Architecture or props. Honest rules for honest people

Compulsion to beauty

At the end of his term, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an unprecedented decree "Supporting beautiful federal civil architecture", which actualized and brought to a new stage the ancient dispute between sympathizers of historical and modern architecture.

It is no coincidence that Washington is called the city of columns - there are many built in Greek and Roman styles, reflecting the tastes of the French architect Benjamin Latrobe and President Thomas Jefferson. Of course, in the XNUMXth–XNUMXth centuries metropolitan tastes influenced all major cities of the USA, and the heavyweight neoclassical style, called "federal" style, spread massively across the country. Even progressive New York until the end of the XNUMXth century. remained, according to architectural critics, a "swamp of pseudo-historicism and corporate mediocrity", but the millennium was marked by the appearance of bright focal objects by Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano, Jean Nouvel, Norman Foster, etc. dark ages!", - wrote The New York Times in a review of the opening of the new tower of its corporate headquarters, The New York Times Building.

The buildings of Washington in the Greek and Roman styles reflect the tastes of the French architect Benjamin Latrobe

Life has become more fun, but the tastes of traditionalists have changed little since Jefferson's time. Their dissatisfaction was voiced by the 45th president of the United States when he criticized "brutalist monsters, deconstructivist freaks, and faceless minimalism." For some reason, the Federal Court in Salt Lake City from the office of Thomas Phifer and Partners and the administration building in San Francisco, created by the deconstructivist Tom Mayne, caused particular anger. Trump ordered architects to design buildings for state and federal institutions for Washington, strictly adhering to the classical style.

Most of the members of the American architectural community were horrified by such an appetite and the prospect of turning the District of Columbia into a "mausoleum of neoclassical architecture." Yes, you must agree, it is quite strange to hear calls for the sacralization of heritage from a person who in 1979, for the purpose of building Trump Tower, demolished the Bonwit Teller art deco building and destroyed the bas-reliefs that the management of the MET asked to hand over to them for safekeeping. However, the National Society of Civil Art (NCAS) unexpectedly enthusiastically supported Trump, publishing an open statement: "The design of federal buildings should reflect the aesthetic and symbolic preferences of the people for whom they are built, namely classical and traditional architecture. However, since the middle of the 72th century. modernist bonzes controlling state architecture impose ugly designs on us. Appealing to democratic values, the head of NCAS refers to a sociological study, according to which three quarters of Americans (XNUMX%) prefer traditional architecture.

The 45th president of the USA lashed out with criticism at "brutalist monsters, deconstructivist freaks and faceless minimalism"

With a high degree of probability, Joe Biden will cancel the high-profile decree of his predecessor. But, it would seem, the issue of pseudo-historicism and the integration of modern architecture into the historical environment was closed in the XNUMXth century? It turns out that there is no.

 

Pseudo-historicism is "outlawed"

The conflict between the sympathizers of historical architecture and the topic of who advocates progress in architecture first appeared, probably, when someone from the ancients proposed to leave the caves and build a dwelling in an open place. The less people are immersed in the essence of the issue, the more passionately they defend stereotypes - whether it is about ways of preserving and restoring the architectural heritage or about the inclusion of modern objects in the already formed urban fabric.

It seems that it is not a matter of age conservatism. Surprisingly, there are many born in the XNUMXst century. got stuck in their architectural sympathies at the beginning of the XNUMXth century! The architects of that time were so respectful of the authorities of the great architects of the past that they copied the styles of the early eras with rare deviations from the classical canons caused by the development of technologies. They were satisfied with the prefix “neo”: neo-gothic, neo-baroque, neo-Byzantine style, neo-Greek, etc. By the end of the XNUMXth century, the desire to maximize the emotional expressiveness of the works and temporal acceleration became a kind of mixer in which styles were mixed to a state of eclecticism, and then from this modernism stood out from the noisy mixture. In revenge for the age-old quagmire, he was marked by a revolutionary series of manifestos calling to get rid of the inconvenient and dilapidated architectural baggage. Fortunately, not everyone took them as a guide to action.

Architectural monuments must be alive and in demand - this is the only chance to avoid oblivion and destruction

Even at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Gustavo Giovannone, the author of the term "urban heritage", warned his contemporaries against the temptation to preserve historical centers or old districts, turning them into the likeness of theme parks. Stalled in development, territories torn out of the flow of temporal changes quickly turned into wasteland zones - people left them in pursuit of the benefits of civilization, things that make life more comfortable and richer in impressions. Architectural monuments must be alive and in demand — this is the only chance to avoid oblivion and destruction, Giovannoni believed. And for this they will have to be modernized, adapting to new functions.

