In the topic of the discussion, one can see a provocation, as the architectural critic Lara Kopylova, the event moderator, said in the introduction. Architectural ideas can be global, like Voisin Le Corbusier's plan for the center of Paris. And there are local ones - a plastic and functional idea of a specific project. Do you need new ideas in architecture at all, because Bach, for example, wrote in old forms, but it turned out so well that everyone still likes it? At the same time, Rem Koolhaas' bureau OMA has a subdivision of AMO, something like a research institute, where young architects have to produce ideas by conveyor belt method, otherwise they will be fired. This means that ideas are still needed. At the end of the discussion, the presenter asked the participants to name one bright global architectural idea of the last twenty years. The result is unexpected, but everything is in order.
Although you can watch the full discussion here
in the video from the Arch of Moscow:
Masterplan Gold Rings
Ilya Zalivukhin,
Jauzaproject
The architect, unlike many speakers later, presented a rather global idea, and his own. He said that the idea of the masterplan for Moscow came to him in 2012, and with the suggestion of Karima Nigmatulina in 2012-2013, he developed the masterplan for the capital. According to Zalivukhin, just as no building can be made without constructions, the city needs a frame. This is how the idea of an overground metro appeared as the main frame of the Moscow agglomeration, on which the "meat" of the building is then increased. With regard to personal transport, it was obvious, - said Ilya Zalivukhin, - that it was necessary to make a frame of transit routes in order to remove unnecessary cars from the Garden and Boulevard Ring. Meanwhile, the two-circuit network (highways, on the one hand, and streets, on the other) has not been possible to implement until now. Then the idea of a green frame was born, around which housing is formed. Another important point is through high-speed railways. The size of Moscow is 30 x 40 km, this is the distance from Amsterdam to Rotterdam, the speaker emphasized. - Even with Paris and Berlin, Moscow cannot be compared. It is clear that Moscow must be divided. This is how Ilya Zalivukhin conceived a concept that he himself calls the "Golden Eggs": everything inside the Third Transport Ring is the central "egg", while the rest are polycentrically located around. Ilya also referred to the 1971 general plan of Moscow, which he himself studied after coming up with his own concept. It turned out that the idea of four frames - social, transport and green, overlaid with residential - already existed in 1971, but was not implemented. Perhaps the time will come when the idea of "golden eggs" from Ilya Zalivukhin will be implemented and will improve the situation in the capital.
The art of wrestling
Julius Borisov,
UNK project
The head of the UNK project began his speech by defining the concept of an idea. Then, using the example of his object, the Academician business center on Vernadsky Avenue, the author demonstrated the birth and formation of an idea.
For comparison, he showed a photograph of an unnamed commercial building, which he called ugly, explaining that "ugly is not a curse, but just this building - without an image." And without an idea, since it doesn't tell anyone anything. Speaking about his bureau, which specializes in complex and unique solutions, Yuliy Borisov likened architects to neurosurgeons, in contrast to therapists who solve standard problems. “When you do complex things, it is important that the patient goes under the knife himself and trusts the surgeon. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, sometimes patients come with their scalpels and their advice,”the architect complained. And he told the story of the birth of the idea of the "Akademik" business center on the site of an obsolete unfinished building on Vernadsky Avenue. How and where the idea comes from is unknown. But we know when. Yuliy Borisov himself designs from 4 to 8 o'clock in the morning, and at the same time the image of "Academician" emerged. The sketch, drawn by the author by hand on the iPad, then pours into the work of the team. In addition to a bright plastic idea and complex work with networks and TEPs, the Akademik business center had a program related to the personality of Academician Vernadsky and complex constructive solutions. And then the hard days of the implementation of the object and the adjustment of the business tasks of the customer and the artistic tasks of the architect dragged on.
Then Yuliy Borisov addressed the young architects in the hall: "You have more ideas than we do, but it is a huge hard work to implement them." He recalled colleagues Sergey Skuratov and Vladimir Plotkin as an example of unbending will in the struggle for his project. Then Borisov returned to the analogy with the surgeon and said, referring to his experience in the West, that in Europe architects are helped, they are given a conventional scalpel and tweezers, but here everything is the other way around. Therefore, the struggle for an architectural idea is also a kind of art, and he needs to learn, and not go into pure creativity, - the speaker advised the youth.
Empathy and communication
Oleg Shapiro,
Wowhaus
The moderator asked Oleg Shapiro to comment on the situation with the draft Law on Architectural Activities, which was recently subjected to
criticism by the professional community due to the fact that copyright protection mechanisms are insufficiently spelled out there. According to the Ministry of Construction, the draft Law has been suspended and will be finalized. But Oleg Shapiro did not want to talk about such serious things on Friday evening, but introduced the audience to a new project of architecture for people and animals.
However, the beginning was philosophical.
There is no such thing as an architectural idea, - said the speaker. The real idea defines being. Examples of ideas: the cult of the beautiful lady in the Middle Ages or the Vitruvian man. There are ideas of social equality, metempsychosis, finally. These ideas are changing the world. The architecture has never generated anything like that and will not generate anything. She operates within the framework of these ideas. The architects' business is creative solutions. CA remains a creative organization, even if we do not generate ideas, but solutions, said the head of Wowhaus.
