The next, seventh in a row has ended
biennial "Architecture of St. Petersburg", which is a selection of new projects and buildings of the leading bureaus of the city, united in the independent association OAM in 2000. The traditional venue for the Biennale, the Marble Hall of the Ethnographic Museum, emphasizes the special status of the exhibition and its participants. The works of the most popular and actively building bureaus in St. Petersburg clearly represent the level and state of the city's architectural and construction market, fixing its current and tomorrow's trends in drawings, models, visualizations and photographs.
The representative function of the Biennale is complemented by a business program that attracts participants, including from related fields - developers, builders, suppliers and manufacturers of materials. The need to establish a dialogue not only with citizens and potential partners, but also with representatives of their own shop leads to the search for new formats. We talked with several members of the OAM and invited participants of the program about the changes and trends that the Biennale demonstrated in 2019, as well as about possible ways of further development.
Nikita Yavein
"Studio 44"
The biennial traditionally presents projects and buildings of the OAM bureaus over the past two years. It turns out to be a kind of "exhibition of the achievements of the national economy", a kaleidoscope of different design cultures, different understanding of the St. Petersburg style. The bureaus participating in the exhibition are very different. For example, Gerasimov and Zemtsov are completely different architectural worlds and different perceptions. And everyone shows their own in and definition of the past period, their achievements. It is almost impossible to create a single programmatic statement out of this. It is impossible to dock the inconsistent. The only thing that somewhat neutralizes the difference in approaches is the uniform form of filing. And it makes no sense to portray unity where there is none and cannot be.
There are two ways to create some kind of programmed exhibitions: either to make individual exhibitions, which we will probably come to in one way or another, or to make group or thematic exhibitions with a curator and his curatorial staff. and denier. But the St. Petersburg Biennale has its own tradition, and it seems to me that it should be preserved, experimenting more with the design of exhibitions.
We tried to do our part a little differently to accentuate the project of the Museum of Defense and Blockade. In some ways, this experiment was successful, something still needs to be thought out. But it is already clear that there is an opportunity and meaning in the search for some new formats for the presentation of architecture in the framework of the Biennale.
Studio 44 is now preparing for a large anniversary exhibition, which we want to do in a year, and at it we will try to take into account the experience and participation in the Architecture of St. Petersburg Biennale and other exhibitions in which we have taken part lately. ***
Evgeny Gerasimov
"Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" From the trends demonstrated by the 2019 Biennale, I can single out the pragmatism of the projects presented. It can be seen how, under the influence of increasingly harsh market realities, the architectural community gets rid of illusions. Fewer and fewer “castles in the air” are being designed, which are attractive and at the same time unrealizable due to the inconsistency with the current economic situation. I am glad that the Biennale accurately reflects the current level of development of society, the development of construction technology and the development of the real estate market in St. Petersburg. We understand exactly where we are, what we are and where we will be in the near future.
There is an increase in standardization, and this is especially noticeable in the field of housing, which makes up almost 95% of the construction volume in our city. Population incomes are falling. Less and less high-end housing is being designed and built. The overwhelming majority of projects are comfort and economy class, which are assembled according to the same standards and models, like a Zhiguli car.
Discussions on the development of the Gray Belt and public spaces of St. Petersburg aroused great interest. These topics will become more and more relevant in the near future.
It's nice that young architectural firms are more and more actively declaring themselves with their projects and constructions. I would like them to be more involved in the exhibition process. People work and work hard, hard, and we would like to see them in the ranks of the exhibitors. I think the next Biennale will have a more varied exposition. And we will probably continue experimenting with project presentation formats to make it more understandable for non-specialists. This year we are showing models of our houses, but it can also be videos showing projects in development.
We are open to dialogue with the city and townspeople and want to show the results of our work to everyone who is interested in architecture and is ready for a constructive dialogue. ***
Sergey Oreshkin
AND. LEN”In the 2019 Biennale, we invited several architectural bureaus to present their projects, which are now actively working and, possibly, will become members of the OAM in the future. There are not many of them, but what they do is very interesting.
Judging by the works presented in both the main and additional expositions, we can say that, as always happens during a crisis, the level of architecture has grown again. This happens every time the economic situation worsens, the volume of work falls, and competition, on the contrary, increases.
This year, for the first time, the program of the Biennale includes a parallel exhibition on a third-party site - a kind of trial balloon - in the "Golitsin Loft" young architects presented the project"
Manifesto . The more of these events, the better. We wanted to do something in the new St. Petersburg ArtPlay, but decided not to scatter for now. Maybe next time we will try to develop this format, we will experiment.
