Mysteries of the Russian Soul

zooming — "Zodchestvo" 2014. Photo © Julia Tarabarina, Archi.ru

‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where - ’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘ - so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Recently, the exhibition center Gostiny Dvor played host to "Zodchestvo" Festival - for a few years already, this festival goes on not for four but for three days, so one should waste no time if he or she wants to see much of it.

The festival was opened by minister Medinsky, at the entrance you see smiling portraits of Lenin and Putin, Khrushchev is brandishing his proverbial shoe, then you bump into "Crimea-is-ours" and other inevitable signs of your national identity. In a word, I was pretty scared to go there, although I did a fair bit of homework: during the entire autumn we kept interviewing the curators of the special projects about their creative plans. As for the visitor turnout, it is actually poor; somebody has already said the festival is "half-empty". The visitor flow grows weaker by the year in spite of the free entrance. And this sure is a pity. Because this time around the curators, Asadov brothers, despite their, well, unconventional ideas of avant-garde, as well as identity, were able to organize the expo space really well - which is rarely the case with "Zodchestvo".

This year, the exhibition space is a hybrid of the cells that were a few years ago proposed by Yuri Avvakumov in an attempt to turn "Zodchestvo" into a biennale - and a maze of booths that the festival has always consisted of. Gostiny Dvor is filled with square exhibition booths, lined up in a Basilica fashion along the broad main nave, crossed by a just as broad transept. On the outside, the walls are mostly light-gray; in the corridors, on these walls there are expositions of the curator program, inside - projects by regions and agencies, although closer to the end of the exposition this logic seems to fade. Still - a lot of light, a lot of space to breathe, and neither plastic expositions nor the kitsch spots are too noticeable.

The lightness of the atmosphere is successfully supported by the two main stands - that of Moscow and that of Saint Petersburg: we all remember the carpets, the glowing floors and other striking and expensive whistles and bells; today, however, the Moscow stand, dedicated to the riverfront development of the Moskva River, is finished with plywood and is decorated by the model of the river that Scientific-Research and Design Institute of the General Plan of Moscow already showcased at "Zodchestvo" last year. The stand of Saint Petersburg's Committee for City Planning and Architecture must be recognized as the best of all the regional ones: it features a very general and unpretentious but still rather large waist-high model of the city center. Wandering among the laconic cabinets of the model buildings, the visitor can actually write on them with a red marker his or her thoughts and insights about different places; a few words and phrases are already written - probably, to help the visitor to easier find his or her bearings - while there is actually a promise that the information and ideas collected on such a way will be forwarded directly to Saint Petersburg's Committee for City Planning and Architecture. The interactive idea is far from effective - but the amusement is well worth it.

The curators promised that there would be more thematic exhibitions than ever before, and they stood by their word. Half of them, though, turned out to be just pads handing on the walls - but the other half was truly grand-scale. Let us begin with the main subject of the festival, though. It was chosen on a joint basis but, as is often the case, the organizers were unable to arrive at a single decision, and it turned out that "Zodchestvo" is dedicated simultaneously to at least two things: the hundredth anniversary of avant-garde and the search for identity of the Russian architecture.

The two festival themes, avant-garde and national identity, coexist in the central space of the exhibition, parallel to each other and in two totally different ways. Everything that has to do with the avant-garde and Art-Nouveau is more like a catalogue or a visitor's guidebook, and palpably refers to the process of enlightening the general public on the subject of the history of this architectural trend that happens to celebrate an anniversary now. Fragments of the catalogue are diluted by a number of sturdy black kiosks, each one representing an object of the postwar Art-Nouveau, and by an Edward Kubensky performance project where the visitors are entertained with kaleidoscopes from the icons of "black square", "Mayakovsky T-shirt", "Melnikov's windows" and many others: each visitor can put together a kaleidoscope of his own and then buy it as a souvenir.

As compared to the "unscrambled" avant-garde, the "identity" is quite a questionable thing: nobody knows for sure just what it is but everybody is searching for one - some search for his or her personal or creative identity, some - for their national or even federal identity. The latter seem to be pretty alarming: the festival has already been accused of being politically biased, and, possibly, for a good reason. However: at all the previous "Zodchestvo" festivals, there were prominently present the fragments of kitsch Russian identity - sometimes it was the Cossacks, sometimes the izbas - and now you will find nothing of the kind here, at least at a glance.

