Speaking about the architectural and stylistic features of skyscrapers being built in different parts of the world, in our reviews we tried to emphasize distinctive features and the specific appearance of high-rise buildings inherent in individual countries. Describing the stylistic diversity of modern buildings and projects, we focused on the commonality of techniques of one direction or another.
However, speaking about terms important for understanding the principles of development of this field of activity, we cannot ignore two more global approaches to the construction of skyscrapers, which are permanently present in the world practice of high-rise construction, either dominating or moving to the periphery of the architectural mainstream.
The concepts of “historicism” and “traditionalism” have a very wide range of interpretations in architecture and art, so let us designate more specifically what will fall into the scope of our attention in the first place. In a general philosophical sense, traditionalism is a worldview that transforms the entire heritage of a given culture into a positive tradition; prescription acts as main value(see: Architecture and urban planning: Encyclopedia / ed. A. V. Ikonnikov. M.: Stroyizdat, 2001. P. 591). Conscious traditionalism does not protect the familiar old, but certain general principles that are considered fundamental and unchangeable.
In architecture, traditionalism involves the use of stylistic and compositional techniques inherent in a certain time, direction, local tradition and supporting them in current practice. Traditionalism can be aimed at strengthening trends that persist from an earlier period in current culture. Thus, traditionalism can be oriented either towards the conservation of an existing tradition, or towards the search for historical prototypes, that is, towards the restoration of a partially lost tradition (archaization). Conservative traditionalism is aimed at strengthening the existing principles in architecture, while archaizing, on the contrary, is aimed at its destruction, making way for revival.
Historicism, focused on the resuscitation and reuse of methods of constructing an architectural work that have already ceased to be relevant, appeals to an even greater temporary immersion. “Directions emanating from the restoration of already extinct traditions, based on historical memory, belong to the category of historicism.” IN high-rise architecture Historicism is clearly used as “an appeal to the architecture of the past to solve the problems of the present” (Ibid. p. 254).
The formation of a new canon is often focused on historical borrowings. For example, the creation and development of the Art Deco style in the architecture of American skyscrapers was based on an unfading interest in neo-Gothic, rethought on a different scale and materials adapted for new tasks. That is, the most original and vibrant period in the development of skyscrapers in the twentieth century, which still inspires architects to compare their works with the best examples of that time, was based on a persistent interest in the architectural achievements of the past, especially the neo-Gothic style.
The origins of the concept of “tradition” and its interpretation
What is tradition in architecture? Classical, in particular? Do we mean by it the order tradition? Modernism today also has its own almost century-old tradition. Is this part of a single progressive process, or is it about the antagonism of two “superstyles,” as S.O. Khan-Magomedova?
Everyone understands that any art (like other types of human activity) does not arise out of nowhere, but is based on all previous experience of development. This is especially true for such a fundamental and long-term phenomenon by its very nature as architecture, which solves not only aesthetic, cultural, spiritual, but, first of all, practical problems.
At the same time, in accordance with the law of dialectics, each subsequent round of architectural development in some way denies the previous one. The stimulus for the new formation is, on the one hand, new social ideas that have captured the minds, and on the other, the development of the engineering and construction industries. In its dialectical negation of the previous stage, architecture can either declare a search for new paths, or turn to the styles of the past, perceived as the embodiment of a certain historical ideal worthy of imitation. In other words, architecture looks either back or forward, rushing towards a certain imagery. The present, as an intermediate stage, is too elusive and not fully formed an image for such an inevitably inert and conservative activity as the art of building. At least this has been the case for the last 500 years.
However, ideal figurative projections of architecture can be located not only on a horizontal time scale, but also on a vertical, absolute, eternal scale. This is the ideal of a religious worldview, which found its vivid embodiment in pre-Renaissance architecture.
It can be stated with certainty that the roots of the architectural tradition are sacred, just as the roots of culture as a whole are sacred. Ancient cities and temples were built as earthly projections of the cosmic universe. Strictly defined proportional relationships of religious buildings, their construction based on a symmetrical combination of regular geometric figures, their meaningful location in space oriented towards the celestial bodies - all this indicates clear and unshakable rules and laws that guided the architects. Without having precise calculations in the modern understanding, they unerringly achieved harmony, relying on tradition as a divine institution passed on from generation to generation. Differing in appearance and size, religious buildings different nations had a number of general patterns based on certain numerical and rhythmic relationships and expressing divine properties in the language of architecture: greatness, harmony, eternity, beauty and the ideal hierarchy of the universe. Other buildings, neighborhoods and cities were erected according to similar principles, excluding arbitrary interpretation.
Aesthetics as a symptom
Let's try to take a look at the changing world of architecture in the light of those fundamental qualities of architecture that Vitruvius formulated at the dawn of our era. In the twentieth century, all three of them experienced a number of crisis rethinkings. Benefit began to be understood as purely utilitarian functionality; strength is becoming an increasingly relative category, in line with the new understanding architectural buildings as design objects, temporary street “furniture”, designed to last 50 years. But the most radical revision occurred in relation to the third component - beauty.