Starting from the middle of the last century, under the auspices of UNESCO, more than a dozen documents defining the boundaries between the old and the new in architecture were adopted. For example, the Venetian charter of 1964 specifies that all architectural additions must differ from the original monument and bear visible signs of modernity. The Kraków charter of 2000 speaks of the need to avoid reconstructions in the historical style. And the Vienna Memorandum of 2005 summarizes: "Modern architecture must avoid all forms of pseudo-historical design, as it does not meet either historical or modern requirements."

It is more difficult when it comes to determining the role of modern architecture in historical buildings. Only a relative consensus has been reached here in the professional community. If he summarizes the recommendations of all the numerous memorandums and charters, then modern buildings must fit into the historical fabric carefully and carefully. But sometimes they are allowed to dominate and contrast. And immediately the question arises: "sometimes" is that when?... What can be considered "high-quality intervention techniques" that are recommended by the signatories of the Vienna Memorandum?

Ambiguity of recommendations, like dualism in philosophy, creates problems in relationships. And at the same time, it serves as an excellent catalyst for progress, forcing us to look for new and new expressive and at the same time sufficiently considerate solutions.

 

Contrast and dissolution

In the 24th volume of PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA in the article "Architectural copy paste kills» we explained why diversity is considered the key to a city's vitality. It was mainly about contrasting the expressive and high-quality modern architecture with the dull typical residential buildings inherited from the Soviet Union. But even the stylistic homogeneity of prosperous historical districts is capable of sinking into a drowsy state. It would seem that what could be more conservative than the architectural environment of the British Oxford, where a unique ensemble of Gothic architecture has been preserved? Who dares to disrupt the status quo, especially given the strict norms of Great Britain in the field of heritage protection? But Zaha Hadid believed that Life is not made in a grid. With a steady hand, she introduced a bright dissonance into the academic buildings of Oxford in the form of the steel Investcorp Building and Softbridge at St. Anthony's College. "The contrast helps emphasize the integrity of the past and the present. We and the customer felt that Oxford should continue to look to the future, as it protects its heritage," Zaha Hadid explained her gesture.

Let's recall the biomorphic Kunsthaus Graz, whose carcass was spread out in the very center of Graz, Austria, against the background of terracotta walls and red tiled roofs. Does this "friendly alien", created by Sir Peter Cook and Professor Colin Fournier, diminish the value of the city's historical architecture? On the contrary, he repeatedly capitalized on Graz real estate. According to the city tourism council, the number of guests has grown by more than 2003% in just five years since 80. And can anyone accuse the Austrians of neglecting their heritage? Yes, Kunsthaus Graz is frankly provocative. It would be strange to expect something different from the founders of the Archigram movement. But he who considers the form of a biomorph to be a random whim of architects would be deeply mistaken. The resources of the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture were thrown into the search for a design that would not only be scandalous, but also perceived as an integral part of the urban fabric, despite the obvious contrast. The visual embodiment of this oxymoron cannot fail to delight.

"The contrast helps emphasize the integrity of the past and the present," Zaha Hadid believed

Kyivites who condemn the architecture of the theater in historic Podil would be horrified to see the building of the Union of Romanian Architects with an international superstructure over a ruin of the XNUMXth century. The historic mansion Paunescu House was heavily destroyed during the revolution that overthrew the Ceausescu dictatorship. A multi-storey superstructure made of glass and steel, as if sprouting from an old house, is a kind of manifesto with which Dan Marin and Zeno Bogdanescu announce the change of eras, political system and styles. Naturally, not everyone appreciated the manifesto. But no matter how the residents of Bucharest scold their "Frankenstein", the Union of Romanian Architects has become a landmark object on the scale of world architecture.

Modernizing the dilapidated wing of the Moritzburg Castle in Halle, Spanish architects Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobejano (Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos) did not even try to imitate the early Renaissance style. Demonstratively modern superstructure, roof and void filling contrast with historical walls, form and materials. This deliberate contrast is intended to emphasize the merits of both ancient and modern architecture. The features of the building immediately attract the attention of visitors to the Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, provoking questions and interest in the complex history of the museum, which has the richest collection of works of art, branded as "degenerate art" in the 30s.