The assigned search for the mysterious artistic identity came out surprisingly right, in the spirit of the self-laceration of the Russian literature - and this is the only possible mode of existence for such a sore theme. All the identity that was there at the festival went into material objects and has lived happily ever since. The best collection of objects is - and here I am sharing the opinion of Yuri Avvakumov that he posted on his Facebook page - the exhibition of the students and graduates of MARCH school, a project that came out of the blue and somehow was not announced among the special projects, even though it is plain to see that it had seen much preparation: all the models are the same size and do a great deal to "uncover the Russian soul".

For example, the project by Andrew Kostanda, a graduate school student, entitled "Gullible", presents a forest of chaotically placed sticks, smaller in the center and larger at the edges: "symbolizes the simplicity of the Russian character that can hardly be read by other cultures". Mikhail Mikadze, also a first-year graduate student, presents the project entitled "Formation" that is meant to reflect the "permanently incomplete state of the Russian architecture and the formalization of the relationship between the leaders and the followers - a model of a building trestle. Maria Kurkova: "The Fence to Europe". Natalia Sablina: the pavilion "symbolizes transparent but controversial and delicate psyche of the Russian human being".

A true masterpiece is the project prepared by Elena Petukhova - she was able not only to collect video interviews of many recognized architects about the "genetic code" of their creative work but also have most of the participants of the project illustrate their interview with an installation; some of these installations were created specifically for this particular exhibition. The string of installation objects does not seem to fit into the space between the booths, they spill over outside, and because of this, some of them can be missed. One of the most "missable" objects, but, to my mind, one of the best, was created by Ilia Mukosey and Natalia Voronova; it stands directly before the main entrance. To "see the national architectural identity", the visitor is offered "to look attentively into the center of the square for 20 seconds; if the desired effect is not achieved, please repeat from the start". Seriously, if they had asked to look into the middle of Malevich's Black Square, this would have been neither funny nor interesting. This way, however, the excessive irony makes sense at least because of the fact that Ilia Mukosey did a similar project this summer when he was curating the contest named "Russian Character" for the residential complex "Morton-Grad".

All the objects are totally beautiful but after the empty space the funniest of them are the "Jar of pickled cucumbers. Identity: five liters" by Nikita Yavein and the "Golden Ax" by Julius Borisov. The most enigmatic object, though, is the fuzzy spiral sphere that looks like a generalized dome of Saint Basil Cathedral - the project was prepared Aleksey Levchuk and Vladimir Frolov. Had it not been for the questionable statement of the authors to the effect that the spiral-shaped bulging ornament adorned the domes of the Russian churches in the XVI century (gosh, I wish they had at least taken the trouble of googling it - the thing us that such example are extremely rare, one or two in fact), the object that still smells of wet glue, would be just perfect.

As for the curators, Andrew and Nikita Asadov, they added some scents to the image of Russian identity, hoisting, at their part of the exposition, a model of the Shukhov Tower, from the top of which tar is springing, obviously meant to impersonate oil. The same model of the same tower, only made of ice, was shown by the brothers at Arch Moscow in summer; probably, in winter something that is capable of burning looks more attractive. Well, really, the tower indeed bears some distant resemblance with the oil-derrick; besides, Shukhov, as now everyone knows, back in the day designed the oil reservoirs, too. The little woodblock and the silk scarf with a diamond-shaped pattern, together with the tower, form a triad, while on the wall, there are still more triad meant to uncover, obviously, the Russian soul but still looking rather arbitrary.

Another thing that catches the eye is the fact that the overwhelming majority of the architects did not even try to look for the "identity of today" in the avant-garde. The students focused on the abstract, and, let's say that again, literature strings of the Russian soul. As for the recognized architects, they mostly placed their bet on the irony of different degrees of bitterness and on the reminiscences of their own projects (which comes as no surprise, really, because they were asked to share about the "genetic code" of their creative work); it seems that Sergey Tchoban alone showed something that looked like the search for special plastics - but then again, in the summary he speaks about the cities of Pskov and Novgorod, while his object paradoxically looks like Golosov's "Capital".

Almost nobody tried to look for today's identity in the avant-garde, as the curators of the exhibition called on to the participants to do. This was, probably, the only possible way to somehow reconcile the two entirely different subjects of the festival. The phenomenon of identity is something that can be talked about forever - it can be personal, creative, national, and federal. Talking about the imperial identity is a bit strange because an empire by definition must claim to be global instead of having identity, however, there are people that do, and they are pretty numerous, too. As for architectural national identity, it is common knowledge that the Russian, just like all the European cultures looked for it in the XIX and early XX centuries, responding to the romantics' calling, and predominantly in the medieval samples. This search ended in the advent of avant-garde that substituted the national with the global and the common with the personal and creative. This is precisely why looking for the national identity in the avant-garde seems to me at least strange. One can propose but one adequate solution: since the avant-garde puts on top of everything the creator's will (see, for example, Kandinsky and not only him) - then you have to look for identity inside your own self. But what does the national have to do with it? This explains the irony of many of the objects that have to do with the subject.

