The Nizhny Novgorod rating has existed since 1997 and is awarded once every two years. He closely and seriously monitors everything that happens in the architecture of the city, which has been recognized by critics as the capital of the "Nizhny Novgorod school" since the 1990s, and notes it frivolously - eating a cake in the form of a winning building. No unnecessary pathos, fanfare, and an extremely benevolent atmosphere are its characteristic features, which, I must say, makes us still look at the architecture of Nizhny Novgorod as something special, expect something from it and at least follow with interest. In addition to the cake, the rating has creative videos of participating projects and equally creative names for each object. The thirteenth rating was recently announced, two projects won: the children's camp "Arena" and the office and hotel complex "Crowler". We are talking with the person who came up with the rating and has been supporting it ever since - the architectural critic and journalist Marina Ignatushko.
How do you rate the winning project this year? Is he really the best we've reviewed?
Is there an absolute truth? Any results can be doubted, but this only means that doubts are from a different coordinate system. Our rating is not about absolute achievements. And this competition has never claimed to rank the achievements of different cities and countries - we are talking about Nizhny Novgorod. In the 90s, they talked about the Nizhny Novgorod architectural school, and the rating is an occasion to collect information about what and how it developed later. Let me remind you that traditionally the rating was held in two stages: Nizhny Novgorod specialists discussed a long list, and after that we turned to the experts with a short list - outside the city. This year there was one general stage - as a result, two objects won with the highest total points. I am telling this in order to explain: in our rating there cannot be someone's individual preferences - only the cumulative result. And when voting in one round, naturally the Nizhny Novgorod “votes” (knowledge of the local situation, relations, understanding of the local context) turn out to be more significant. Experts notice quotes, borrowings are facts that we, of course, record. But, without a doubt, the children's camp "Arena" on the Gorky Sea and the office and hotel "Crawler" near the Moscow railway station are notable objects built by Nizhny Novgorod architects over the past two years.
Were there any other favorites who, in your opinion, could also win?
At the beginning of the competition, I was sure that the main contenders were "Crawler" and "House on Svoboda". Both are important for urban planning: the first closes the highway perspective, the second closes the square. "Crawler" has been growing for 11 years from sketches to implementation. The history of designing the "golden triangle" of the center on Svoboda Square is generally counted for decades - including the authors of this house - NPO "Archstroy" - in different years there were different projects for this site.
But any arguments about importance and significance are more suitable for official competitions, our rating seems to capture certain attitudes for a specific period, and when Stas Gorshunov's objects ("GORA" bureau) appear in the list of nominees, the picture and calculations change at once.
I was also impressed by the work of Zoya Rurikova's DA bureau - bold greetings from the 90s, similar to unexpectedly realized student sketches. The hottest battles were fought on them in the questionnaires: passions flared up from stake to ten points.
But according to the jury, both objects "ZAKHADI!" and “Make concessions” are on the short list. According to the laws of the genre, leaders are determined after the first two or three dozen questionnaires, the number of respondents determines the places from 6th to 10th in the short list, and every time I am terribly sorry when some pretty building does not get votes. This time, for example, it was the case with the residential building “Yard team” by Andrey Murunov. Perhaps the quality of the photographs influenced, and I live there nearby, I watched how this house grew from separate blocks. Even in color, it does not seem gloomy and cumbersome, surrounded by Khrushchev houses and advertising malls. Tones up the monotonous space of the Soviet microdistrict of panel five-story buildings. True, the apartment layouts are not good for this object …
How do you rate 13 rating in comparison with the nearest previous ones?
First, there is much less outstanding construction. There were years when the long list consisted of more than 4 dozen new buildings - this time there were 25 of them. There was one rating when it was impossible to count to one winner - seven new buildings at once were rated equally high by the jury. And in recent contests, long-term construction projects have appeared - the winner of the 11th rating - "Green", in the top ten of the 13th rating - "Atlant" - the first fragment of a large residential complex, which more than ten years ago began as "Sunflowers".
A lot is being built in the city, but most of all - commercial housing, high-rise buildings with different colors of facades … And the second difference: new objects more often appear not only in the historical center. The geography changed for the first time a few years ago, when the shopping center on the outskirts of the Avtozavodsky district, awarded with the golden diploma of "Architecture", also won the architecture rating. This time there are much more objects in the part of the city beyond the river, and even the winners are “across the river”.
We remember the heyday of Nizhny Novgorod architecture, when it became a revelation, then the so-called "arrival of Muscovites", when everything somehow wilted, correct me if I'm wrong … How would you define the periods of development of Nizhny Novgorod architecture?
