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Grasping and Formulating

The special project “Tezisy” (“Abstracts”), showcased at Arch Moscow exhibition in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor, brought together eight young “rock stars of architecture”, the headliner being Vladislav Kirpichev, founder of the EDAS school. In this article, we share our impressions of the installations and the perspectives of the new generation of architects.

Alyona Kuznetsova

Written by:
Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

19 June 2023
Report
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To me as the editor-in-chief of the St. Petersburg branch of Archi.ru, who visited Arch Moscow for the first time and was initially overwhelmed by the abundance of showcased projects, the “Tezisy” project became the “anchor” and “grounding” point. Probably, it was the black pavilion that did the trick – it securely protected me from the outside garishness, fomo-syndrome, and fear of drones over Moscow. Or maybe it was the participants – it’s easier to relate to the subject of interests and creative search of your age-mates than those of the older generation. Or maybe it’s just the magic of Grigorios Gavalidis – if you haven’t heard of him, don’t worry, you will. Essentially, however, “Tezisy” is both a cross-section and a full-fledged statement, a collection of short stories by different authors on the same theme, which could very well have become a self-sufficient exhibition project, which it actually is. But first things first.
Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


Chapter 1 Enter Grigorios, two liters of Sake, and 300 phone calls.

If someone is interested in the secret of a successful exhibition project, then the GAFA company would probably be my best bet. Last year, this company also curated the project NEXT! with the same competence and drive – it was a great lineup of participants, whose enthusiasm was further boosted by business meetings, panel discussions, involvement of MARCH School, and chats in messaging apps. We wrote in detail about the preparation and results – such an experience, we believe, will be useful to followers.

In 2023, GAFA continued to experiment with the formats of Arch Moscow. The special project has always been called “Antithesis” – but the curators reasoned rightly that it is more important to build bridges and be together than to look for another opposition. This is why they offered each participant the opportunity to choose their own thesis (or “abstract”) and develop it as part of the overall theme of the exhibition, which was “Perspectives”.

This time the participants were experienced and commercially successful architectural companies, on a level with GAFA. Despite their experience, or maybe simply because they were all very busy at the moment, getting them together and bringing the project to the end was quite a tall order. However, GAFA’s enthusiasm is contagious and leaves no chance to stay aside – you enter their field and change yourself.

Below, we offer an imaginary infographic about the preparation of the “Tezisy”:
  • It took 300 calls to get the architects to agree to participate, finish the layouts and arrive at the exhibition on time;
  • 2 liters of sake was consumed during the discussion of the work of N…
In general, as you understand, the approach is individual, requiring energy and a fair amount of charm.

At the presentation of the project, where the spectators were so numerous that they “spilled over” the confines of the pavilion, Grigorios described the participants as “rock stars”. The comparison is apt indeed – let us hope that in the future the profession will include not just pavilions, but arenas of screaming fans as well.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


Chapter 2

In which Master addresses the Child

Not all of the participants of “Tezisy” are young by passport. GAFA managed to do another amazing thing – to attract to the project the legendary Vladislav Kirpichev, who remembers the voices of today’s masters of architecture, when they were still filling their sketchbooks in the halls with avant-garde art.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
Copyright: Photograph © Provided by GAFA


As a matter of fact, the project prepared by EDAS school won the first prize of “Tezisy” as the best architectural statement. “Brains, just like buckwheat, are the national strategic product” – read the accompanying inscription on the wall of the pavilion. You cannot but agree with that, because it’s so painful to see the wonderful brains leaking out of the country. 

As for the source of the strategic product, the inscription also says: “We have always believed that every child is a genius…” The EDAS school has always fostered individuality and independent thinking in its students, and it obtained results that surprised everyone. On the silkscreen, there is a collection of homages, sparkling “ingots” with layouts made by children as young as 6 years old. There is admiration and hope in the eyes of the beholder.

Against the background of the “bullions”, the installation itself looks a bit lost, but the statement continues: a vertical city that demonstrates how differently children can play with cubes.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
Copyright: Photograph © Provided by GAFA


The curators share that at one of the preparatory meetings the teacher “provoked” a discussion – it was easy to get confused by his questions, but it was also interesting to look for an answer. The presence of Vladislav Kirpichev, it seems, definitely influenced the other participants.

