The defense took place on February 5 in the "Ruin" of the Museum of Architecture. Shchusev. The seminar was the final event of the NER exhibition, about which - see the article and two interviews.
The most realistic picture came from the group "After Tomorrow" (curated by A-B studio, urbanist Alexei Novikov, philosopher Pyotr Safonov); the most fantastic - by Alexei Levchuk and Vladimir Frolov (ANO); the most philosophical - at the "Notes of Tafuri" (City of Coincidence); the most utopian and at the same time realizable is by Gleb Sobolev (Dispersion), and the most hooligan and life-affirming is by the NIB Group of Alexander Lozhkin.
After Tomorrow
Topophilus, nomad, individualist and family
The architects created a scale of comfort, where, in decreasing order of importance, there are: good relations, democracy, friendship, financial security, good physical shape, the opportunity to start a family, interesting work, faith in God, etc., and in last place - money. Emphasizing that the vector of modern life is moving from survival to self-expression, and from full employment to the growth of free time, the authors identified four types of people. These are topophiles, tied to a place, and nomads, who are constantly moving. They are family people with more binding bonds and individualists who build relationships more freely.
Based on these types, which are already there today, the members of the group have composed many fantastic novels with different characters. Among the topophiles, there are, for example, residents of the city of Pripyat in the form of a nuclear mushroom formed in the Chernobyl region. And other topophiles live on an island of garbage that floats near Japan, but three times more than it. The nomadic girl travels to India with the help of the "leviaphon", and, having recharged it, leaves for the jungle to study plants. An individualist girl works one day a week for three hours, and rests on the green roof of her house with a textbook on laser physics (that is, people will grow wiser). In general, this is a world similar to ours, with an expanding number of possibilities.
Concept and authors ***
Nib group
SIBkommunalka. City of Breeding Creators
The prototype of the concept of Alexander Lozhkin and Vyacheslav Mizin was the project of the constructivist house-commune of Kuzmin in the city of Anzhero-Sudzhensk for 5,140 people, where the children had to live separately from their parents, but there was a common wardrobe for 3,000 places (women would not like it!). The concept has transformed from an art concentration camp for forced creation, announced before the start of the seminar, to a city, oddly enough, reminiscent of New York. It is dominated by sensuality and comfort, which are responsible for the images of female forms that appear in the buildings (I recall Gogol's "voluptuous forms of domes").
In this city, the Big Theaters, panel anthills and garbage bags a la Gehry are completely mixed. Buildings connect, or rather, copulate (making love New York skyscrapers Empire State and Chrysler all remember from the cartoon Koolhaas), forming hybrids.
From a bird's eye view, such a city does not look handsome, but vital and viable. New York came to mind because the traditional seven-story stucco buildings in Manhattan, lining narrow, pedestrian-friendly streets, are mingled with glass skyscrapers receding inland from the red line. Classic facades give comfort at the pedestrian level, and skyscrapers give the energy of the Babylonian metropolis. The city of the NIB Group is quite a model for future cities. The vital energy of culture in the project is embodied by giant busts of Pushkin and other cultural heroes protruding from the buildings.
The authors stated that the merit of the concept is that it cannot be implemented. Although, if the authors allow the residents of the city to engage in more than just creativity, the project will become more realistic. The art city should quickly multiply and multiply, the unit is an art commune for 5140 people, but cells multiply, and the number quickly reaches 1 billion 347 million people. When asked whether there will be hairdressers and restaurateurs in the city, the architects did not answer clearly. But they firmly promised that "continuous cultural development leads to irreversible cultural genesis and multiple catharsis."
Concept and authors ***
Dispersion
Gleb Sobolev proposed to transfer the pathos of space colonization to earth and engage in the development of wild spaces with the help of walking capsules or research stations such as those operating in Antarctica, that is, autonomous. “The ability to digitally print 3D models of any size can simplify the creation of complex shapes and speed up the modeling or construction process. The unlimited possibilities of CNC machines allow you to produce quality parts individually, without resorting to the services of engineering corporations. Individual air delivery systems are already able to cover most of the courier and postal work. The logic of modern technical development leads us to the concept of dispersed settlement. When can we stop being forced to gather in close agglomerations and live a beautiful, free life of “terranauts” - new colonizers of free lands,”he said.
