Archi.ru:
When we analyzed the project of the house "Verona" a couple of years ago, then they discovered many allusions: the Palladian large order in combination with the flutes inherent in historicism, the St. Petersburg striped rustic, the loggia of the entrance of reduced proportions characteristic of northern Art Nouveau, the "Mussolinian" approach to the combination of brick and white stone on the side facades … What was primary for you and how was the image of a palazzo-house built, which, apparently, according to the terms of the order, was supposed to be similar-unlike the neighboring “Venice”?
Evgeny Gerasimov:
It was important for the customer to continue the commercially successful history of the Venezia house. What is Venice? As Brodsky put it, "huge carved chests set along the canal." This is exactly what happened with us. The ratio of the width to the height of the building is two to one. With reflection, it becomes square - an absolutely Venetian trick. From the hotel "Sportivnaya", on the site of which the house was built, a staircase-descent to the water has been preserved, pillars stick out of the water, you can tie gondolas.
First, when designing the house "Verona" we took into account the stylistic preferences of the customer: "historicism" in the broadest sense. The second - "pushed off" from the site. The trapezoidal shape made us think of baroque architecture. The main facade overlooking Morskoy Avenue and the secondary ones from the Projektornaya street and park spaces in the neighborhood were clearly visible. From here came the idea to make a semblance of an Italian house. I remembered the Roman churches, San Giorgio Maggiore, the houses on Via del Corso, in which the main facade is made of stone, and the side and rear ones are made of bricks. A common practice for that time. We also use local materials for both houses, produced in the Leningrad region:
clinker bricks are made by LSR, in “Venice” Jurassic marble was used, and on “Verona” - Gatchina limestone.
How would you define the stylistic direction of "Venice" and "Verona": Palladianism, Historicism, Venetianism?
I would not narrow it down to Palladianism, I would not call it strictly neo-neoclassical. This is historicism. Reflections on the topic of traditional order architecture. We see this process throughout history. Palladio started, continued Quarenghi, who, as you know, jokingly signed "Palladio's shadow." Ivan Fomin - isn't it neoclassic? Classics are Greece and Rome, then Palladio was neoclassic, Quarenghi was neo-neoclassic, and Ivan Fomin is understandable. Stalinist architecture is already the fourth and fifth rethinking, if we divide it into the pre-war 1930s and post-war 1950s. Why not return to this process at the beginning of the 21st century? As Alexander Blok said, "art is not new, there is no such thing."
There are architects who promote the classics as the only principle, such as Mikhail Filippov, Maxim Atayants, Mikhail Belov … There are those who cannot or do not want to work in the classics on principle. And very rare are those who make "strong", textured at least historicism, and are able to work equally with modernism. How do you do it?
A professional architect should be able to do everything. Whether he is interested is the second question. Talking about historicism does not mean being able to do. Knowing the sheet music is not enough to be a composer, drawing Piranesi paestums does not mean being able to design buildings. I am a supporter of the slogan "words do not mean anything, the result is important." There is no taboo for me. In our age of pluralism, thank God, no one owes anything to anyone, and neither does architecture. And art owes nothing to anyone, it is self-sufficient. Good historicism is better than inept modernism. And vice versa. I am for quality.
Do you perceive your historicized and modernist projects on an equal footing? Which ones are more convenient and which ones are more interesting to work with?
It is interesting for me to search both in this clearing and in that one. I feel cramped, stuffy within the framework of one paradigm, I do not understand why I should narrow the field of my creative interests. This can be called unprincipled, or you can paraphrase Oscar Wilde: "I have one principle - the lack of principles." As in food: it is impossible to eat one dish all your life, even if it is your favorite. There are brilliant architects like
Richard Mayer, for example, who do one thing, in this case white square architecture. But I would be bored, I would die of melancholy, if they told me that all my life I will draw only pilasters. This is not enough for me, I am bored.
Historicism for me is one of the areas of modern architecture, which has its own market segment. It is also interesting for our workshop - to rethink traditional techniques in new materials and technologies, draw, reflect. In addition, we all think beautiful is what we used to think of as such. If you ask a hundred people what they like more: the neoclassicism of Ivan Fomin or Auguste Perret, or the constructivist house, the answer will be quite predictable. Léon Crier asked himself a question about this: in what houses do celebrity architects like Norman Foster and Jean Nouvel live? Nine out of ten live in houses built in the 18th and 19th centuries. Both us - companies, and me, as an architect, are interested in searches in both modernist and traditional architecture, based on the human scale and the canons found by our ancestors.