Architecture is not about buildings. Architecture is about space plus the way we move in it. Descartes first described space through the extent of the bodies that fill it. After him, the whole of European metaphysics became like an attic, cluttered with objects and associated forever with fullness and excess. Kant threw objects and bodies out of the attic, clearing the room. Now space along with time is connected to consciousness, not to bodies and objects...

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


Chapter 3

In which the kids create perspectives

You get into the dark pavilion of “Tezisy” from a lit space – the sounds get muffled, and the colors get brighter in the highlighted objects. They look as if they were hovering in an empty space, or as if we were wearing AR glasses.

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    Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA
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    Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA
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    Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA
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    Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA
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    Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA
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    Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


“The world will be as we invent it” reads the message of the PARSEC installation in the darkness. The architects propose that everyone interpret it according to their taste: the sculpture of streamlined volumes with the trim of soft feathers at the rational level does not seem to relate to any ready-made images, but makes you dive into the unconscious and seek answers there, in the space of dreams or the cosmos. PARSEC finds “points of reference beyond the earthly”, and in the work they combine things that they value the most – lightness, play, sensuality, mathematics, philosophy and poetry.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023. PARSEC ARCHITECTS, “Fixes Points Beyond the Terrestrial”
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


CHADO’s work echoes this plurality of possibilities: the perspectives are infinite, but which of them will a man be able to discover, what will catch his eye? “Black Monolith is inspired in part by Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey, in part by the Sumerian disc or the Maya calendar, and symbolizes the clot of perspectives that is opened up by the knowledge of previous generations, the will to accomplish something, and some kind of catalyst. This also brings to mind the final episodes of another film, The Fifth Element – let love be the catalyst.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023. "The Black Monolith , the precursor to discovering a perspective."
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


Across from it, there is something earthy, warm, and stable: a stove made by TOBE architects from recycled plastic. The marble-like material brings to mind the ancient halls of the Hermitage or maybe the St. Petersburg subway. As you get closer, you cannot resist the urge to touch it. New perspectives are opened by a synthesis of identity, new technologies, and environmental responsibility.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023.TOBE Architects, “Substitution in the hearth of culture”
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


KAMEN (“Stone”), which was the only one to present a kinetic object, sees the meaning of things in transformation. It becomes the basis for the search for form, function, and feeling. Everything flows and changes with time and space. It becomes a kind of haiku:

The horizontal flows into vertical. The public function flows into a residential one. The closed space becomes open. Hybrid and multifunctional are our future. 

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023. KAMEN Architects, Transformation
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


AD HOC ARCHITECTURE takes a slightly broader view, glorifying movement per se. Movement generates life, not always predictable or even happy, but there is only certainty in death, the essence of which is the absence of all movement. Mors certa, vita incerta. “If there is no movement and nothing happens, everything becomes cold, dull and meaningless, and the impulses and triggers of various processes create dynamic, non-linear spaces whose perspectives are learned through movement”.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023. AD HOC ARCHITECTURE “Perspective of Movement”
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


A4 associates the “new renaissance” with technology – the idea hangs in the air rather intrusively, but here they managed to breathe a piece of human warmth into the neural networks. The architects acted as intermediaries between the grandmother of one of the participants in the project and MidJourney: the memories of one “downloaded” into the other in order to restore the look of the burnt-out house, the family nest, photos of which are almost gone. Discovering more and more new details, the architects gradually came to a certain form, but they did not seek to restore everything – only the most striking things that stand out in the memory. The layout was printed on a 3d printer, making the gaps transparent; the pedestal was built from the logs of the old house – this way, the new sprouts from the old.

There is, of course, always a possibility of an error due to the nature of human memory, and this method of reconstruction cannot be called scientific. However, it definitely captures your imagination. You start fantasizing how in the future it will be possible to load all existing documentation about the lost object into a neural network, add a piece of preserved authentic matter to this “melting pot”, and you will obtain a hologram of the building and working documents for actual reconstruction.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023. A4, "The New Renaissance: the synthesis of humans and neural networks"
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


The ARCH(E)TYPE team, which makes architecture, furniture, and jewelry, predictably pays maximum attention to interdisciplinary flexibility. Their table displays a postmodernist game of scaling: a slice of a column becomes a decoration and then, like Lewis Carroll, blows up to become a public building. It is only the concept that matters: a good one is bound to work on a scale from storefront to megalopolis.