But the transformation of St. Mary's Church in Kilkenny into a "medieval soap" museum shows us a completely different approach. Architects McCullough Mulvin Architects unconditionally subordinate the expansion of the museum to the architecture of the XNUMXth century. But they do not imitate it either in details or in materials. Oxidized lead, chosen as the main material for the roof and facade of the outbuildings, merges with the gray stone and gloomy Irish sky. And although the new architecture visually dissolves into the historical one, the difference between eras and styles is obvious.

Even when the new architecture visually dissolves in the historical one, the difference between eras and styles should be obvious

David Chipperfield did not challenge the dominance of the Spreinzel museum island in Berlin, designing the new James Simon Galerie exhibition space on the Archeological Embankment. The minimalist building with thin snow-white columns, inspired by the sketch of Friedrich Wilhelm IV for the "cultural acropolis", echoes the forum architecture of the royal court architect Friedrich August Stüler and his followers - Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann, who created the shell for the Pergamon altar. Nevertheless, no one can call the architecture of the Chipperfield building secondary - it is not an example of imitation, but of an extremely delicate symbiosis.

The dark charred brick walls that belonged to the miraculously surviving building on the site of the former factory became the design code for BAAS Arquitectura, Grupa 5 Architekci, Małeccy Biuro Projektowe studios. Based on the color palette of the historical building, its rhythms and graphic design, the architects created a ceramic shell for the reinforced concrete structure of the Radio and Television Faculty of the University of Silesia. This technique combines old and modern buildings into a single ensemble.

The integration of new architecture into the historical building is one of the most complex tasks

The list of beautiful and original architectural solutions, examples of successful integration of new architecture into historical buildings can be continued. There are many of them, despite the fact that in world practice, such tasks are of the highest complexity. This is not the ideal case when the architect can use the plot for design as a blank sheet, without limiting himself in imagination, tools, materials and resources. Any intervention in the historical fabric requires a long and detailed study of the characteristics of the place.

 

Why is the city of bankers immersed in the past?

Those who like the Kyiv Vozdvizhenka would probably dream that the Kyiv authorities would manage the heritage on the model of the authorities of Frankfurt am Main. There, the anti-brutalist movement ended with their complete victory and the realization of the Dom-Römer project.

In six years (2012–2018), the garden built 50 gingerbread houses on 35 hectares in the central district of Alstadt. 15 of them are accurate reconstructions of historical burgher mansions, while the rest of the buildings are slightly different with modern elements. These differences are more often just a symbolic retreat in favor of progressive rules of urban design. However, unlike Kyiv's Vozdvizhenka, all the buildings in Old-New Alstadt are built and decorated with rich ornaments with truly German care and quality. "Why is the city of bankers immersed in the past?" Many people asked and continue to ask questions.

The reconstruction of the old core cost the garden 345 million euros. Now, two years after the grand opening, the management company of the district still receives loans from the Frankfurt budget. As a result, the city received either a theme park or an ethnographic museum of imitations under the open sky. The rent for the property reaches 30 euros per square meter. "Shops and cafes on the first floors demonstrate a staging of an ideal world - their products correspond to a luxurious lifestyle, but not to the everyday reality of the metropolis," writes the local publication Detail.

Before the euphoria after the opening ceremony of the "heart of Frankfurt" had subsided, restaurateurs, anticipating an influx of tourists, received orders to urgently remove their summer sites. The historical reconstruction concerned not only the buildings, but also the layout of the quarter, and the narrow pseudo-medieval streets turned out to be difficult for fire engines to pass. And then there is some kind of street furniture... The second urgent problem is the lack of public toilets. They were not provided for in pseudo-Gothic buildings. And mobile blue plastic toilets instantly destroyed the very historical spirit that the lobbyists of the Dom-Römer project tried so hard to recreate. Maintenance of the district costs 1,5 million euros annually, and many apartments and shopping areas have not yet found their tenants. Pustuet and Stadthaus is a luxurious public building for events. The ideologues of the project are still fending off criticism with statements that the pandemic is to blame. But perhaps the problem is that imitation is always worse than natural evolution?

To whom changes hurt the eye

Since there are objects included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital is one of the cities to which the recommendations of the Vienna Memorandum "World Heritage and Contemporary Architecture - Management of the Historic Urban Landscape" are applicable, which emphasizes the inadmissibility of the construction of mines that compromise the originals. There is one significant "but": the provisions of the Vienna Memorandum have not been implemented in the regimes for the use of territories in Kyiv, Olga Rutkovskaya, a member of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), told our publication.

New works devalue original monuments: "Let them be destroyed, let's rebuild them!"

