Archi.ru:
Classics is a broad concept: there is a Renaissance of different types, Palladianism, Classicism, Art Deco, Stalinist architecture, postmodernism, there are classics - our contemporaries, committed to different versions of classical architecture. What is neoclassicism to you, how would you define it?
Evgeny Gerasimov:
The classics are Greece and Rome. Therefore, to one degree or another, everything that relies on the order system can be attributed to neoclassicism. Historicism is a broader concept that includes neoclassicism, a la russe, and Rinaldi's quest in the Chinese style. Neoclassicism is a part of modern architecture, it is in demand, which is why we are talking about it today. Traditional architecture is alive, rumors of her death are greatly exaggerated.
To what extent, in your opinion, are the methods of modern architecture compatible with the seriously interpreted elements of the classics?
The relatively free variation of elements of neoclassical architecture is based on a sense of proportion and harmony; it is important not to cross a certain limit. Many people do not suspect that the facades of the building on Ostrovsky Square are ventilated, and that the building itself is built of monolithic reinforced concrete, with underground parking and modern engineering solutions. But nevertheless, this is neoclassicism, one does not interfere with the other.
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zooming 1/7 Office building on Ostrovsky Square, 2008 "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" © photo by Oleg Manov
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zooming 2/7 Office building on Ostrovsky Square, 2008 "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" © photo by Oleg Manov
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zooming 3/7 Office building on Ostrovsky Square, 2008 "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 4/7 Office building on Ostrovsky Square, 2008 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 5/7 Office building on Ostrovsky Square, 2008 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 6/7 Office building on Ostrovsky Square, 2008 "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 7/7 Office building on Ostrovsky Square, 2008 "Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners" © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
When do you turn to the classics?
For us, this is one of the areas - neither a priority nor a secondary one. We understand that there is a buyer's demand for this, customers in certain places want to build neoclassicism, this also coincides with our aspirations - we are interested in searches in this direction. The direction is no worse and no better than others. Of course, such projects appear more often in the city center.
It is known that the classics is a certain language capable of conveying rather complex and interesting messages. Could you give examples of such messages in your projects - when you convey a certain message in the language of the classics?
For me, this statement is controversial. I am against literature in architecture - these are different types of art. Architecture is visual art, pictorial, not text. Conversations about what the author wanted to say is from the evil one. You look at Rossi - who knows what he wanted to say. Here he leads Galernaya Street between the buildings of the Senate and Synod to Senate Square, and does it masterfully, through the arch. Bolshaya Morskaya leads to the Palace Square with the same huge arch. This is just an architectural skill, there is no need to look for something that does not exist behind it. Architecture is the organization of space, so he organized it. This is more craft than lyric.
In working with neoclassicism, it is very important to master the craft, the basics of the profession. You cannot cross some boundaries laid down by the school. For example, when I see rusticated plaster on one side on the outer corner of a building and polished granite on the other, everything boils for me. This is negligence, misunderstanding of the form, rules and foundations of the profession.
That is, in order to build a good neoclassical building, you have a good enough understanding of ancient architecture?
You can understand as much as you like. A musicologist is one thing, and a composer is another. Knowledge is a necessary condition, but not sufficient in order to create something decent that you can look at. We also need abilities, experience, skill, speaking in a high syllable.
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zooming 1/11 Residential building "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Alexey Naroditsky
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zooming 2/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Alexey Naroditsky
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zooming 3/11 Residential building "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 4/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Molodkovets
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zooming 5/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 6/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 7/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 8/11 Residential building "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 9/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 10/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 11/11 Residential house "Venice", 2013 Evgeny Gerasimov and partners © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
Is it always expensive to build a neoclassical building?
A building can be very expensive if all made of marble and gold. But it can be quite cheap - there are a lot of examples. In Rome, everything is made of stone, and in St. Petersburg, out of poverty, everything is made in plaster. But at the same time, the culture of working with the form was not lost; on the contrary, it was honed with a scarcity of funds.
Quarenghi, for example, has fairly modest buildings. The Catherine Institute and the Mariinsky Hospital have long, flat facades, but at the same time, a spectacular main portico, on which all the money was concentrated. It is like a brooch that, thanks to its appropriateness and proportions, can transform a modest dress. The effect is not the same as money.
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zooming 1/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 2/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 3/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 4/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 5/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 6/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 7/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 8/8 Residential building "Verona", 2018 Photo: Andrey Belimov-Gushchin © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
But neoclassicism today is still being built more for the elite?
Yes, although it could have been different. The neoclassicism of the late 50s of the last century was made in relatively simple forms. Let us recall the two houses of Sergei Speransky on Moskovskaya Square, which flank Leninsky Prospekt - very simple, in tiles, with small accents. But they look great today! Why can't mass housing look like this? A whole block of such houses with normal number of storeys and proportions somewhere on Pulkovskoe highway, what would be bad?
