Love for goodness broke their hearts …
Naum Korzhavin. In memory of Herzen
The Zodchestvo festival is being held for the twenty-seventh time, the thirtieth anniversary is coming soon, it has long become an obligatory item on the annual agenda. But a person is made in such a way that he compares with the nearest one - and in comparison with last year's current festival, it definitely looks better. Still, the lower floor of the Manezh is not a place for a festival of this level, but glazed in spite of the protests, but for a long time, Gostiny Dvor is just that. The glare of the sun on the arches of Quarenghi, an architect who, as you know, had a large family and therefore built an incredible amount, but well and in any case recognizable, helps to tune in perfectly.
Anticipating the opening of the festival, the president of the SAR and the AUU Nikolay Shumakov commented on its theme - Transparency - proposed by the curators of the second year, Vladimir Kuzmin and Vladislav Savinkin, something like this: of our consciousness and being, but we still believe that this will happen, that we will live in a different society, in a different architecture, in our transparent relations … Last year, the festival was attended by 28,000 people in 3 days. I hope there will be more this year, not because the hall is bigger, but because society is waking up, the word "architecture" has suddenly appeared in everyday life. As a rule, they mean landscaping, but all the same, the architecture "lit up". Tomorrow we will live in a transparent society, in a transparent architecture."
A comprehensive definition of the topic was given by the chief architect of the Moscow region, Alexandra Kuzmina: "… from the urban planning point of view, this topic can be interpreted as the theme of the permeability of the urban fabric, for an official - as the transparency of the procedures for presenting our plans, in particular, to residents." Alexandra Kuzmina also described the festival as “an extremely useful event, the best of all events. "Professionals compete, there is little amateurism, it is not customary to bring virtual projects here, they do not boast of shops and trifles here." In which Nikolai Shumakov warmly supported her: “This is the only professional festival and forum, a platform for you and me, professional architects and, secondly, professional architecture. Not consumer goods in the form of an exhibition of bricks, paving stones and glass. " I cite such extensive quotes, because it seems that rarely organizers and participants position the festival so transparently.
“Zodchestvo”, as you know, consists of several parts: representations of architectural and town-planning departments of the regions and large institutions; curatorial exposition on a given topic; small, this year it seems especially, exhibition of goods and manufacturers, and a review-competition of applicants for the "Crystal Daedalus" and his son Icarus (corrected: "Tatlin", - ed.).
This year, the first - representative offices - especially developed. They got very large, large-scale stands on the right and left, and almost everyone turned their corner, which cannot be called with such a size and angle, into a luxurious presentation. One Republic put up an interactive mockup, controlled by a wave of the hand. Another, echoing the declared theme, placed translucent structures. One southern city has put up a model of such a size that one wants to immediately swim in it. Apparently the next step would be a saltwater pool, which would be great. The presence of large urban planning institutions is characteristic - moreover, one stand, a respected and long-existing institution, with which, as I remember, city defenders fought back in 1987, and maybe even earlier, was given over to a cheerful coloring and on the first day was full of pictures of visitors on the map Moscow. A wonderful smiling gray-haired lady in a Zodchestvo volunteer T-shirt, just a few minutes after the opening, tried to give me a colored marker and adapt it to coloring. At that moment in my head it was spinning what poems we came up with in 1987 about this organization; But we were children then, we might be forgiven - but I had no idea that in 32, oh, for 32 years this organization would work so well with teenagers at the exhibition, offering to draw or paint something in Moscow.
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zooming 1/5 Stand of the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 2/5 Stand of GlavAPU. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 3/5 Stand of GlavAPU. Festival "Zodchestvo" 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 4/5 Stand of GlavAPU. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 5/5 Model of Novorossiysk. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
In a word, before two capitals were in the lead, and the rest of the regions with varying degrees of success fought against the desire to hang on the walls more identical tablets with very small letters and pictures, similar projects and various layouts, but now it is some kind of parade of planets: it looks like, all administrations, well, or all active ones (less than 25 years have passed since) have mastered the art of speaking in a vivid media language, entertaining and luring the viewer, arranging pillows, benches and screens, in a word, soon our receptors are waiting for a new test with excellent, excellent information, directly and unequivocally demonstrating to the audience of exhibitions how prettier the country is.
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zooming 1/4 The stand of the Moskomarkhitektura is always good, but it must be admitted that this year it is especially good. He shows the projects of the "Open City", thus adhering to the topic of education, but in an updated, fresher and higher quality form. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 2/4 Stand of Moskomarkhitektura. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 3/4 Stand of the Moskomarkhitektura. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 4/4 Stand of the Moscow City Architecture Committee. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
The curatorial exposition is stretched in the middle for the entire length of the Living Room and is mainly housed in a plastic structure in a wooden frame, built by a company whose name is mentioned on each rail, accompanied by a QR code - unfortunately, people almost stopped posting links to their sites at the exhibition stands in simplicity, and now everything has to be deciphered, but let's hope that this fashion will pass. The non-commercial, it is also meaningful, part of the exhibition is very rich and largely devoted to education - children, students, young architects, educational institutions, the head is spinning as there are so many of them, although the information, unfortunately, is not always complete, and most importantly, the stands are not all completed. What is especially offensive when it comes to the catalog of educational institutions of the Russian Federation with an architectural focus, where not all slots are filled, and even not a single card is signed, and you can rearrange them arbitrarily, such a design, and it is absolutely impossible to get information. Send a link to your catalog, or what … huh? Projects dedicated to youth and education are interspersed, however, with exhibitions of exhibitions - stands of projects that have already been exhibited somewhere and will continue to be, and several separate curatorial projects. One educational institution exhibited children: this is a common technique when participants of an educational project work directly at the exhibition, as has already happened, for example, at the Venice Biennale.