DBN b.2.2-12 in the 2019 edition prescribes that construction and reconstruction within the boundaries of historical areas shall be carried out taking into account the requirements for the preservation and restoration of historically valuable architectural and town-planning qualities of the traditional character of the environment, to harmonize with them in terms of silhouette, scale, proportions, rhythm, tectonics, color and finishing materials. This does not mean to copy! Based on these Ukrainian state building regulations, at the turn of the XNUMXth and XNUMXst centuries, hundreds of architectural fakes appeared in Kyiv and other cities, and some of them have truly monstrous shapes and sizes.

After a walk along Vladimirskaya, Desyatinnaya, Bolshaya Zhytomyrskaya and Valam, it is no longer surprising and even symbolic that the Museum of History of Kyiv has been located in the building of a shopping and office center near the Teatralnaya metro station since 2012. The building, the facade of which is a set of pseudo-historical and modern elements, was erected not only in violation of building standards in the historical environment, but also with gross structural and engineering errors. Nevertheless, it exists.

New works depreciate the original monuments. "Let it be destroyed, let's build it again when there is an opportunity"! — that's roughly what the townspeople think when they pass by a mansion with broken windows and a collapsed roof somewhere on Shevchenko, Turgenevskaya, or Sechevy streltsov boulevards. These attitudes are convenient both for officials and for the majority of developers, as they relieve them of responsibility.

To build a building in the style of historicism, which does not claim to be an original design, is primarily cheaper and easier, since such a project is quickly and inexpensively nailed down in countless anonymous architectural bureaus. In addition, there is a chance that the townspeople will not notice that the new-old building has grown significantly and protrudes 3-5 stories higher than the average height built on the street. And if they notice, they won't be very indignant - stucco, rust and other "charms" in Ukraine are considered a kind of talisman against criticism.

 

Oleg Drozdov:

Stupidity provokes a crisis of perception

Oleg Drozdov is one of the few Ukrainian architects who design buildings in historic city areas that do not mimic the old. Ego Theater on Podol on Andreyevsky descent and SAGA City Space on Petro Sahaidachny Street are, in our view, examples of high-class modern architecture. If the theater building is an accent and contrast, then SAGA City Space is immediately perceived as an organic part of the heterochronic compositional structure of the street.

PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA: The authors of the "Vienna Memorandum" believe that pseudo-historical architecture is unacceptable because it compromises historical buildings. Is this the main argument in favor of avoiding pseudo-historicism, or are there other, no less important ones for you?

Oleg Drozdov: In the history of architecture, the paradigm of repetition ruled for a very long time. Each architect appealed to something early, established. And yet, in the end, he received new forms. Each era had its own preferences, its own values, through the prism of which the characteristics of the building were transformed. And this ever-living system underwent incredible changes, essentially interpreting the same Greek or Roman canon.

At some point, at the end of the XNUMXth century, with the appearance of such concepts as "energy saving", due to the conflict with limited resources, the problems of insulation became important - and in response to this request, many new technologies appeared. Tectonics is composed of a whole mass that once formed and stabilized, and has been stratified into a structure and a shell. And the demand will enshrine a new technological structure in the old shell — as if the demand presents itself as something you are not. This is always a big and not only aesthetic, but also a moral problem. When you realize that you are in some false, insincere sham, a crisis of perception of such an environment inevitably occurs. Such inappropriateness manifests itself in several different dimensions, not only in the physical plane. Even without an architectural education, many people understand and feel a fake by feeling, perhaps not always realizing what it is.

Such an imitation misleads the next generation, which will try to figure out where is the scenery for a strange spectacle, and where is the true place of life. And therein lies a very serious conflict.

PM: Is the "principle of subordination" always justified when a modern building must dissolve in a historical building? For example, the same Theater on Podol cannot be called "mimicry" or submissive. In what cases is dissolution appropriate, and when is the game on contrast?

O. D.: Relations and relationships in the existing urban historical environment are always very delicate and appeal to a certain cultural tradition. What today is considered blatantly avant-garde, tomorrow may seem traditional. And here the problem of cultural codes and value categories already comes to the surface. As in art, in architecture this topic is very difficult and debatable. The search for consensus is connected with the education of citizens, the education of architects and professionals who work in this environment. It's always a very exciting moment when you appeal to someone else's past experience, and here, it turns out, he didn't experience it. And this discrepancy causes, say, tectonic and public disagreements.

PM: When an architect chooses a method of associative and figurative-semantic adaptation in order to fit a new building into the context, should he be sure that these associations and images will be read by the inhabitants? And what if people don't catch the connection?

