Радикальный поворот

Architecture is the most vulnerable part of culture, almost doomed to destruction of its fundamentals, while the rise of its intellectual and creative level is badly needed. However, neither the resort to postmarxist French philosophy nor bringing the results of development of science and technology into architecture, neither computerization nor peculiarities of parametricism and deconstructivism are helpful. It can be stated that in the beginning of the third millennium architecture and architectural education are in stalemate. The way out is in a “radical” switch from comprehension of object space to the time and to the processes of thinking, designing and historical change in professional mentality. The interests must be focused not on the object, but on the process enabling the use of return reflexive strokes as well.Архитектура – наиболее уязвимая часть культуры, чуть ли не обреченная на разрушение своих основ, в то время когда требуется небывалое повышение ее интеллектуального и творческого уровня. Не спасает ни обращение к постмарксистской французской философии, ни перенесение в архитектуру результатов развития науки  и техники, ни компьютеризация, ни изыски параметризма и деконструктивизма. Можно констатировать, что в начале третьего тысячелетия архитектура и архитектурное образование зашли в тупик. Выход видится в «радикальном» повороте от осмысления пространства объектов ко времени и к процессам мышления, проектирования и исторического изменения профессионального менталитета. В центре интересов должен быть не объект, а процесс, позволяющий использовать также  и возвратные рефлексивные ходы

Скульптура против архитектуры?

Many critics consider Richard Serra the leading sculptor of the 20th century. He is famous not only for inventing something new in sculpture (abstract sculpture compositions existed before him, having been opened by constructivist vanguard of the beginning of the 20th century). Material selections by Vladimir Tatlin and sculptures by Osip Tsadkin, as well as compositions by Henry Moor appeared before Serra. Serra is famous for transferring his works' accent from the works as they are, which could be installed in any place, to their environment. That is he saw in the sculpture a key to understanding the urban space. His crude metal sheets and profiles, rectangular and curvilinear, exceeding regular scale of sculpture, come closer to architecture. Richard Serra places them near architectural constructions as checkpoints of intermediate scale category of space located between so-called «street furniture» – lamp posts, stalls, fountains and benches – and buildings, especially huge modern ones.But the matter is not only in the scale. Serra's sculptures are not only abstract compositions that harmoniously add to the space with their spacious scale. They have some mystery, some implicit sense appearing before a pedestrian as an enigma. Their mystique opposes both street furniture and architecture. But first of all it opposes the historical sculpture with its enigma always overshadowed by historical or biographical topic. Krylov's sculpture in the Summer Garden or Minin and Pozharsky's monument on the Red Square do not strike us, because we know that those monuments are erected IN COMMEMORATION of prominent people, as fellow citizens' tribute to their great contribution to the national history. But the crude metal sheets welded at different angles – what are they for? Who needs them?As an art critic, Edward Goldman, said, fame came to Richard Serra in 1989, when the sculpture composition Tilted Arc erected eight years before it was demolished by request of the public, that did not understand its sense and was exasperated with the obvious absence of this sense. However, Serra sees his sculpture's sense not only in its filling a scale gap in the environment, but also in its instigating a man to think and to concern the environment and the space as a problem, linking this problem with a problem of human's being. Is there any other way to explain the public's indignation? Serra's sculpture compositions do not obstruct pedestrian flow and do not offend anyone's dignity or memory, do they? They act as Zen koans, as if mutely asking a spectator about the sense. Not knowing the answer, the citizen gets exasperated – not with his inability to answer, but with the sculptor (or city government), imposing this enigma to him. Only children are always happy to get an enigma. They like to train their mind in determining the sense, because they believe in the sense of being and consider themselves successors of this sense. A grown-up member of the state, both of a totalitarian one and of one with a market economy, loses this ability, believing neither in God nor in devil, neither in state officers nor in heroes. He only gets annoyed when reminded about a sense. This irritation can be explained in terms of a conflict between conviction in his right to freedom and real feeling of his fatality. He is not disposed to play with the world and the artist. He is willing only to take sedative pills, cheering drinks and all kinds of flattery. Seeing a hero made of bronze or cast iron, he feels free either to share his respect towards the hero, or to spit upon the false idol. In both cases the sense realized by him remains in his power. When this sense escapes, the illusion of his power disappears too, in other words the illusion of his rights in this world where he is kicked by those who have more power and rights.Reasoning from quite Utopian ideals of Democracy, Richard Serra believes that to train such play of mind is as necessary as to brush teeth or to button a shirt. A man with this ability not functioning falls out of the society, officially remaining its member though.But there is also another aspect – relation of such enigmas to architecture. Architecture differs from Richard Serra's sculptures not only in scale. The difference is also in the fact, that, being a plastic object like an abstract sculpture, architectural composition has social and functional status, and therefore it does not represent any special enigma. Looking at a grand construction we understand that it is a City Administration, or a Bank, or a Library, or a Museum, or… whatever having its own socially approved status and sense never doubted. So, one can treat it either with respect or with hatred, not losing the feeling of ability for sense orientation. But Serra's sculptures sometimes lead to this.Nevertheless, architecture has turned out to be sensitive to such things and it currently tries to propose an enigma to a citizen instead of suggesting its status. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao or the Hundertwasser Viennese House in this regard come closer to sculpture, as if crushing differences between architecture and fine arts and making needless an artistic gesture such as Serra's. The question is to what extent this architectural aping is appropriate. Or maybe it is better to leave the sense space to the sculptor, focusing on the senses peculiar to architecture, which are claimed neither by Serra nor by his possible progeny. Evidently Serra experienced those problems himself, appealing to the authorities and searching for their support. Probably he was looking for support not only as an artist in need of a client, but also as an artist confronting social determinancy of architecture in urban environment. Thus he was indirectly returning to architecture its sense space, which architecture is currently ready to play with, forgetting about its sense limits. So it is a big question: whether his sculpture does harm to architecture with its competition with the latter or releases it from plays that are not appropriate to it in order to perform its maybe more sublime mission – not only to ask but also to answer the questions on the sense of being?However, solution of this problem is to what extent architects and their clients are ready to give such answers, to what extent these answers are sincere and realistic, and to what extent the society is ready to ask itself about the sense of its own being. But it is another topic