Oleg Shapiro called his presentation “Architectural design in the context of making median decisions” and compared the situation in cinema and architecture. He recalled the words of the director Andrei Smirnov that in Soviet times there was no dictate of the market in cinema, but the dictate of the party committee and the artistic council. In the cinema, the situation has become easier, while the architects' approvals have only increased, - said Oleg Shapiro. Factors of influence on the project are the customer, expertise, terms, budget, qualifications of the contractor (“and recently a user involved in public discussion has appeared, in all its profane glory”). Fresh breakthrough ideas do not pass in public discussion, they are perceived as unusual. Apparently, the desire for security is inherent in society. The Pompidou Center would never have gone through public comment. The customer can take risks for the sake of marketing ideas; an architect can come up with something interesting for little money (Alejandro Aravena has achieved a lot on a budget). But you will never break through the blockade of profane public opinion, - summed up the speaker.
And he offered a way out: if they are not allowed to design new forms, it is necessary to make new formats. That was what the Wowhaus bureau did in the Children's Zone of the Moscow Zoo. To do this, we had to agree with the Ministry of Culture, since the zoo, it turns out, has the status of a museum, future users, animal lovers, residents of nearby houses, zoologists, etc. Instead of a zoo, it turned out to be an educational center, where children study pets in a playful way, learn empathy and communication by playing with them, and animals can go into hiding if they are tired of communication (that is, animal rights are respected). Oleg Shapiro also spoke about the special architecture (slides and stairs) for animals, which they are not yet very actively using. In conclusion, the speaker reiterated that the architect's business is not ideas, but creative solutions.
Realizing that the discussion is inclined to believe that global architectural ideas are not needed, and Vernadsky's noosphere, that is, the actual sphere of ideas, has an incomprehensible relationship with architecture, the presenter offered her version of global ideas, namely ecology and New Urbanism. The ecological idea today is shared by the whole world, and the ideas of New Urbanism formulated in the 1980s (neighborhoods, pedestrian accessibility, mixed functions, public ground floors, street profile, etc.) are being implemented today in a boom in urban improvement. But, as can be seen from what follows, the participants in the discussion do not see great potential in both ideas. Then the moderator gave the floor to Konstantin Khodnev.
Basic values instead of dying "particles"
Konstantin Khodnev,
DNKag
The architect invited those present to think about the duality of ideas in architecture. “It would seem that the deeper the idea you come up with, the more powerful you are as an architect. On the other hand, ideas quickly become obsolete: in the 20th century we saw a race in the emergence of powerful ideas, and then their rapid disappearance. The second danger, according to Konstantin Khodnev, is that big ideas, taking possession of the minds, sometimes have an effect opposite to what is expected. Ideas arise from the desire of architects to solve the problems of the world: overpopulation, lack of housing or inconvenience of transport, ecology. As a tool in the political game, these ideas become anti-human as a result. So in the twentieth century, the idea of the Radiant City of Le Corbusier, tested both in our country and in capitalist countries, led to the opposite result: to the problems of mass industrial development, with which they now think what to do.
The paradoxical idea that an architect must solve global problems without bothering in particular is part of an architect's education, - said Konstantin Khodnev. And he suggested a different strategy. There are ideas like the Voisin plan that quickly become outdated, and there are ideas, for example, metabolism or New Urbanism, which are based on the tasks of the time: either this is an attempt to play a technological utopia, or an anti-technological utopia. The way out: architecture should consider basic values such as functional flexibility, the use of materials that exist for a long time without requiring changes. Ideas are always directed to the future, it is not necessary to create many fast-living and dying "particles", but a foundation that will allow buildings to adapt to changing conditions. We live in a state of uncertainty, we do not know what will happen tomorrow. If a building is beautiful in terms of proportions, materials, understanding of how a person interacts with it, then it will be in demand for many years.
Moderator Lara Kopylova added that we keep the shell in old buildings, for example, the pre-revolutionary period, although the function has changed a long time ago, which means that the shell matters. That is, the beauty of the building is one of the fundamental architectural ideas. If you keep her in mind, there will be no distortions of the Corbusian city, which turned out to be inflexible and depressive.
Konstantin Khodnev agreed that architects should not try to solve all the world's problems with their project, but think more narrowly. A good recipe for mass development: a simple but decent building. The second recipe is an unusual building in which new scenarios are being researched. An example is the Bjarke Ingels House of Eight, where different unusual types of housing are connected. Such experiments allow the creation of new landmarks and signs. They will remain markers for the future. Concluding his speech, Konstantin Khodnev gave an example of an excellent, from his point of view, architectural idea. This is the House of the People's Commissariat for Finance of Moses Ginzburg, which was a building with a revolutionary idea in the 1920s, and a hundred years later became super-relevant again.
