Intensive PRO "Re (New) Building Reconstruction Workshop" starts in mid-April and will last for three months. The program is aimed at a systematic approach to redevelopment: a comprehensive study of the real territory, reprogramming and project economics, conceptual design and approval stages. All teachers of the course are practicing specialists: architects, historians, sociologists, engineers and project managers.
The program was developed jointly with the Praktika architectural bureau, and the territory of the Cotton Spinning Factory in Balashikha is proposed as a design site. The conditions for research and conceptual proposals of the listeners are as close as possible to the realities of project practice. The assignments were drawn up with the participation of the owner of the facility and are aimed at solving the customer's problems.
Learn more and sign up for the course here. The course curator shares his thoughts on modern approaches and the meaning of reconstruction.
Daria Mineeva
architect, curator of the PRO intensive "Re (New) Workshop on the reconstruction of buildings".
The topic of reconstruction sounds louder every year: museums, theaters, stadiums, residential buildings and especially old industrial areas have been professionally implemented for a long time. Nevertheless, competitions continue to set ambitious goals for finding new approaches.
What is it about? Looking for new technical solutions or going beyond? The task becomes more complicated: skill, subtlety of approach and even humor come to the fore when it comes to conflicting requests.
In modern society, the boundaries between elite and popular culture are blurring - John Seabrook wrote about this back in 2010 in his book Nobrow. Marketing culture. Marketing culture . It is in these contradictions that a new reconstruction is born: old and new, public and private, temporary and permanent, in the end - architecture or history? If from the whole repertoire of possible actions the architect has to choose between two options - to change the world or leave everything as it is - the architect will always be in favor of changes.
- Cotton-spinning mill in Balashikha © provided by MARSH
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zooming Cotton-spinning mill in Balashikha © provided by MARSH
Some architects work with modern stylistic techniques - confrontation and contrast. Others take a postmodern approach, focusing on simulation and similarity. Overuse of imitation can lead to pseudo-authenticity.
One of the striking contemporary examples is the author's reconstruction by David Chipperfield at the New Museum. Its meaning was not to create a monument to destruction or a historical reproduction, but to protect and comprehend the extraordinary ruins that survived not only war, but also physical erosion of the last 60 years. Every decision, be it renovation, extension or addition, was based on the articulation of the physical and technical quality of the museum. All parts of the building try to lead the beholder to one idea - not about what is lost, but about what is saved.
Rem Koolhaas speaks of reconstruction as combining the old and the new into a kind of hybrid. He is confident that it is not necessary to demolish buildings that are still suitable for use. At the same time, the spaces he creates are not cleared industrial structures with a modest architectural language, but a search for a new, smart, integration of what the existing building lacked. Sometimes it is worth abandoning the architect's usual set of tools, such as intervention, change, embodiment. In reconstruction, abstinence from action, observation, reflection, the accumulation of a baggage of knowledge that can generate new types of activity can be effective.
Despite the seeming difference of approaches, they talk about something similar - about a process, history. A building may represent history, but it is not the only way. History is not always just a building.
Before choosing an approach, you need to comprehend the program, conduct research on the study of raw materials, construction methods and economic models that open up new opportunities in the design process. These themes change the view of architecture and its place in the world.
After that, two options are possible. Iconic architecture can be born. Interestingly, today it is only able to change the appearance of a small provincial town, as happened with the Guggenheim Museum and Bilbao. And a city with a population of over one million, in which a certain image of development, including the historical one, has been formed, will never be characterized by separate buildings.
Or maybe something that Peter Zumthor described very poetically in his book Thinking Architecture, in the chapter Completed Landscapes: “We are throwing a stone into the water. The sand swirls and settles again. This movement is very important. The stone has found its place. But the pond is not the same."
A new piece of architecture always intervenes in a specific historical situation - whether it is a reconstruction or a new construction. Therefore, it is so important that the new building has properties that can enter into a meaningful dialogue with what is already there. Over time, such buildings naturally become part of the place, without them it is impossible to imagine it.
This is more than a refurbishment. It's about feelings.
