The book about Kaplya (this pseudonym was captured in the story "O" by a family friend, poet Andrei Voznesensky) breathes with love. Starting with the appearance of the publication: gold on blue, fabric hardcover, gold edge, and ending with the touching drawing of Alexander Brodsky placed inside with the inscription: “A drop on a gold Mercedes leaves its back from the courtyard of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture, while Yuri Eduardovich is eating an eggplant cake on the veranda of the cafe MUAR. With love from Brod."
Among the authors of the texts are Alexander Zeldovich, Irina Korobyina, Arina Levitskaya, Lia Pavlova, Yuri Palmin, Elena Petrova, Vladimir Plotkin, Ivan Savin, Sergey Sitar, Gleb Soshnikov.
The book pays tribute to the mentors: Kapli's father, the outstanding architect of Soviet modernism Leonid Pavlov, and the Moscow Architectural Institute teacher Boris Barkhin. There are Pavlov's drawings made for his daughter and valuable psychological details of the period of study. When Alexandra could not budge the project, Barkhin shrewdly remarked: "Baby, you are not doing anything, because you are afraid to make not a masterpiece."
Of course, the sensational projects and buildings by Meganom are presented in detail (just masterpieces!): From the Rose villa and the Ostozhenka underground villa to the Milk House, the Mercury theater in Barvikha and the unrealized Taganka theater project for Yuri Lyubimov.
Some incredibly curious things are learned from the book. So, from the academic conversation between the architect Yuri Grigoryan, Kapli's partner in 2RStudio and Meganom, and the architect Sergei Sitar, postulates that are important for the entire architectural workshop are clarified. Namely: “The addressee of a piece of architecture is not the community and not the customer, but the history of art and architecture,” says Yuri Grigoryan, and continues “Beauty was almost the main criterion of quality within the bureau”. Sergey Sitar defines the architect's activity as “our grandiose war for beauty”. And we were convinced that the word beauty is forbidden in architectural discourse because of the subjectivity of the concept. No way without him. It is no coincidence that both interlocutors complain about the belittling of the role of the architect.
But Alexandra Pavlova kept the bar like no one else. Yuri Grigoryan tells how roles were distributed among Meganom's partners, emphasizing that Kaplya was responsible for artistry, was a tuning fork, all projects passed through her verdict. And it's worth a lot. In 2003, I interviewed Alexandra Pavlova (it is also given in a book titled "Author's Edited Biography"), and uncompromising attitude and focus on architecture as art are two commandments that I remember.
Some facts seem unexpected and contradictory. Yuri Grigoryan talks about Kapli's religiosity, but at the same time, in the famous apartment on Prechistenka, created by Alexandra together with her husband, architect Andrei Savin, there was a huge fresco "Madonna Art Bla" - a thing of a great degree of defamiliarisation and too immersed in contemporary art. When Sasha tells how difficult it was to subjugate the space of the apartment to his will: “There were objects flying here, refrigerators were burning, we invited the priest, blessed the house,” it seems surprising this coexistence of different principles. But it is even more surprising that Andrei Savin, while living in London, designed the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Holy Royal Martyrs (the contrast with the provocative artistic activity of the Art-Bla group is as if Vladimir Sorokin was writing liturgical texts). According to Alexandra Pavlova, participation in the group gave her a lot in terms of art, but it turned out to be not close in terms of architecture.
A significant part is occupied by Alexandra's frank story about her life and artistic principles - this is material from a television program about Irina Korobina's Drop. Here are some quotes:
“I believe Meganom is balancing the line between contemporary art and architecture.”
“For many years I believed that the main thing for a couple is not to have a common business and not see each other 24 hours a day. Now I doubt it. The struggle of ambitions is not in favor of women."
“I used to wonder why everyone believed in Yura, but I’m not very small. It’s harder for me to trust money and the future, but I have wonderful partners for this case”.
“I don’t use profanity … But. There is an opinion that you can come to an agreement with Yura, never with me."
The fact that Meganom bureau spent ten years in the Museum of Architecture under the legendary director David Sargsyan underlines the transformation of Kapli's life itself into a work of art (the heroine's mother, Liya Pavlova, contributed to the settlement in the MUAR during the preparation of the exhibition about Leonid Pavlov). And the same piece of art was Meganom's office in MUAR, in which Alexandra was always the author-manager of all the holidays: for them she composed the color scheme and the entire entourage. The logo of congratulations and gifts was a snowflake, and Kaplya came up with something new every year: now a black snowflake on a black background, then white on white, then concrete, then chocolate. As Alexander Brodsky wrote, "The drop was an endless, incessant holiday."