Art, art and more art
Vlad Savinkin,
POLE DESIGN
Vlad suggested returning to the topic "Architecture and Art" - the theme of the ARCH-Moscow exhibition. Defining design as the sum of art and architecture, Vlad stressed that POLE DESIGN architects drew their ideas from contemporary art culture. “We painted our first office admiring Jasper Johns. We painted one of our first objects white, like Richard Meyer, and the Diana safe was inspired not only by the works of Salvador Dali, but also by the silhouette of the client's wife Igor Safronov. When he saw the doors of the safe in the form of a woman's silhouette, he really liked it, but he never knew whose silhouette it was.
Then the architect spoke about the importance of drawing and inventing: “You have to fly your ten thousand hours. Ideas do not come to me early in the morning, but right in my sleep. Because tasks gravitate, I still go to the customer with trembling knees, but during the state between reality and sleep, great ideas come up with which the customers agree."
Ideas [more] no
Vladimir Kuzmin,
POLE DESIGN
“Everything that was said was not ideas, but deeds,” Vladimir Kuzmin said and continued adding fuel to the fire during the discussion. If our predecessors a hundred years ago created ideas, and then deeds were born from them, now it is the other way around. "We are all intuitive," said the architect, "we do beautiful things, but they have no discourse, no thought." He quoted Ozhegov's definition "An idea is an intelligible eternal prototype of reality." And he stated: the time of ideas was a hundred years ago. We had developed a resource of ideas by the end of the 1980s. Despite the information surge associated with the advent of the computer, ideas are not added. There are no ideas in architecture, there is humus of professional work. There is no critical mass of reasoning, abstract analytical characteristics, other than ensuring survival. “My colleagues sitting here are outstanding masters,” said Vladimir Kuzmin, “but are we discussing ideas?” In conclusion, he summarized that only technology and marketing remained from the Vernadsky noosphere, opened a hundred years ago. And a little professional status and brilliant talent of people, - added Vladimir Kuzmin, pointing to his fellow architects in the “presidium”.
***
In conclusion, the talk show participants, arguing with each other, answered the question posed at the beginning by the moderator: "What bright architectural idea of the last twenty years can you name?"
Vladimir Kuzmin: XXI century - the century of wood
The architect came up with three ideas. The first idea is a statement that there are no ideas in architecture. Second idea: you need to slow down, stop the race. “We are trying to survive, scratching the ground with our claws. Ideas are born from the well-fed, not from the hungry. I wish all of us as soon as possible to be among the first, in the time of ideas, and not only deeds. " When the host asked about the ecological idea, Vladimir Kuzmin replied that it was all marketing. He made an exception only for wooden architecture. "The 19th century is the age of metal, the 20th is the century of concrete, the 21st is the century of wood," said the architect.
Ilya Zalivukhin: new constructivism
Ilya said that he was worried about the topic of new constructivism - architecture that was made for a person, which would be functional and rational, like the constructivism of the 1920s. Or as the works of the Bauhaus, in which the peak of rationality is reached (for example, a handrail is not made of wood, but simply red).
Julius Borisov: Chipperfield and emptiness
The architect focused on a concrete plastic idea, but with a strong metaphysics. “Chipperfield made a building for a beauty company in South Seoul. I did not understand him from the photographs. You have to go there. Because this building is dedicated to emptiness. The greatest value we can afford is emptiness. Imagine, Asia is dense, saturated, there are a lot of people, they are bustling about, and suddenly there is an emptiness in the middle of the city - absolute Zen. Although these are things, according to Volodya Kuzmin, we can express some thoughts through them."
Oleg Shapiro: Bateson's idea of communicativeness
The theory of communication developed by Gregory Bateson is very important today. He discovered that the transmission of a message does not depend on the strength of the impact, but solely on the frequency of changes. The transmission of the message is change, not power. We live in a post-industrial city, but this is an unfortunate definition, we have designated, after which we live. And the meaningful definition is a city of communication.
Konstantin Khodnev: working with scenarios and sensations
We are in a state of accumulating potential. The emergence of big ideas is a rarity in the history of civilization, and there is nothing wrong with that. We became more aware of ourselves. We are learning to understand the intricacies that we have not thought about before. We try to express this in more subtly thought out architectural projects, working as gently as possible with human desires. It is more a work with scripts and sensations than a form.
Vlad Savinkin: a lamp that illuminates the entire city
I want to bring everyone back to earth to a specific idea. A year ago, we saw a sketch by Vasily Vladimirovich Bychkov (for the exposition of the ARCH of Moscow), this idea guided us all year, and now the exhibition took place. When I was a boy in a provincial town, I admired the illumination in a large factory, and my father told me that someday one lamp would illuminate the whole city. And all my life this "lamp", as it were, leads me to creativity.
Finally, Vladimir Kuzmin started a talk show loop. “The latter idea ended with Frank Gehry, although Zaha Hadid is also iconic architecture,” he said. - The world of ideas exists in itself. We're out of it. I found Marshall McLuhan's aphorism, which, I hope, will complete this interesting discussion - the first interesting discussion in many, many years, because it is abstract, not about customers and not about ways to get out of difficulties. The aphorism is: "The way a message is conveyed is itself a message." We do not implement much of what we have invented, but the quality and content are growing in the noosphere due to the fact that we have invented it, "Vladimir Kuzmin concluded his speech and talk show.