Tezisy at Arch Moscow 2023. ARCH(E)TYPE , “Perspective in Interdisciplinary Flexibility and Subordination to a Common Concept”
Copyright: Photograph © Daniel Annenkov / Provided by GAFA


Afterword

The “Tezisy” project was a success and aroused a lot of interest, which evidenced by the sheer fact that the pavilion never stood empty. After Arch Moscow, Daria Belyakova, the founder of ARCH(E)TYPE, showed “Tezisy” in her A-House space, a club for architects, designers, and “other visionaries from related fields”. The project could have gone on tour to St. Petersburg’s “Sevkabel”, but, as the participants rightly pointed out, “you still have to go and do actual work sometimes”. 

Therefore, for all those who didn’t make it to Arch Moscow, the organizers have prepared a film tour; it is posted on a brand new, but promising GAFA’s YouTube channel.



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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA
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    The “Tezisy” project in A-House, 2023
    Copyright: Photograph © Diana Veshkurtseva / Provided by GAFA


19 June 2023

Alyona Kuznetsova

Written by:

Alyona Kuznetsova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov
Headlines now
Our Everything
Who is Alexey Shchusev? In the last couple of weeks, since the architect’s 150th birthday, different individuals have answered this question differently. The most detailed, illustrated, and elegantly presented response is an exhibition held in two buildings of the Museum of Architecture on Vozdvizhenka. Four curators, a year and a half of work performed by the entire museum, and exhibition design by Sergey Tchoban and Alexandra Sheiner – in this article, we take you on a tour of the exhibition and show what’s what in it.
Gold Embroidery
A five-story housing complex designed by Stepan Liphart in Kazan, responds to the stylistically diverse context with its form, both integral and agile, and as for the vicinity of the “Ekiyat” movie theater, the complex responds to it with a semblance of theater curtain folds, and active plastique of its balconies, that bear some resemblance to theater boxes. Even if excessively pompous a little bit, the complex does look fresh and modern. One will have a hard time finding Art Deco elements in it, even though the spirit of the 1930s, run through the filter of neo-modernism, is still clearly felt, just as a twist of the Occident.
Reconciliation
The restoration of the Salt Warehouse for the Zvenigorod Museum, on the one hand, was quite accurately implemented according to the design of the People’s Architect, and, on the other hand, it was not without some extra research and adjustments, which, in this case, was quite beneficial for the project. The architects discovered the original paint color, details of the facades, and studied the history of rebuilds of this building. As a result, the imposing character of the empire building, the oldest one in the city, and the differences of later additions were accurately revealed. Most importantly, however, the city got a new cultural and public space, which is already “working” in full swing.
From Moscow to Khabarovsk
This year, the works submitted by the students of the Genplan Institute of Moscow included a proposal for revitalizing Moscow’s “Pravda” complex with its structures designed by Ilia Golosov, landscaping an East Siberian town, located a 12-hour drive away from the nearest big city, and three versions of turning a derelict “pioneer camp” into an educational hub, similar to “Sirius”. Two sites out of three have an interested client, so chances are that the students’ works will be ultimately implemented.
Harmonization of Intentions
We met and talked with the chief architect of Genplan Institute of Moscow Grigory Mustafin and the chief architect of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk Maxim Efanov – about how the master plan of the city is formed. The key to success: gathering data, digital simulation, working with the city people, thinking infrastructure, and presentation.
​Cité for Naro-Fominsk
The new neighborhood on an island in the center of Naro-Fominsk continues the ideas of developing the territory of the silk-weaving factory, around which the city actually formed. The authors skillfully mix different formats of mid-rise development and make the most of the island location, offering a variety of formats of interaction with water, available to all citizens. No wonder that the project is considered exemplary and worthy of duplication in the region. It is also an example of rare synergy between the client and the architects.
A Tower and a Manor House
The concept of a high-density residential district replacing a set of outdated privately owned houses in Yekaterinburg preserves the street grid and, in some cases, even the scale of construction. OSA Architects combine towers with townhouses and other types of housing, orienting the silhouette composition towards a pedestrian boulevard. Through non-linear routes and spatial diversity, the residents will see their neighborhood in a new way every day.
​The Warm Stone
The housing complex in Zelenogorsk is interpreted by Mayak architects as a scatter of stones. The unconventional outline of houses with a pentagon plan not only helped to form the image part of the project, but also facilitated the architects’ work with the density of construction and insolation of the apartments.