Those present, in particular Aleksey Novikov, doubted that people would go to the taiga, because a person is a social being, everyone, on the contrary, gravitates towards cities, spends energy more rationally. The idea of dispersion has environmental reasons, but the main question is what will people do in the new territories. The Stolypin train has left, agriculture is unlikely to pass. If we are talking about a specific research expedition, ok, this is possible. If about a permanent settlement, the question arises of resources and dependence on ordinary cities, which should be no further than 60-100 km. Where to get gasoline and electricity, who wants to be heated with wood or even pellets? And most importantly, what will people do there? The concept as a whole resembles ideological ecovillages that exist in the world, but, as a rule, no further than 60 km from large cities.
Concept and authors ***
Tafuri's Notes
the city of coincidences or the glass bead game
The ideas of the editorial board of "Notes of Tafuri" are the most difficult to grasp. The city is interpreted as an intertext, which is written by all the architects of the world, picking up one or another line in the past. The main symbolist architect is Aldo Rossi, author of the book "City Architecture" as interpreted by Peter Eisenman. The red cancer in Rossi's sketch refers to the treatise of Nikolai Kuzansky, in whose coat of arms there was cancer, since his surname Krebs translates as cancer.
A city of coincidence is a city on the site of another city. Key is Campo Marzio Piranesi's famous plan, where he fantasizes and builds on the lines of the plan. Here we begin, as the curator Sergei Sitar said, commenting on the performance of the group, to change the past and in this connection remembered the Borges method. Peter Eisenman had a one-year seminar where students built on the Campo Marzio's plan with modern buildings, and the results of the seminars were demonstrated at the Venice Biennale. Yuri Plokhov in his presentation shows that ancient Rome already presupposes the Baroque St. Peter's Basilica. And then he considers the imposition on Campo Marzio of plans for the cemetery of San Cataldo Aldo Rossi and the House of the People's Commissariat for Finance Ginzburg, the works of Luis Kahn, and so on.
Not only city plans, but also historical events are interpreted by the "Notes of Tafuri" group as a symbolic text. For example, the destruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in 1931 coincides with the year of birth of Aldo Rossi, and the completion of the construction of the new Cathedral of Christ the Savior is the year of Aldo Rossi's death in a car accident (1997). The fate of the temple itself and the place where it stood / was absent / stands is a special case of the city of coincidences.
Concept and authors ***
ANO
Architecture after zero-object
Finally, the most frightening and at the same time visually beautiful concept of panhumanism is proposed by Alexei Levchuk and Vladimir Frolov. Slender and athletic panhumanistic creatures, as predicted by Alexei Levchuk, will squeeze people not in 500, as you thought, but in 15-20 years.
“They are immortal and capable of any transformation of their body. Their flesh includes the genetic codes of all living creatures on Earth, from trees and bacteria to complex mammals, they can decay and assemble into complex structures. Since they are immortal, but have retained the ability to reproduce, they will fill the entire space of the Universe. Pangumanists have more than 50% human genes. And people will hide in houses, which are so-called zero-objects.
This is a zeroed out Khrushchev, an analogue of Malevich's Black Square. The walls are made of transparent concrete, and the interior space without partitions is freely assimilated. When I asked about the relationship between panhumanists and people, it was said that people are afraid of them and do not want to come into contact. The architects continue with this concept their project with bird-people living in tree-houses.
The sad truth is that pangumanists don't need architecture. People needed architecture as their idea of the world, as a “symbolic expression of cosmological structures” (Hans Sedlmayr), and Khrushchev remained from him. However, the saint's hut in the transparent Khrushchev is preserved, which means that not all is lost.
Concept and authors ***