As for the theory proposed by the Asadov brothers who discovered that the Russian history has in it "five avant-gardes", starting from the days of Prince Vladimir, it was subjected to criticism when I already left the place but still I think that there is something that must be added. This version of the Russian architectural identity looks like a hybrid of a romantic historical search and a forced necessity to find not just any identity but a "good" identity in your history. It's almost as if somebody explained to academician Solntsev that, apart from the Tower Palace, there is still avant-garde to be considered, and this avant-garde is purer, closer to the people, and it is this avant-garde that we must revive if we want to get back to our roots. In a word, today the Russian educated people may not know it but they surely feel it: there is a "bad" imperial pseudo-Russian identity, and there is the "good" avant-garde one; from time to time we start entertaining hopes that this "good" identity will save us from the "bad" one.

Strictly speaking, this statement is bordering on the absurd. "Zodchestvo" has always had a slightly absurd twist to it, almost as if it were an intrinsic part thereof; this time around, however, it looked to me that this "absurd" note was deliberately amplified. Seriously, who in his or her right mind would ever believe that the town of Kizhi is avant-garde just because Peter the Great banned any stone construction in 1714? And both Putin and Lenin are smiling in a weird sort of way. And Mother Mary on the Petrov-Vodkin picture is flinging her arms up in the eternal amazement. Wonderfuller and wonderfuller!

19 December 2014

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

Headlines now

The Forum of Time

The competition project for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka designed by Aleksey Orlov and Arena Project Institute consists of cones and conical funnels connected into a non-trivial composition, where one can feel the hand of architects who have worked extensively with stadiums and other sports facilities. It’s very interesting to delve into its logic, structurally built on the theme of clocks, hourglasses and even sundials. Additionally, the architects have turned the exhibition pavilion into a series of interconnected amphitheaters, which is also highly relevant for world exhibitions. We are reminding you that the competition results were never announced.

Mirrors Everywhere

The project by Sergey Nebotov, Anastasia Gritskova, and the architectural company “Novoe” was created for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025, but within the framework of another competition, which, as we learned, took place even earlier, in 2021. At that time, the competition theme was “digital twins”, and there was minimal time for work, so the project, according to the architect himself, was more of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, this project is interesting for its plan bordering on similarity with Baroque projects and the emblem of the exhibition, as well as its diverse and comprehensive reflectiveness.

Report

The Steppe Is Full of Beauty and Freedom

The goal of the exhibition “Dikoe Pole” (“Wild Field”) at the State Historical Museum was to move away from the archaeological listing of valuable items and to create an image of the steppe and nomads that was multidirectional and emotional – in other words, artistic. To achieve this goal, it was important to include works of contemporary art. One such work is the scenography of the exhibition space developed by CHART studio.

The Snowstorm Fish

The next project from the unfinished competition for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, is by Dashi Namdakov and Parsec Architects. The pavilion describes itself as an “architectural/sculptural” one, with its shape clearly reminiscent of abstract sculpture of the 1970s. It complements its program with a meditative hall named “Mendeleev’s Dreams”, and offers its visitors to slide from its roof at the end of the tour.

The Mirror of Your Soul

We continue to publish projects from the competition for the design of the Russian Pavilion at EXPO in Osaka 2025. We are reminding you that the results of the competition have not been announced, and hardly will ever be. The pavilion designed by ASADOV Architects combines a forest log cabin, the image of a hyper transition, and sculptures made of glowing threads – it focuses primarily on the scenography of the exhibition, which the pavilion builds sequentially like a string of impressions, dedicating it to the paradoxes of the Russian soul.

Part of the Ideal

In 2025, another World Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan, in which Russia will not participate. However, a competition for the Russian pavilion was indeed held, with six projects participating. The results were never announced as Russia’s participation was canceled; the competition has no winners. Nevertheless, Expo pavilion projects are typically designed for a bold and interesting architectural statement, so we’ve gathered all the six projects and will be publishing articles about them in random order. The first one is the project by Vladimir Plotkin and Reserve Union, which is distinguished by the clarity of its stereometric shape, the boldness of its structure, and the multiplicity of possible interpretations.