For All Times
The modular technology combined with the building material of glued wood allows the architectural company Rhizome to create quick-mount hotels (no less!) that are highly rated by the architectural community: last week, the new hotel “Vremena Goda. Igora” scored three awards. Below, we are examining the project in detail.
The Other Way Around
Few awards instead of many, the award ceremony conducted on the first day instead of last, projections instead of sketch boards, trees inside and art objects outside – the renewal of the Architecton festival seemingly took the sure-fire path of turning all the professional traditions upside down – or at least those that happened to be within the scope of the organizers’ attention. There’s certainly a lot to pick on, but the exhibition does feel fresh and improvisational. It looks that pretty soon these guys will set trends for Moscow as well. We shared with you about some elements of the festival in our Telegram channel, and now we are examining the whole thing.
ArchiWOOD-14: Building Bridges
This season, the festival’s jury decided not to award a grand prize: judging by the fact that the shortlist included several projects that had not reached the award in previous years, and the “best house” was pronounced to be an undoubtedly beautiful but mass-produced model, the “harvest” of wooden buildings in 2023 was not too abundant. However, there were many unusual typologies among the finalists, and restoration and revitalization projects received their share of recognition. Let’s take a look at all the finalists.
The Chinese Symphony
The construction of the Chinese center “Huaming Park” has been a long story that came to fruition relatively recently. The building is adjacent to a traditional Chinese garden, but it is very modern, laconic and technological, and the simple-in-form, yet spectacular, white lamellae promise to someday be incorporated as a media facade. This complex is also truly multifunctional: it contains different types of living spaces, offices, a large fitness center, conference halls and restaurants – all wrapped in one volume. You can comfortably hold international forums in it, having everything you may possibly need at your fingertips, and going outside only to take a walk. In this article, we are examining this complex in detail.
Ensemble of Individualities
Construction of the first phase of the INDY Towers multifunctional complex on Kuusinen Street, designed by Ostozhenka, has started. The project opens new angles of similarity between the column and the skyscraper, and we examine the nuances and parallels.
Black and Red
Kazakov Grand Loft received its name for a reason: responding to the client’s brief and proceeding from the historical industrial architecture of its immediate surroundings, Valery Kanyashin and Ostozhenka architects proposed a new version of a modern house designed in the fashionable “loft” style. What makes this building different is the fact that the bricks here are dark gray, and the facades of the romantic “fortress” towers blossom with magnificent glazing of the windows in the upper part. The main highlight of the complex, however, is the multiple open air terraces situated on different levels.
Icy Hospitality
Mezonproject has won the national architectural and town planning competition for designing a hotel and a water recreation center in the city of Irkutsk. The architects chose hummocks of Baikal ice as a visual image.
The Mastery of Counterpoint
In the sculpture of Classical Greece, counterpoint was first invented: the ability to position the human body as if it were about to take a step, imbuing it with a hint of the energy of future movement, and with hidden dynamics. For architecture, especially in the 20th century and now, this is also one of the main techniques, and the ATRIUM architects implement it diligently, consistently – and always slightly differently. The new residential complex “Richard” is a good example of such exploration, based on the understanding of contrasts in the urban environment, which was fused into the semblance of a living being.
Countryside Avant-Garde
The project of the museum of Aleksey Gastev, the ideologist of scientific organization of work, located in his hometown of Suzdal, is inscribed in multiple contexts: the contest of a small town, the context of avant-garde design, the context of “lean production”, and the context of the creative quest of Nikolai Lyzlov’s minimalist architecture – and it seems to us that this project even reveals a distant memory of the fact that Aleksey Gastev learned his craft in France.
On the Hills
In the project by Studio 44, the “distributed” IT campus of Nizhny Novgorod is based on well-balanced contracts. Sometimes it is hovering, sometimes undulating, sometimes towering over a rock. For every task, the architects found appropriate form and logic: the hotels are based on a square module, the academic buildings are based on a “flying” one, and so on. Modernist prototypes, specifically, Convent Sainte-Marie de La Tourette, stand next to references to the antique Forum and the tower of a medieval university – as well as next to contextual allusions that help inscribe the buildings of the future campus into the landscape of the city hills with their dominants, high slopes, breathtaking river views, the historical city center, and the Nizhny Novgorod University.