Perhaps, interest in the work of Nizhny Novgorod architects waned when they switched to the development of modern technologies, new scales and typologies of projects? Indeed, the Bank "Guarantee" Kharitonov and Pestov, their own Tax on Frunze Street do not look like anything unambiguously. They are about what seemed in the 90s to help reboot the city: “Nizhny Novgorod is Russia's pocket” … With the death of Kharitonov - the loss of the leader of the Nizhny Novgorod school, of course, a lot has changed. And periodization, first of all, will be associated with his name - there are no other grounds, since the processes were the same throughout the country, even if the phases did not always coincide. You can consider internal periodization - with local details, factors, taking into account how long and how the architectural projects matured. And here - their milestones. When shopping centers replaced banks, Viktor Bykov won several ratings in a row with them, and, at the same time, received a gold medal at the International Competition in Sofia for the Etazhi shopping center. Brick and plaster pushed the hinged facades - "Dandy Chameleon" by Yuri Bolgov and Alexander Grebennikov shone here, Alexei Kamenyuk appeared with "Gymnast".
Remembering "Gymnast" - the school of the Olympic reserve, we will see that this is the only project under the state order that won the rating, and the period of the private order is almost 30 years. In the 2000s, there is a sub-period - this applies exclusively to the rating data! - appearance in the list of nominees for objects of Stas Gorshunov. In our competition, young Nizhny Novgorod architects can exhibit any of their works - the experiments of the Gorshunov bureau ("GORA") on the Gorky Sea, two objects in the city - a shopping center and the reconstruction of the former building of the Soviet Political Prospect - stood out in the ratings.
You have been involved in organizing the rating from the very beginning, since 1995, right? Let's go over its history: did they immediately cook and cut the cake, whose idea it was, what key stories can you remember, which winning projects are especially dear?
The rating was invented as a New Year's campaign of the Nizhny Novgorod weekly, in which I wrote about the city and the work of architects. There was a planning meeting, they remembered the Moscow rating of Irina Korobyina, remembered the project with Lenin in the Gelman gallery, laughed that our bank "Guarantee" resembles a cake, had fun and composed such a competition.
We thought it was just one time. But it turned out that a lot exactly coincides with the spirit of the city, the desire for the excess, the desire to treat, to play, to lose. Share your success with everyone. As energy - it gathers on the Dyatlovy Gory and then dissolves in the cosmic distances beyond the Volga. For a long time Nizhny Novgorod was the city of Gorky - cake, sweets - from the same set as the slogan of the times of the fair about the pocket of Russia. In the second rating, the building of the McDonald's restaurant by Kharitonov and Pestov on Revolution Square was recognized as the best, but Kharitonov was then in the hospital - the results were summed up modestly, without a cake and even without a burger.
More than once there was an idea to change the dessert for "real" food - but this is still not about food, associations were embodied only in photographs: the building is a jellied one, the building is a salad … Every time someone proposes to enter nominations - at least 5 pieces, but then the rating will be too close to what happens everywhere. In the comments in the questionnaire, Ira Maslova - she is an urban interdisciplinary researcher - accurately determined that we evaluate objects emotionally: “We choose the“dump of the head”for the rating, and not just high-quality architecture”. This is not so much a wow effect, "ducks", but more an appreciation and surprise at how the city is changing. The 13th rating included the work of Irina Kapustina in the Three Threads residential complex next to the Gorky Museum.
Naturally, this brick object as an expert of the competition was assessed by Natalia Sidorova from DNA … Nizhny Novgorod residents know the place well and see that - I read the comment from the questionnaire - it is “respectable and appropriate. The connecting link organically rose between Stalinist classicism and wooden buildings. So the rating is a reason to discuss what's new in the city. The rating has permanent partners: Arsenal - the center of contemporary art, the Nizhny Novgorod company U-kon and others. In the spring we will make a sightseeing tour of the rating objects or, perhaps, again - architectural orientation of new buildings.
Your favorite buildings of all time?
I have several favorite buildings, although not all of them have become "cakes": "Golden House" (NPO Arkhstroy), "White Sun" and "Dandy Chameleon" (Yuri Bolgov, Alexander Grebennikov), "Dam" bureau "5 and 5", "Iceberg" by Viktor Bykov.
Traditional glossy question - what are the plans? Does the rating hold and continue?
Every time I think: that's it, this rating is the last one. But then you see a new house or a photo of a new house, the architects ask if we will evaluate it, they send in more work - so you get involved and you can't quit. Moreover, for the third consecutive rating, the best confectioner, Irina Chikhacheva, a builder by education, is cooperating with us. Instead of bakery products with roses, in which the architects themselves could hardly recognize the resemblance to their objects, she makes desserts according to drawings … Of course, the main thing is to have something to treat and treat. The jury noted that there are still lively and bright architects in Nizhny Novgorod - in two years we will check what will be built.