As a continuation of the previous question - perhaps
a house in Kovensky Lane and is there an ideal solution to restrained contextuality and modern glass?
On this site there is an imperishable monument - the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, designed by Leonty Benois and Marian Peretyatkovich. It seemed wrong to us to compete with them. There was already a diamond in this place, we made a calm and dignified setting: we convinced the customer to lower the height, retreat from the red line and make a piazzetta - the highlight of the project. As a result, the western facade of the church was opened, sunlight poured through the windows into the central nave, stained-glass windows began to play - this had not happened before. The residential part, which faces the red line, is made in the St. Petersburg rhythm: the pier is equal to the width of the window. The recessed part was interpreted as a St. Petersburg firewall: it is taller, flatter, the windows are a little more chaotic and there is no such detail.
How do you feel about the concept of "stylization"? After all, you can also stylize modernist techniques
Almost everything after Ancient Greece and Rome is stylization. The question is whether she is skillful or not. We see stylizations of Gothic, Romanesque … Or what Matvey Kazakov did in Moscow. Open any modern magazine - isn't there stylization, is there something new in relation to the 1930s, or the findings of the modernists of the 1960s-1970s? All modern architecture comes down to one dozen techniques. Students from Finland to Portugal paint the same way.
In the current stylizations, no, no, yes, and a sort of note breaks through
Stalinist architecture. How do you feel about it - drive it out, but do not drive it out in any way; you think you have driven away; or, on the contrary, do you accept it as a historical reality?
I'm okay with this. Stalinist architecture is characterized by the same height of the floors. In classicism before the First World War, in the Empire style of Rossi and Quarenghi, the first floor is an office, the second is more ceremonial, with halls and manor apartments. Further, the height of the floor dropped, students and commoners lived in the attics. Then, with the standardization of the members of society, there was a standardization of the floors. They are usually the same from the second to the penultimate: before the attic was for the Raskolnikovs, today they are penthouses. This typology makes today's architecture similar to Stalin's.
Stalinist architecture, whether we like it or not, is one of our ups. When we turned our backs on this, the great architects of modernism, to put it mildly, were surprised: you are strange Russians, you have such achievements, and you give them up at once. Or the same
herzog & de meuron, who say: your Stalinist architecture is chic! The peak of architecture, to which you still have to go and go!
She has stood the test of time. We contemptuously call the seemingly progressive architecture of the 1960s-1970s "Khrushchevs", "glass" - they have not passed the test of time. And Stalin's does not irritate, this is already a lot - not to irritate with your appearance.
Yours is almost finished
the project of "Russia House", from the same series of historicism. What do you consider to be luck in it, and what, in your opinion, did not work out very well?
The task was to make a large complex on a large plot. In its typology, it goes back to the Petersburg apartment building: like on Mokhovaya 27-29, Kamennoostrovsky 26-28, or like Tolstovsky house on Rubinstein Street. The result is one open courtyard and two private courtyards, from where the tenants enter the apartments - the most traditional St. Petersburg reception.
The house is symmetrical through and through, it has a Russian construction - there is a main axis, and each element and sub-element has its own axes, according to the principle of the building of the Senate and Synod. Flesh from the flesh of St. Petersburg.
The facades are an attempt to rethink the pre-Petrine architecture, the so-called à la russe, as on the Petrogradskaya side, on Staronevsky Prospekt, as a church in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Romanovs on Poltavskaya or Fedorovsky town in Tsarskoye Selo.
There has always been a rethinking of pre-Petrine architecture in St. Petersburg, we are returning to a tradition that, for obvious reasons, was interrupted for a hundred years. It's even provocative, risky: it's easy to fall into kitsch here. But we hope we stayed on the verge of good form.
When I walk by, I see genuine interest: people are taking pictures in front of the building, studying the facade, trying to understand what it is made of. A person can feel with his skin that he cannot be forced to be photographed against the background of a black square, even if ten critics explain how cool it is. And here people walk on their own without talking and convincing. So there is something in it.
Do you intend to develop a historical theme - you already have in your portfolio the historicism of the Renaissance plan, and the neo-Russian style, and the Northern Art Nouveau, and the "Stalinist" house on Pobeda Street - would you like to give preference to any direction?
There is no set - “we need to develop”. We always go from the site. And from a momentary inner sensation, intuition. We walk for a long time, look, try to imagine what will be appropriate, what is right for the customer, and what will captivate us too. Each site has a latent need for change, you need to listen to the whisper of the place.