The Magic Carpet
The anniversary exhibition of Totan Kuzembaev’s drawings named “Event Horizons” shows both very old drawings made by the architect in the formative 1980’s, and now extracted from the Museum of Architecture, as well as quite a few pictures from the “Weightlessness” series that Totan Kuzembaev drew specifically for this exhibition in 2023. It seemed to us that the architect represented reality from the point of view of someone levitating in space, and sometimes even upside down, like a magic carpet with multiple layers.
​A Copper Step
Block 5, designed by ASADOV architects as part of the “Ostrov” (“Island”) housing complex, is at the same time grand-scale, conspicuous thanks to its central location – and contextual. It does not “outshout” the solutions used in the neighboring buildings, but rather gives a very balanced implementation of the design code: combining brick and metal in light and dark shades and large copper surfaces, orthogonal geometry on the outside and flexible lines in the courtyard.
The Light for the Island
For the first time around, we are examining a lighting project designed for a housing complex; but then again, the authors of the nighttime lighting of the Ostrov housing complex, UNK lighting, proudly admit that this project is not just the largest in their portfolio, but also the largest in this country. They describe their approach as a European one, its chief principles being smoothness of transitions, comfort to the eye, and the concentration of most of the light at the “bottom” level – meaning, it “works” first of all for pedestrians.
Spots of Light
A new housing complex in Tyumen designed by Aukett Swanke is a very eye-pleasing example of mid-rise construction: using simple means of architectural expression, such as stucco, pitched roofs, and height changes, the architects achieve a “human-friendly” environment, which becomes a significant addition to the nearby park and forest.
Ledges and Swirls
The housing complex “Novaya Zarya” (“New Dawn”) designed by ASADOV Architects will become one of the examples of integrated land development in Vladivostok. The residential area will be characterized by various typologies of its housing sections, and a multitude of functions – in addition to the social infrastructure, the complex will include pedestrian promenades, shopping malls, office buildings, and recreational facilities. The complex is “inscribed” in a relief with a whopping 40-meter height difference, and overlooks the Amur Bay.
Agglomeration on an Island
Recently, an approval came for the master plan of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk agglomeration, which was developed by a consortium headed by the Genplan Institute of Moscow. The document provides for the creation of 12 clusters, the totality of which will give the region a qualitative leap in development and make the island more self-sufficient, more accessible, and less dependent on the mainland. We are inviting you to examine the details.
Ivan Grekov: “A client that wants to make a building that is “about architecture” is...
In this article, we are talking to Ivan Grekov, the leader of the architectural company KAMEN (translates as “stone”), the author of many high-profile projects that have been built in Moscow in the recent years, about the history of his company, about different approaches to form making, about different meanings of volume and facade, and about “layers” in working with the environment – at the example of two projects by Osnova Group. These are the MIRAPOLIS complex on the Mira Avenue in Rostokino, whose construction began at the end of last year, and the multifunctional complex in the 2nd Silikatny Proezd on the Zvenigorodsky Highway; recently, it received all the required approvals.
Grasping and Formulating
The special project “Tezisy” (“Abstracts”), showcased at Arch Moscow exhibition in Moscow’s Gostiny Dvor, brought together eight young “rock stars of architecture”, the headliner being Vladislav Kirpichev, founder of the EDAS school. In this article, we share our impressions of the installations and the perspectives of the new generation of architects.
The White Tulip
Currently, there are two relevant projects for the Great Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, which was transferred to a land site in Admiralteiskaya Sloboda in February. One of them, designed by TsLP, was recently showcased at Arch Moscow. In this article, we are covering another project, which was proposed during the same period for the same land site. Its author is Aleksey Ginzburg, the winner of the 2022 competition, but now the project is completely different. Today, it is a sculptural “flower” dome symbolizing a white tulip.
ATRIUM’s Metaverse
The architectural company ATRIUM opened a gallery of its own in a metaverse. Inside, one can examine the company’s approach and main achievements, as well as get some emotional experience. The gallery is already hosting cyberspace business meetings and corporate events.
​From Darkness to Light
Responding to a lengthy list of limitations and a lengthy – by the standards of a small building – list of functions, Vladimir Plotkin turned the project of the Novodevichy Monastery into a light, yet dynamic statement of modern interpretation of historical context, or, perhaps, even interpretation of light and darkness.