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zooming 1/5 Stand of DTS SMA. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 2/5 Stand of DTS SMA. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 3/5 Installation "Architect's Pattern", curated by Eduard Kubensky. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 4/5 Installation "Pattern of an Architect", curated by Eduard Kubensky. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 5/5 “Artificial marmor or plastic stains - the process of inventing and debugging new decor technologies at the stand of the Project Russia magazine, curated by Yulia Shishalova; studio Saga. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
By the way, the Venice Biennale and the Biennale in general are a universal model, a dream and sadness. Everyone wants to be like a biennale, organize festivals like biennials, go out into the city like her and have the same cool installations, preferably in the same Arsenal. Well, what can you do, friends, if you have acquired the habit of your own spaces with the potential of the Arsenal to regularly demolish and replace with something prettier. But in a modern space, you can exhibit with b about great comfort and chic. Perhaps even with a great media effect, if you install, for example, slides and swings for children and adults to ride.
The middle area of the curatorial exposition is occupied by a sphere similar to Fuller's sphere, in which many objects of well-known metropolitan, northern-metropolitan and Volga-metropolitan bureaus are exhibited on the theme “Transparency”. They are all beautiful and excellently commented on by the authors, and the leader, which is not surprising, is the object of Sergei Skuratov, where the text of Facebook conversations between the architect and the curator Vladimir Kuzmin is printed on transparent plastic using the silkscreen method, during which the first repeatedly refuses to make the object, and the second persuades him, the conversation ends with a joint decision to publish the correspondence. We must pay tribute to the ingenuity of Sergei Skuratov and coincidence of circumstances - this object trouvé became the highlight of the program; and the talented curator placed it in the very center, as, by the way, and rearranged the project "Pattern of the Architect" of the future curator of "Zodchestvo-2020" Eduard Kubensky under the sun's rays, and where it now shines and shimmers.
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zooming 1/7 Installation by Sergei Skuratov on the theme "The transparency of the idea - the idea of transparency". Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 2/7 Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 3/7 Installation Portner architects / Sasha Lukich yf ntve “The transparency of the idea - the idea of transparency”. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 4/7 Installation by Timur Bashkaev on the theme “The transparency of the idea - the idea of transparency”. Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 5/7 Installation by Vladimir Plotkin and Maria Ilyevskaya on the theme "The transparency of the idea - the idea of transparency". Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 6/7 Installation by Vladimir Plotkin and Maria Ilyevskaya on the theme "The transparency of the idea - the idea of transparency". Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 7/7 Zodchestvo Festival 2019 Photo: Archi.ru
The festival, as always, is not encompassing, so I apologize for not mentioning everyone - you may have noticed, I hardly mention anyone at all in this brief review. It is better to come and see everything and everyone with your own eyes, and the full list of participants can be found on the Zodchestvo website.
Meanwhile, the topic “Transparency” is complex, rich and dangerous, which is clear already from the above comments of the organizers and participants. Of course, there is transparency in architecture and urban planning - this is the notorious glass from which the conference rooms of the exhibition and even its management are now made, which is why, unfortunately, on screens illuminated by the sun, little is visible during the day (but in the evening it is excellent). You can listen and watch (well, in the evening) without going inside. But the sound spreads outward. This is the usual transparency for architects, which means everything in the world and almost nothing: visibility, the penetration of daylight, the levitation effect of the first floor, the brilliance and commercial success of the showcase, and its role in creating urban comfort. It is also associated with the danger of dystopia, described by Mikhail Zamyatin and well shaded by Totan Kuzembaev in a commentary on his object - "… feces are flowing through transparent pipes." Here you begin to doubt whether you really need to dream about living in an absolutely transparent society and transparent architecture.
But the dream still remains. And it is clear that it is not about living in a glass box heated by the sun in front of everyone's eyes. It is about change, purification, a better society and a better life, regardless of whether we deserve it or not, it is possible to dream (although for an Orthodox person, by the way, as one priest explained, dreaming is a sin). The very presence of such a quintessence of a dream - as such, without excuses and reservations, the desire to be better, and even to live better - is understandable, understandable and painfully sad because of its impracticability. But you can't forbid hoping, although later it often turns out that with tears in our eyes we dreamed of different things, who, as they say, about the Constitution, and who about jellied meat, although it would be better, of course, that there were both.
But it is curious how, against the background of this unsteady fantastic reality of the transparent - swaying both in reality, under feet and hands, and in a conceptual sense also unstable - stable, spacious, sweeping stands of regions and institutions grow. There was once under Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a company to enlarge either villages or collective farms, then the peasants were resettled in droves, it's good that they weren't in Siberia e, and closer to the railways, to optimize production and management. The houses left from those times have long been destroyed, overgrown with forest, weeds and soothing motherwort; sometimes "butterfly wings" appear on them, as in one project of "Drevolyutsiya" from the Chukhloma forests, apparently denoting a dream of flying. And some points after enlargement grew and flourished, especially those that turned into monotowns; though they then wilted, but that's another story.
So what am I talking about? In Architecture, the proximity of two tendencies is somehow very obvious: dreams of the distant future, a sort of ideal world of Isaac Asimov, once again remembered and ridiculed at the same time, but still dreams. And the real visible growth of regional representative offices, accompanied by the qualitative growth of their designers and PR services. These are very different processes, I will not say that they are opposite, rather parallel - after all, the current curators are talented designers, they expressed this with their exhibition project. They are parallel in time and in the minds of different people. Sometimes it seems that these people walk, taking one side or the other, along parallel lines, and do not meet. Some of them occasionally remember how they still need an administrative resource and start frantically looking for it, asking their acquaintances. And not always successfully. Others sometimes wonder if they need architects, or can they get by with a couple of designers? Or is it the same thing?