It is possible to adapt neoclassicism to a residential complex with a height of 25 floors. The architects of the Stalinist era coped with this perfectly. Soviet architects of the 1930s-1950s - the entire galaxy of Zholtovsky - had such a good pre-revolutionary school, were so professional that when in 1932 the government said: “So this is how we are doing this,” they were absolutely ready. Not a shadow of a doubt about what to do and how. They have achieved virtuoso mastery in the performance of neoclassicism on any scale: stadiums, Dnieper hydroelectric stations, gateways, VDNKh. Their training made it possible to answer the request of the society.
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zooming 1/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 "Evgeny Gerasimov and partners" © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 2/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 3/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 "Evgeny Gerasimov and partners" © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 4/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 "Evgeny Gerasimov and partners" © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 5/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 6/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 "Evgeny Gerasimov and partners" © photo by Yuri Slavtsov
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zooming 7/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 8/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 9/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 10/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
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zooming 11/11 Residential building "Pobedy, 5", 2014 © "Evgeny Gerasimov & Partners"
That is, it is not the budget or the material that is critical, but the skill of the architect and the quality of execution?
Neoclassicism hardly accepts incompleteness and incompleteness. In other architecture, this works out - to take the same Frank Gehry. If you look closely at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao - there one façade subsystem does not reach the other, the quality of the construction is terrible, the guides sticking out from under the tiles are not calculated. But there it is perceived as a cute inconsistency - a tribute to deconstructivism. Neoclassicism does not tolerate incompleteness, it cannot be unfinished.
What is more important, the customer may not understand what and how much will cost, but the architect is obliged. You need to be able to correlate what is conceived with the possibilities, so as not to get into a mess in advance, not to draw what is impossible to fulfill in the current budget. Stretch the legs along the clothes. This is also part of the professionalism. As in any business: the chef must understand how much, what and in what price category to buy, so that promises meet expectations. Otherwise, it will be funny: there was enough for Ferragamo's briefcase, but no longer for boots. From here, balusters from the iron corner appear, or the building begins to damp and fall apart after the first winter.
Neoclassicism is an aptitude test. A challenge that you can break off your teeth about. It's one thing to do renders on a computer - with today's capabilities it's not difficult, paper will endure everything. Realization, practice - this is the criterion of truth, as the founders of Marxism-Leninism taught.
Perhaps that is why neoclassicism is not mainstream. And the mainstream is sharpened modernism or “mockery” in the MVRDV style.
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zooming 1/9 Art View House club house on the Moika river embankment, 102, 2019 Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 2/9 Art View House club house on the Moika river embankment, 102, 2019 Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 3/9 Art View House club house on the Moika river embankment, 102, 2019 Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 4/9 Art View House club house on the Moika embankment Photo © Ilya Priporov / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 5/9 Art View House club house on the Moika embankment Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 6/9 Art View House club house on the Moika river embankment, 102, 2019 Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 7/9 Art View House club house on the Moika river embankment, 102, 2019 Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 8/9 Art View House club house on the Moika river embankment, 102, 2019 Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
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zooming 9/9 Art View House club house on the Moika river embankment, 102, 2019 Photo © Andrey Belimov-Gushchin / Evgeny Gerasimov and partners
Can we talk about the evolution of this style in the works of the bureau, about the complication, some kind of line?
In terms of drawing, probably not. Compared to centuries of neoclassicism, twenty years is an instant. But there is an evolution in terms of technology that does not stand still. The execution of such complex details as at 102 Moika was difficult to imagine before. This expands the capabilities of the architect, you can lay more different elements, which today are made not by the hands of a plasterer, but at the factory on a machine. It's very cool when you can carve out the perfect Ionic capital and easily mount it on a construction site, like a constructor.
It turns out that neoclassicism is made by details?
Yes. The task of the architect has not been completed if one does not want to come close to the building and touch it. I’m not interested, I don’t want to approach if from a hundred meters everything is clear: the idea is clear, thank you, no more. And sometimes you want to come up and see: how, how is it done? You always want to approach the buildings of David Chipperfield. It would seem simple, but questions immediately arise: how is the concrete cast, how does one combine with the other, how does a window fit into a concrete casting, like a cornice? Super! Adam Caruso and Peter St. John are very cool, masters of detail. Their bank in Bremen is great.
Details are especially important in the field of view, on the ground floors. The above can be simplified, but also cleverly. If you look closely at the sculptures of the Admiralty, it will seem that they have dropsy. But skill. the experience of a sculptor and architect suggests how this will be perceived in aerial perspective, from a distance. A person should not have disgust when looking at a building from a close distance, on the contrary, there should be a desire to touch it. We try to achieve this tactile appeal in every project. So that, as I always say, it would be interesting to view the building from two hundred meters, and from twenty, and from two.