O. D.: In this case, it is not so much the visual context that is important, but the context connected with the principles of being and the set of processes that formed the ego. I would like to emphasize that the value of architecture is not so much in the visual decorative shell, but in what kind of life it "sheltered" and what kind of life it provokes. This is the most important task for the designer — the performative nature of architecture from the point of view of public values ​​and qualities.

PM: And yet more and more people say that architecture should be democratic. How to design and build, if the majority wants to see the city center as a collection of historical or pseudo-historical facades?

O. D.: A good architect always builds a serious dialogue between the past and the future with a deep and subtle understanding of the problem of how to build this bridge. A sentence is a relationship between the past and the future. And the residents - well, their opinion is important, of course... But what kind of democracy do you mean by direct democracy, when everyone participates in the election by voting? Or a democracy in which people delegate their decisions to professionals? These are different things. In architecture, I think, only the second system is possible, when people delegate decisions to professionals, similar to how we delegate decisions regarding our health to doctors.

The value of architecture is not so much in the decorative shell, but in the kind of life it provokes

Architecture should be the embodiment of its time. Relevance, "presentness" of entry into the historical context is always important both for contemporaries and for descendants. Today's architecture can be quite thoughtful and tactical in relation to its neighbors in time, developing dialogue. But still, evaluations always depend on the level of understanding of all representatives of the admissions committee, public and professional. The level of understanding is important.

 

ANDRIYIVSKY City Space: fair play

Perhaps there are not so many architects in Ukraine who are ready to work with the context, similar to how David Chipperfield worked on the museum island in Berlin? In fact, the problem is rather the absence of a request. Developers often prefer not to reinvent the wheel and be satisfied with stylizations, which will predictably be favorably received in a patriarchal society. And whoever pays, orders.

If the people of Kiev perceive contrasting architecture so painfully, is it possible to design a building based on the concept of not domination and subordination, but parity symbiosis with historical buildings? How to make the object not an obvious visual trigger, but increase the quality of the visual environment?

The search for such a golden mean can be attributed to the project of architect Alexei Pakhomov, co-founder of BURØ architects. Previously, we described the initial data, idea and concept in detail in the article "Cut, Clarity, Color. The "three C" rule from SAGA Development". The reconstruction of the disrepair of the beginning of the nullah in southern Podil, inherited from lovers of pseudo-historical belvederes, is in itself a task "not for weaklings". And if you take into account the massive volume of the frame and the perfectionism of the customers, then it turns into a real exam.

The golden mean is not dominance and subordination, but a parity symbiosis with historical construction

The frame of the building was cleaned of towers and superstructures, and its facade was tried to be as clean as possible - without decorative excesses. In order to demonstrate the "genuineness" and status of the object, the architects decided to use gabbro - Ukrainian granite - on the facade. The visual image of ANDRIYIVSKY City Space claims intrinsic aesthetics and long-term relevance. And the mixing of functions programs the necessary, according to Oleg Drozdov, "performativeness" of the object: from the transit zone, this section of Podol will predictably turn into the local center of the southern neighborhoods thanks to the new core of attraction. (SAGA Development previously posed a similar task to Drozdov for the SAGA City Space project on Sagaydachny.)

 

Goodbye, postmodernism!

People are naturally nostalgic for the past, and masterpieces of historical architecture have a powerful emotional impact on us. But does the Elbe Philharmonic, which has become a landmark of the new Hafencity district in Hamburg, cause less emotion? Erected on the reinforced walls of the old port warehouses of Speicherstadt, the Herzog & de Meuron "musical box" cost Hamburg 789 million euros. And, of course, there were critics who claimed that such expenses were not justified.

If we look at the history of all major projects that had a significant impact on modern architecture over the last century, not one of them was accepted by society in an unquestionably positive way. Does this mean that architects and developers should take into account the opinion of those who consider pseudo-historicism to be the correct answer to the question: "how to build?" Taking into account modern technologies, an "antique" forgery can be exceptional - it is easy to deceive the viewer, especially if the person himself is "happy to be deceived." But the path of pretense leads "to nowhere", and this is true both for people and for those who have given up. And for cities in general. It is not by chance that Timoteus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, who introduced the term "metamodern" into the international discourse, defined it as a general cultural reflection on decades of insincerity and relativism. So let's be honest: creating replicas and simulacra is a losing position for the coming decades.

 

/The material is published on the pages #29 of volume PRAGMATIKA.MEDIA/