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.

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

04 August 2023

Report

The exhibition of Totan Kuzembaev’s works named “Event Horizons”, organized in the Museum of Architecture, is an anniversary one – recently, the architect turned 70 – and the exhibition can be regarded, on one hand, as a retrospective, and, on the other hand, as a “statement” show, with a beginning and an end. However, strictly speaking, this exhibition is neither of these things – this is an exhibition of works by a “paper” architect, a participant of Japanese contests of the 1980’s, who developed, over his 40-plus-year career a unique and very recognizable manner of drawing, and who over the recent years has been extremely busy transforming it: while it used to be white linear graphics with confident and carefully drawn cities in perspective, always shown slightly from above, now it is being gradually replaced by blackness.

The blackness that we see here is of two kinds: the graphics itself thickens, the contours become shallower and are overlaid on each other in layers to the point of complete unreadability – as rightly said in the manifesto of the exhibition’s curator Julia Shishalova, plunged into “black holes”, formations with strange overconsolidated matter, of which our universe consists by 70%. This is a very meticulous and labor-intensive approach to blackness, and it would be strange if it were not complemented by another – a felt-tip pen, as if by rain, easily releasing shadowy energy.

zooming — The exhibition of Totan Kuzembaev′s works “Event Horizons”, 2023, Museum of Architecture

Actually, it is this path from “light” to “dark” graphics that presents the driving idea, which turns the exhibition into a continuous statement-like installation. This very driving idea began to unfold a little bit earlier, with a small “prototype” exhibition that took place at ArchMoscow in May: back then, seven X-shaped wooden stands displayed 24 sheets. The stands, whose sum (if we take the X to be a Latin 10) gave the anniversary 70, were arranged in a semicircle in the arc of the amphitheater, and, with a little bit of imagination, you could see a solar clock in them, counting the time from light to dark.

Now there are 56 sheets. The X-shaped wooden stands from ArchMoscow are complemented by slimmer plywood stands; the exhibition begins and ends in two “lanterns”, one of them light, standing in the museum’s yard, the other one dark, in the last exposition hall of the enfilade. Both of them, following the plastique ideas of ASNOVA, consist of two mutually penetrating pyramids, and give two triangular spots of light, upwards and downwards. The message is rather obvious: they mark the light point of the beginning and the dark point of the end.

Everything else is sandwiched and distributed between these two points: the “horizon”, depicted as a simple straight line drawn on a white sheet of paper in the first hall, and lots of “whirlpools” of trees and waves. In this juxtaposition of light and dark on can you easily guess yin and yang – things that are opposite, yet inseparable.

Most of the exhibition consists of the Weightlessness series, 44 sheets out of 56, which was in fact started back in 1988. My personal favorite was “Kazakhs in Space”. I cannot say that it was drastically different from the others, but it did have a unique signature.

I also cannot say that there’s anything particularly Kazakh about Totan Kuzembaev’s graphics, even though the architect does enjoy remembering his origin now and then, and his drawings often feature yurtas and camels; Andrey Ivanov’s annotation to the exhibition also begins with a scene where little Totan lies in a steppe watching the stars. However, Kuzembaev artist and Kuzembaev architect is quite European, and it seems to me that his passion for avant-garde is more important for him than the steppe, and the Occident is presented in his works through western techniques: not for nothing, for example, in the proto-graphics of the 1980s from the collection of the Museum of Architecture, the head of Mephistopheles is the most similar to all that followed.

At the same time, the stability of Kuzembayev’s mature graphics is built not only on shallow linear drawing. It is everywhere – a linear image of cities from above, composed in perspective, but generalized, so that the building becomes like a dense carpet. There are houses with courtyards, ziggurats like the Tower of Babel, but in general it is a homogeneous space. At some point, quite soon, the “carpet” plane begins to be perceived as a pattern, a kind of lace, or a fabric – it is not difficult to tear it into shaggy, horny curls and protuberances, just as one layer can be overlaid with another.

Space in this graphic is reduced, as if as a joke, to a plane, with which you can do anything. Perhaps this is the secret of “Weightlessness”: either we are flying on a kind of magic carpet, high enough for the three-dimensionality of the endless city to become frivolous and malleable for transformations, or this fractional perspective itself is the magic carpet, and we, stuck in its lint, are already being carried somewhere on it.

Serious additions to the exhibition are the enlarged printouts of the graphics, finalized by the author by hand, right there before the opening of the exhibition. They are a good way to immerse yourself in the context. In general, enlarging something small to a greater size that is not typical of is a technique that works well nowadays.

Another peculiarity is that the exhibition is prefaced by sheets from the Museum of Architecture, the architect’s works from the 1980’s, including those related to the design for Zelenograd. Some of them are quite different – collages, grid structures in which one can barely distinguish bus stops and steles of the science city – a search for a mannerism, something forty years old, now turned into museum exhibits. You can also see graphics, in which prototypes of “Weightlessness” can be found – linear, but still intricately composed.

And, finally, the exhibition has not just one, but three manifests. Not every exhibition is that lucky!

The exhibition curator Julia Shishalova’s manifesto is the most lengthy and clear; it explains the most and gives the most hope, which is important in our time. Andrei Ivanov’s text plunges into the context of Cy Twombly and Pierre Soulages – someone may hear these names for the first time. The words of Mark Hakobyan, the museum’s curator, who produced the old works from the collection, remind us of the experiments by avant-garde masters, which is also important and appropriate, since Totan Kuzembaev is one of such masters of “paper architecture” who at times do show a special passion for avant-garde art.

04 August 2023

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Review

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.

Object

Gold Embroidery

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Object

Reconciliation

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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.

Interview

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.

Object

Cité for Naro-Fominsk

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Object

A Tower and a Manor House

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The Warm Stone

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For All Times

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Review

The Other Way Around

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ArchiWOOD-14: Building Bridges

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Object

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

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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.

in memoriam

In memory of Jean-Louis Cohen

Marina Khrustaleva – about Jean-Louis Cohen (20.07.1949-7.08.2023), French architect and architectural historian that specialized in modern architecture and city planning.

Object

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.

Report

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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

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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.

Object

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.

Object

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.

Interview

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.

Report

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.

Object

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.

News

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.

Object

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.