Object

The Fortress by the River

ASADOV Architects have developed a concept for a new residential district in the center of Kemerovo. To combat the harsh climate and monotonous everyday life, the architects proposed a block type of development with dominant towers, good insolation, facades detailed at eye level, and event programming.

Object

In the Rhombus Grid

Construction has begun on the building of the OMK (United Metallurgical Company) Corporate University in Nizhny Novgorod’s town of Vyksa, designed by Ostozhenka Architects. The most interesting aspect of the project is how the architects immersed it in the context: “extracting” a diagonal motif from the planning grid of Vyksa, they aligned the building, the square, and the park to match it. A truly masterful work with urban planning context on several different levels of perception has long since become the signature technique of Ostozhenka.

Object

Generational Connection

Another modern estate, designed by Roman Leonidov, is located in the Moscow region and brings together three generations of one family under one roof. To fit on a narrow plot without depriving anyone of personal space, the architects opted for a zigzag plan. The main volume in the house structure is accentuated by mezzanines with a reverse-sloped roof and ceilings featuring exposed beams.

Object

Three Dimensions of the City

We began to delve into the project by Sergey Skuratov, the residential complex “Depo” in Minsk, located at Victory Square, and it fascinated us completely. The project has at least several dimensions to it: historical – at some point, the developer decided to discontinue further collaboration with Sergey Skuratov Architects, but the concept was approved, and its implementation continues, mostly in accordance with the proposed ideas. The spatial and urban planning dimension – the architects both argue with the city and play along with it, deciphering nuances, and finding axes. And, finally, the tactile dimension – the constructed buildings also have their own intriguing features. Thus, this article also has two parts: it dwells on what has been built and what was conceived

Object

New “Flight”

Architects from “Mezonproject” have developed a project for the reconstruction of the regional youth center “Polyot”(“Flight”) in the city of Oryol. The summer youth center, built back in the late 1970s, will now become year-round and acquire many additional functions.

Object

The Yauza Towers

In Moscow, there aren’t that many buildings or projects designed by Nikita Yavein and Studio 44. In this article, we present to you the concept of a large multifunctional complex on the Yauza River, located between two parks, featuring a promenade, a crossroads of two pedestrian streets, a highly developed public space, and an original architectural solution. This solution combines a sophisticated, asymmetric façade grid, reminiscent of a game of fifteen puzzle, and bold protrusions of the upper parts of the buildings, completely masking the technical floors and sculpting the complex’s silhouette.

Object

Architecture and Leisure Park

For the suburban hotel complex, which envisages various formats of leisure, the architectural company T+T Architects proposed several types of accommodation, ranging from the classic “standard” in a common building to a “cave in the hill” and a “house in a tree”. An additional challenge consisted in integrating a few classic-style residences already existing on this territory into the “architectural forest park”.

Overview

The U-House

The Jois complex combines height with terraces, bringing the most expensive apartments from penthouses down to the bottom floors. The powerful iconic image of the U-shaped building is the result of the creative search for a new standard of living in high-rise buildings by the architects of “Genpro”.

Object

Black and White

In this article, we specifically discuss the interiors of the ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh. Interior design is a crucial component of the overall concept in this case, and precision and meticulous execution were highly important for the architects. Julia Tryaskina, head of UNK interiors, shares some of the developments.

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The “Snake” Mountain

The competition project for the seaside resort complex “Serpentine” combines several typologies: apartments of different classes, villas, and hotel rooms. For each of these typologies, the KPLN architects employ one of the images that are drawn from the natural environment – a serpentine road, a mountain stream, and rolling waves.

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Opal from Anna Mons’ Ring

The project of a small business center located near Tupolev Plaza and Radio Street proclaims the necessity of modern architecture in a specific area of Moscow commonly known as “Nemetskaya Sloboda” or “German settlement”. It substantiates its thesis with the thoroughness of details, a multitude of proposed and rejected form variants, and even a detailed description of the surrounding area. The project is interesting indeed, and it is even more interesting to see what will come of it.

Object

Feed ’Em All

A “House of Russian Cuisine” was designed and built by KROST Group at VDNKh for the “Rossiya” exhibition in record-breaking time. The pavilion is masterfully constructed in terms of the standards of modern public catering industry multiplied by the bustling cultural program of the exhibition, and it interprets the stylistically diverse character of VDNKh just as successfully. At the same time, much of its interior design can be traced back to the prototypes of the 1960s – so much so that even scenes from iconic Soviet movies of those years persistently come to mind.