Иркутск как точка роста свободы

Active intellectual work is done in the field of architecture in Irkutsk: Vladimir Pavlov, probably the most prominent master of Soviet Modernism, realized his projects here; his apprentices work here; and Project Baikal journal is also published here (editor-in-chief – Elena Grigoryeva). The journal has become one of the best architectural periodicals in Russia. It often publishes polemics, which is the journal’s policy. The authors of the journal are not afraid to debate and to express challenging opinions. The historical and theoretical researches carried out by Konstantin Lidin and Mark Meerovich from Irkutsk are also of great interest.В Иркутске идет активная интеллектуальная работа в области архитектуры: здесь строил, возможно, самый крупный мастер советского модернизма Владимир Павлов, здесь работают его коллеги и ученики, издается журнал «ПРОЕКТ БАЙКАЛ» (главный редактор – Елена Григорьева). Журнал стал одним из лучших архитектурных журналов России. На его страницах часто ведется полемика. Такова политика журнала, авторы которого не боятся спорить и высказывать неординарные мысли. Интересны историко-теоретические исследования иркутян Константина Лидина и Марка Мееровича

Детское видение и детские архитектурные школы

Infant architectural education was built at last century on the fantasy and ornamental patterns. These methods produced attractive results, but were at the same time inducing some kind of modernistic art values in scholar training and infantile thinking. Nowadays afterpostmodern art and architecture are more distanced from playfulness and striving for critical and genetic-historical approach and thus are able to widen the scope of infantile imagination toward critical attitudes.Детское художественное и архитектурное творчество до сих пор строилось на стимулировании детской фантазии и способностях к построению реалистических изображений окружающего мира. Наибольшего успеха при этом достигали школы, предлагавшие детям формальные паттерны орнаментального типа, в чем можно видеть авангардистское искусство и гештальт психологии. При этом исторический опыт изобразительного и архитектурного творчества оставался неосвоенным. Современная архитектура на этом пути уже вошла в орнаментально-геометрический тупик и игровую безответственность постмодерна, к инфантилизации архитектуры. Новый век открывает возможность развития детского творчества на основе сочетания фантазии с критикой внешнего мира

Чума и город как формы абсурда

Plague epidemics turned the city from the place of recovery to the place of death. The plague was neutralized by chemistry and came back immediately in the loss of the scale, growth in urban territories and roads, and emergence of awful city labyrinths.Чумные эпидемии превращали город из места спасения в место гибели. Чума была обезврежена химией и тут же вернулась – в утрате масштаба, росте городских территорий и дорог, в появлении чудовищных городских лабиринтов

Вневузовское архитектурное образование

Important ties between institutional and ordinary schools education system architectural criticism and popular books as necessary for providing humanistic values and creative potential in contemporary architectureВ статье рассматривается взаимосвязь массовой – довузовской и профессиональной – систем образования в области архитектуры. Подчеркивается, что без единой политики в этих сферах не удастся преодолеть деградацию архитектуры и ее гуманизирующего влияния

Крик о критике

Architectural criticism did not exist in the USSR. It did not exist in the history of architecture either. It can be observed neither in the preset-day West nor in Russia. The place of architectural criticism is occupied by architectural journalism. An ideal architectural criticism supposes that the authors and their critics should be equally developed within the sphere of the given culture. (In literature of the 19th century, Pushkin was a great poet and, at the same time, a great critic.) There have not been any great critics in architecture.Архитектурная критика отсутствовала в СССР, но ее не было и в истории архитектуры, нет ее и сегодня ни на Западе, ни в России. Место архитектурной критики занимает архитектурная публицистика. Идеальная архитектурная критика предполагает известное равенство в развитости в рамках данной культуры творцов произведений и их критиков. (В литературе  ХIХ века Пушкин был одновременно и великим поэтом, и великим критиком.) Великих критиков в архитектуре не было

Марк Меерович и СМД-методология

The article presents Alexander Rappaport's comments on the article “Mark Meerovich’s System-Based Methodological Approach to the History of Architecture and Town-Planning” written by E. Bagina.В статье представлены комментарии Александра Раппапорта по поводу статьи Елены Багиной «Системно-методологический подход к истории архитектуры и градостроительства Марка Мееровича

The dialectic of memory and habit: The situation in the 21st century architecture

The author’s two articles are united by the theme of the fate of modern architecture in the context of social changes. The first one analyses the dynamics of history, the change in the rhythm of interpretation of its course, and the mal-synchronization of changes in the world and people. The pace of renewal is organically connected with the pace of habituation. Accordingly, the arguments for or against the preservation or change can also radically change. The de-synchronization of historical changes is a problem which can be solved by architecture and urban planning

Architectural theory and practice

A practice is an activity that fulfils the tasks given by the administration or ordered for money. Such practice (design activity) does not need the theory of architecture. Architects-designers ignore it for a reason. The well-known paradox “there is nothing more practical than a good theory”, however, can be applied in the field of architecture. The idea of fundamental independence of theory and practice in architecture (and not only) is justified by the fact that it is impossible to know in advance how theoretical ideas will affect practice. The value of theoretical ideas is not diminished by the fact that they are not currently applied in practice and have no economic effect