery in the city
Students investigated damaged areas in the city and defined the periphery.
Master 1 spring
Teachers: Nikolay Belousov, Svetlana Vasilyeva
Topic: Minimum
The minimum and maximum were seen as two professional architectural principles. It was necessary to design a hotel for 50 people in Astashovo, Kostroma region, next to the unique tower of the 19th century, which embodies the absolute maximum. In contrast, the hotel project was to be the absolute minimum. Each student himself determined what was the minimum for him and how to integrate it into the environment.
Master's 1 autumn
Teachers: Grigory Guryanov, Daria Zaitseva, Denis Chistov
Topic: Landscape Renovation
The studio turned to the lost landscapes, in particular to the Stroginskaya floodplain, and tried to return the abandoned landscape to the city. Students' projects are attempts to overcome the alienation between territory and person.
Master's 1 autumn
Teachers: Sergey Gikalo, Alexander Kuptsov, Maria Tyulkanova
Theme: City Escape
The workshop designed the MARSH summer residence in the Nikola-Lenivets art park. The result was not only the projects of each student, but also a carefully thought out scenario for the existence of the school.
Master 1 spring
Teachers: Ksenia Kharitonova, Alexander Ryabsky, Daria Zaitseva
Theme: Your space
In the first half of the year, undergraduates had to reflect on their idea of space. The result was "A Story about Myself" and "Personal Architectural Dictionary" of 10-12 words. In the second semester, students did a project for their classmate to feel like an author and a client at the same time.
Master 2.2
Teachers: James O'Brien, Joseph van der Steen, Mikhail Mikadze, Oyat Shukurov
Theme: Ontology of home
Based on the renovation program, the students studied different places in the post-Soviet space and tried to answer the question of what life is like in the city now and what it will be like in the future.
Master 2.2
Teachers: Evgeny Ass, Igor Chirkin
Topic: Rethinking Materiality
Students conducted research that dealt with the physical properties of materials, the poetics of material and outstanding buildings from different eras, in which the role of material is especially important. Then everyone chose a material, drew up a construction program, the typology of which corresponds to the selected material, and made a project based on his author's manifesto.
The curator of the exhibition is architect Anton Timofeev.
Graphic Design - Anna Horash.
The general partner of the exhibition is L1Group.