Object

The Ensemble at the Mosque

OSA prepared a master plan for a district in the southern part of Derbent. The main task of the master plan is to initiate the formation of a modern comfortable environment in this city. The organization of residential areas is subordinated to the city’s spiritual center: depending on the location relative to the cathedral mosque, the houses are distinguished by façade and plastique solutions. The program also includes a “hospitality center”, administrative buildings, an educational cluster, and even an air bridge.

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Pargolovo Protestantism

A Protestant church is being built in St. Petersburg by the project of SLOI architects. One of the main features of the building is a wooden roof with 25-meter spans, which, among other things, forms the interior of the prayer hall. Also, there are other interesting details – we are telling you more about them.

Object

The Shape of the Inconceivable

The ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh brings to mind a famous maxim of all architects and critics: “You’ve come up with it? Now build it!” You rarely see such a selfless immersion in implementation of the project, and the formidable structural and engineering tasks set by UNK architects to themselves are presented here as an integral and important part of the architectural idea. The challenge matches the obliging status of the place – after all, it is an “exhibition of achievements”, and the pavilion is dedicated to the nuclear energy industry. Let’s take a closer look: from the outside, from the inside, and from the underside too.

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Rays of the Desert

A school for 1750 students is going to be built in Dubai, designed by IND Architects. The architects took into account the local specifics, and proposed a radial layout and spaces, in which the children will be comfortable throughout the day.

Object

The Dairy Theme

The concept of an office of a cheese-making company, designed for the enclosed area of a dairy factory, at least partially refers to industrial architecture. Perhaps that is why this concept is very simple, which seems the appropriate thing to do here. The building is enlivened by literally a couple of “master strokes”: the turning of the corner accentuates the entrance, and the shade of glass responds to the theme of “milk rivers” from Russian fairy tales.

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The Road to the Temple

Under a grant from the Small Towns Competition, the main street and temple area of the village of Nikolo-Berezovka near Neftekamsk has been improved. A consortium of APRELarchitects and Novaya Zemlya is turning the village into an open-air museum and integrating ruined buildings into public life.

Object

Towers Leaning Towards the Sun

The three towers of the residential complex “Novodanilovskaya 8” are new and the tallest neighbors of the Danilovsky Manufactory, “Fort”, and “Plaza”, complementing a whole cluster of modern buildings designed by renowned masters. At the same time, the towers are unique for this setting – they are residential, they are the tallest ones here, and they are located on a challenging site. In this article, we explore how architects Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova tackled this far-from-trivial task.

Object

In the spirit of ROSTA posters

The new Rostselmash tractor factory, conceptualized by ASADOV Architects, is currently being completed in Rostov-on-Don. References to the Soviet architecture of the 1920’s and 1960’s resonate with the mission and strategic importance of the enterprise, and are also in line with the client’s wish: to pay homage to Rostov’s constructivism.

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The Northern Thebaid

The central part of Ferapontovo village, adjacent to the famous monastery with frescoes by Dionisy, has been improved according to the project by APRELarchitects. Now the place offers basic services for tourists, as well as a place for the villagers’ leisure.

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Brilliant Production

The architects from London-based MOST Architecture have designed the space for the high-tech production of Charge Cars, a high-performance production facility for high-speed electric cars that are assembled in the shell of legendary Ford Mustangs. The founders of both the company and the car assembly startup are Russians who were educated in their home country.

Object

Three-Part Task: St. Petersburg’s Mytny Dvor

The so-called “Mytny Dvor” area lying just behind Moscow Railway Station – the market rows with a complex history – will be transformed into a premium residential complex by Studio 44. The project consists of three parts: the restoration of historical buildings, the reconstruction of the lost part of the historical contour, and new houses. All of them are harmonized with each other and with the city; axes and “beams of light” were found, cozy corners and scenic viewpoints were carefully thought out. We had a chat with the authors of the historical buildings’ restoration project, and we are telling you about all the different tasks that have been solved here.

Object

The Color of the City, or Reflections on the Slope of an Urban Settlement

In 2022, Ostozhenka Architects won a competition, and in 2023, they developed and received all the necessary approvals for a master plan for the development of Chernigovskaya Street for the developer GloraX. The project takes into account a 10-year history of previous developments; it was done in collaboration with architects from Nizhny Novgorod, and it continues to evolve now. We carefully examined it, talked to everyone, and learned a lot of interesting things.

Mysteries of the Russian Soul

The participants of "Zodchestvo" Festival were able to shift its precarious theme of "national identity" into the only possible sane area: nervous self-analysis bordering on the grotesque. With a moveless countenance.