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Published on Archi.ru (https://archi.ru) |
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| 21.10.2021 | |
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The Openwork XX-Construction Set |
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Darya Gorelova |
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| Studio: | |
| DNK Architectural Group | |
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The yard of the Architecture Museum on Moscow’s Vozdvizhenka hosts an installation by DNK ag. It is timed to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the company, and was originally presented at Arch Moscow. The art object is expected to stay in the yard of the museum for one year and set a new tradition – a regularly renewed exhibition project called “Modern Architecture in the yard of MUAR”. The openwork transparent rotunda with bright evening backlighting is an installation called “XX”, made for the 20th anniversary of the architectural company DNK ag, headed by Daniel Lorentz, Natalia Sidorova, and Konstantin Khodnev, and originally showcased this spring at Arch Moscow. Now it is installed in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, next to the main house of the Talyzins estate; it was inaugurated on October 18.  The author of the pavilion and the director of the Museum of the Architecture at the inauguration. Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph © Gleb LoskutovThe structure is made of long, thin, and almost black, Roman-style, bricks of the Petersen Kolumbatm series. This series, as the architects emphasize, appeared in the line of the Danish factory Petersen Tegl – a family company founded in the 18th century and sticking to the traditional technologies of brick making – upon the initiative of Peter Zumthor during his work on the reconstruction of the Museum of the Cologne Archdiocese Kolumba. For the installation, the height of which is 3 m, the diameter is 3.9 m, 420 bricks of two colors were used. The bricks were provided by the “Architile” company. Their thin plaques more than half a meter long – 52,8õ10,8õ3,7 cm – are laid to form a diagonal structure, which looks reminiscent of Shukhov’s construction (even though the authors do not mention Shukhov, you cannot get rid of the feeling).  Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph © Gleb Loskutov Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph © Gleb LoskutovThe horizontals are formed by bricks, laid with juxtaposition; the vertical bricks are laid diagonally, at a 70-degree angle to the base. The result is rhombuses of exquisite vertical proportions. The pitch is 4 rhombuses; the cylinder is held together by metal rods, one of which supports, among other things, plaques with the sponsors’ names and a QR code that leads to the installation’s page on the DNK ag website.  Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph: provided DNK ag Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph: provided DNK agThe backlight is mounted in the upper horizontal belt and gives a bright dappled shadow on the asphalt around the object by night. The architects themselves describe their project as follows: “Pavilion XX is about looking at habitual things from a different angle. Brick – a heavy, dependable, and thick material – forms a transparent openwork structure. Thanks to the backlighting, it is duplicated by a non-material structure, formed by the play of shadows.” And: “Pavilion XX is about exploring borders and emptiness. We are examining such properties of space as used/unused, empty/full, transparent/non-transparent. We create a space that is pure and free, a space that is valuable in itself.”  Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph: provided DNK ag Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph © Gleb LoskutovThere is really some paradoxical quality, possibly deliberate, about this object. In addition to the fact that the brick (usually used for building blind walls) is used here to build something extremely transparent, it’s not just any brick, but as conservative as it ever gets: of the Roman format and hand-made at a family factory.  Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph © Pavel Shvetsov / provided by DNK ag Pavilion XX in the yard of the Museum of Architecture, 10.2021Copyright: Photograph © Pavel Shvetsov / provided by DNK agThe structure, however, is lightweight, modern, and of an engineering character, but on the other hand, also having a long history – after all, Shukhov’s ideas have been around for more than a century. At the same time, such rhombuses and diagonals are quite a popular pattern of modern facades, but, as a rule, not brick ones. DNK ag’s creative work, on the contrary, is largely connected with brick facades, such as those of the office building on Vavilova Street, or the Rassvet LOFT, the winner of many recent awards. It seems that in the anniversary installation, the authors are looking at how the aerial structure can be combined with a hyper-traditional brick, dating back to the experience of 2000 years ago. It can. But then again, at a glance, from a distance, the structure may seem metallic; in order to understand that what we are seeing is brick, we need to get closer – and be surprised at the broken frame. |
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