Another distinctive feature of this Biennale was the absence of invited foreign guests. It seems that over the past ten years, too much attention and support has been given to our foreign colleagues, while Russian architects do not receive any support in promoting them abroad. Western architects come with grants from embassies and government departments. Moreover, our legislation allows them to open practice in Russia and compete with Russian architects. We, in turn, do not have such an opportunity abroad. Our state does not support its architects, and Western countries toughly defend their markets. I am convinced that parity must be restored. The level of Russian architecture has grown significantly in recent years. And we are able to compete with our colleagues. Not yielding to them as projects, we have the opportunity to pursue a more flexible pricing policy. For example, those stages that foreign bureaus do for 14-15% of the construction cost, we, in fact, do for 1.5-2%. ***
Anatoly Stolyarchuk
AM Stolyarchuk
The Biennale "Architecture of St. Petersburg 2019", which is being held for the seventh time, reflects the high professional level and exactingness of the design of the expositions of the bureaus that are members of the OAM association. Despite the influence of globalism, they manage to demonstrate the techniques of the St. Petersburg architectural school: following the context, respectful attitude to historical buildings. Petersburg architecture suffers from the imperfection of the regulatory framework, the conjuncture of the construction market, the aggressive populism of a certain circle of public organizations.
The Association of Architectural Workshops holds several recent exhibitions with the participation of the Guild of Managers and Developers (RGUD). This gave a new quality and relevance to the business program of the exhibition, attracted a large number of participants and spectators. One of the most significant events of the exhibition this year can be called the panel discussion "The fate of the gray belt of St. Petersburg", since the redevelopment of the industrial zones of the city is indeed one of the main directions for the further development of urban areas.
Together with the Guild of Property Managers and Developers, we will continue to work on the program to reduce the number of minor events and focus audience attention on programmatic and community-relevant topics. OAM - An association of people with an established, I hope, good reputation, and it should be cherished. ***
Mikhail Kondiain
"Zemtsov, Kondiain and Partners" This year the Biennale is dedicated to the topic of new construction and historical buildings, both in the center of St. Petersburg and its satellite cities, which have their own history. Is it possible to build something new in the center? Are there ways to stop the outflow of the wealthy part of the population from the center? How to deal with the degradation of ordinary background buildings, which are beginning to collapse? How should the city develop so that the center remains comfortable and attractive for living? How to provide the necessary social infrastructure and a high-quality environment that meets modern requirements? We are discussing these and many other issues within the framework of the Biennale program. The answers to them can be the expositions of the OAM members, as well as projects from the additional exhibition on the mezzanine, for participation in which we invited our colleagues, not members of the OAM, to show their work. As a result, a fairly wide range of St. Petersburg architecture is presented at the Biennale, which allows identifying trends.
It can be noted that the typological composition of projects has changed. If ten years ago office and public buildings prevailed, now mainly housing is designed and built. And the very nature of residential architecture began to change. With the introduction of rules governing the building height, there are fewer complexes above 40 meters. Everything above this mark must pass the City Planning Council and commissions, at which it is necessary to prove the necessity and correctness of the dominant. More and more solutions are being introduced to improve comfort, for example, courtyards without cars. ***
Oleg Manov
FUTURA-ARCHITECTS
The Biennale "Architecture of St. Petersburg 2019" became for our bureau the first experience of full participation in an exhibition in the Ethnographic Museum, and for me - the first experience of creating an author's exhibition"
Manifesto "in the creative cluster" Golitsyn Loft ". For the first time in the history of the St. Petersburg Biennale, Ilya Yusupov and I managed to convince the organizers that it is necessary to develop the biennial format and use the opportunities to attract more visitors at different venues.
The concept of our exhibition was focused on the main theme of this year's Biennale - the interaction of architecture and society. Today society and architecture are on different planes and their interests practically do not overlap. This is because architecture is not perceived as art, but only as a business, and is judged only in terms of cost and efficiency. To return the attention of society to architecture, it is necessary to add one more criterion for its assessment - the emotions that every resident of the city will experience when interacting with an architectural object. People are more likely to remember experienced emotions than words or deeds.
This year, not only OAM members were invited to participate in the exhibition, which, as it seems to me, well complemented the overall impression of the exhibition. It was nice to see new names, new opinions and new approaches. I especially liked the stands of Felix Buyanov's B2 company and Project Culture headed by Alexander Zyuzin. The works of these workshops, especially public projects, are distinguished by a fresh look and effective solutions.
As usual, the business program with the participation of famous architects of St. Petersburg was interesting and rich, but I would like to see colleagues from other cities of Russia and Europe more actively invited to participate in it. It is very important to know first-hand what is happening outside your hometown. Especially now, when the volume of construction has decreased and the opportunities to introduce the latest technologies are becoming less and less due to the total savings on the construction site. ***
Alina Chereyskaya
SA lab
The Biennale shows a general cut of architecture in the city at the moment as part of the activities of the OAM members. You can see in one space what workshops have been designing with more than twenty years of experience. Residential buildings and complexes are mainly shown. This indicates a decrease in demand for public and business development. Most likely, this trend will continue, and possibly intensify in the near future.
The architecture has a consistently conservative approach in most projects.
Thanks to the business program, the Biennale also functions as a platform for communication between architects, developers and representatives of the administration. This year, the most useful were master classes with practical cases from lawyers and attorneys. Such knowledge can be used in practice.
But there is a feeling of some kind of conservation of the format, which has not changed throughout the existence of the Biennale. I would like a richer program, topical topics, workshops and the scale of the exposition itself as a whole. It is worth thinking about development and even a change of site, which might be curious. ***
