Semyon Mikhailovsky, Commissioner and Curator of the Russian Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale, responded to the FreeSpace theme proposed by the Irish by “Station: Russia”, dedicated to railways. The sponsor of the exposition is, predictably, Russian Railways. On the ground floor, a video of Daniil Zinchenko is shown, in which a seven-day trip across the country to Vladivostok is packed in 7 minutes. Next to it there is a "storage room" with surprises behind ajar doors and a bunch of vintage suitcases. On the second floor - the history of the railway in the form of old stations, the future in the Citizenstudio project and the present - drawings and layouts by Nikolai Shumakov and Sochi station by Nikita Yavein with a detailed commentary on the project in the form of several videos, a layout and even a stuffed bird - the wall is called “Architecture streams ".
The participation of Studio 44 is not surprising, given such large station projects in the company's portfolio as
Ladozhsky railway station is the first new railway station built in the post-Soviet space in 2003, a railway station in Astana or the recently completed railway museum of St. Petersburg. We talked with Nikita Yavein and it turned out that the whole station, or, more broadly, railway architecture for him, is a figurative embodiment of the “architecture of flows”, the reification of the theories of functionalists, one of the brightest representatives of which was the father of Nikita and Oleg Yavein, the famous architect of St. Petersburg constructivism Igor Georgievich Yavein.
Archi.ru:
What were the conditions for your participation in the exhibition, how did it all begin?
Nikita Yavein:
I think we could not but be invited, after all, several of the most significant stations of recent times are the work of our bureau … I even have the title of honorary railway worker; once asked what to reward, and I chose this - very convenient, you know!
As for the work on the pavilion, we were given a wall [in the main hall, from the entrance to the right, - approx. ed.], and we worked only with her, almost did not know what would be next; they only knew that there would be rails. It seemed to me that there should have been more space in front of the wall, now, due to too close focus, our wall fell apart a little … But nothing. Ivan Kozhin worked on the exposition; he did not participate in the project itself.
Why did you choose the Sochi railway station?
This is the last major project in time, besides, it reflects well the ideas of the influence of flows on architecture that are interesting to me. You probably know that the distribution and organization of flows inside the building was one of the important ideas of fix architects of the first third of the 20th century - my father was very interested in this topic. Since childhood, I remember all these arrows, directions, and then he told me a lot about this: here is a train, people get out of each carriage, turn, go in one direction, and now there are a lot of them, it is necessary to expand the platform in this place; and so on. All my life I have been working on this topic, often rereading my father's dissertation; he wrote a book about railway stations, it was published in 1938, and defended his doctoral dissertation in 1964. For some time we worked together, won the competition for BAM stations, however, it ended in nothing, and I had a chance to participate in the design of Dubulti station in Latvia, this is one of the later iconic buildings of his father.
For me, from childhood, a stream is a living thing, a creature that lives its own life. I feel the flow of people like the flow of water: it encounters obstacles or falls like a waterfall, or when it turns, it seethes and "dissatisfied."
How did you develop the ideas of streams?
For functionalists, the separation of streams was a very important, but to a greater extent, a technical task, and we, continuing to be guided by the same principles, in addition, also turn them into the plastic of architecture.
We have illustrated the Sochi railway station with several animated diagrams: on one, the movement of passengers, slightly accelerated for viewing convenience - people leave, then there are more of them, the space expands, then they turn and here the roof rears up. We showed the real timetable for the arrival of trains. On the other - the density of passenger traffic in the form of columns: it is clearly visible how the dimensions of the platforms react to this parameter, how, where the wave is maximum, it, figuratively speaking, “rears the ceiling”, and then spreads out, calms down. All these schemes were not created after the fact - we worked with them, counted, checked.
Sochi railway station, video with the calculation of flows and density:
The station was built using BIM technologies, since all of its 112 thousand elements are completely different, there is not a single repeating angle, even by a degree, but they differ from each other, and each piece of the roof, each metal tube of supports had to be made individually.
Why?
We received the design order quite late. By this time, the curvilinear geometry of railway tracks and platforms had already been formed. In addition, it had to be linked to the layout of the Olympic Park, which was also quite irregular. Our station was born at the junction of two curved layouts, linked them together. Therefore, in particular, everything is so fluid - I call it "Zaha Hadid against my will."
You also tested the layout in a wind tunnel, why?
Yes, there is also a video of the blowdown - in the place where the terminal is located, hurricane winds occur, vortex flows and turbulence occur. The check showed that the house should not fly away, but it helped to identify several weak points, which we fixed. In a word, the entire cycle of work on the project, both calculations and inspiration, is presented on our wall.
On the question of flying away - why does the bird appear? Some kind of predator …
The bird's body, just like the shape of our station, is the result of external forces and an internal life cycle. In both cases, everything is ergonomic, there is nothing superfluous, accidental. According to the plan, the exposition was supposed to have an albatross, we even tried to agree at the University so that we would be given a stuffed animal for the exhibition for a while. But then it turned out that it would be difficult to take it out, so I had to buy a stuffed hawk in Austria. Here are pictures of LeTatlin, the one who embodies the idea of flight, although he did not fly.
We show that we are constructing a building like a bird in flight: it has a structural frame - a ridge, canopy wings over aprons and even wind-dampening flaps … So the bird is associative-design. In this way, we show the different stages of thinking about a project and the appearance of a form: calculations, images, associations. We disclose and explain our workflow. I think the professionals saw it.
There is an idea to repeat this exhibition as part of our anniversary exposition, when we celebrate 25 years of the workshop (and 30 years of PTAM, which preceded it), at the end of 2019. There, I think, we will show the albatross …
addition: lecture by Nikita Yavein on the design of railway stations