The basis for the interpretation of beauty in philosophy and aesthetics of the classical type is its fundamental attribution to the transcendental, divine principle. The foundations of this approach to beauty were laid by the philosophy of Plato, in which a thing was perceived as beautiful, perfect due to its correspondence to its ideal image, divine idea, the embodiment of which is the purpose of the existence of this object. Thus, beauty was thought of as an absolute substance. Plato's concept of beauty, adopted and developed in Christianity, became the basis of European aesthetics for many centuries. Beauty was perceived as one of the definitions of God, along with love and truth. The phenomenon of beauty as a reflection of divine, absolute beauty acquired the characteristics of normativity and was enshrined in the canons, ensuring continuity in the development of architecture and other arts.
Thus, the grandiose change in the figurative-constructive paradigm, which took place as a result of the victory of Christianity over paganism, took place through gradual evolution, without cutting off the stem line of development. It took more than a thousand years to transform the Roman basilica into a Gothic cathedral, embodying the victory of spirit over matter with unattainable perfection. Gothic, like ancient architecture, demonstrates the complete unity of constructive and figurative components, becoming one of the perfect expressions of “truthful” and at the same time beautiful architecture.
Looking ahead, I will note one extremely important, from my point of view, general pattern: in the future, when changing construction styles different eras coexisted harmoniously, often forming outstanding ensembles. This testifies, in my opinion, not only to the urban planning talent of the old masters, but also to the related continuity of pre-modernist styles that have a common sacred root. IN Modern times the coexistence of old and new, as a rule, has the character of opposition and antagonism (which confirms Khan-Magomedov’s thesis about two superstyles). At the same time, it can be stated that the growing number of protective laws and organizations do not save the situation in any way, since they act in fragments, within the framework of a completely different paradigm.
Renaissance as a new starting point
Starting from the New Age, gradually, gradually, the complete dominance of the religious idea as the semantic engine of human consciousness begins to dry up. It is symptomatic that it was at this time that advanced Italians first turned to the ancient - pagan - architectural heritage, which a thousand years before had been quietly destroyed before their eyes. Since then, it seems, that very “tradition” in the modern understanding has arisen - i.e. orientation towards order classics as a kind of universal tuning fork, an absolute reference point. The ideal moved from heaven to earth, into the past covered in romantic myth. At the same time, the Christian idea, of course, still continued to nourish and fertilize the new aesthetic standard. But the process of secularization was already irreversible; it received a rapid surge in the era of Voltaire and ended with a series of atheistic revolutions in the twentieth century.
At the new stage, referring to the order had a completely different meaning than what its ancient creators put into it. Spatial and plastic patterns, based on constructive logic and religious consciousness, turned into an abstract aesthetic system, which over time became increasingly torn away from its roots, fragmented and lost even its formal integrity. The once indissoluble unity of the figurative and constructive components has given way to the universalism of order forms, interpreted purely as representative decoration. The gradual decline of urban planning art in the 19th century and its deep permanent crisis in modern times also testifies to the loss of the integrity of the public worldview and the impoverishment of religiosity as a fundamental binding idea.
The classical canon was able to adapt itself equally successfully in both civil and temple architecture, expressing the general idea of greatness and harmony, beauty and hierarchical order. Over time, it has become a universal emblem of culture and tradition, indispensable for the representation of any public institution or private home until the present day.
The ancient classics perceived by the Renaissance served as such a powerful impetus in the process of style formation that its energy lasted until the middle of the 19th century, when general fatigue with columns and porticos began to grow. For some time, the order became one of many decorations in a series of equal options for “smart choice” in order to once again occupy a meaningful, dominant position in the neoclassical period.
The vitality and, by and large, lack of alternative to the order tradition speaks not only of its powerful artistic potential, but also of the fact that only by the beginning of the 20th century (neither earlier nor later) the fundamental ideas of a new worldview matured and were finally formed in society. It was by this time that a revolutionary transition took place from the traditionally religious (with all the diversity of confessions) model of the universe to a completely new one - materialistic.
Based on this, in the future we have to talk about tradition, as a rule, in its completely castrated, purely applied manifestation, at best at the level of aesthetics of urban planning thinking, and more often at the level of external decoration, although there are exceptions.
Order tradition in modern times
The existence of the classical tradition at the beginning of the twentieth century. began with its overcoming - first evolutionary, in line with the search for art nouveau and industrial architecture, and then revolutionary, under the onslaught of avant-garde modernism. The language of modernism is fundamentally different: firstly, it declaratively rejects such “excesses” as ornament and any decoration in general. In addition, in continuation of the development of industrial architecture, modernism proclaims the principle of design “from within - out” and the reign of “honest architecture”, following function. In this case, the function is understood exclusively in a physical, utilitarian sense. As a result, such previously unshakable laws as symmetry and generally hierarchical, harmonious order, closely associated with the traditional subordination of the internal structure to the external volumetric-spatial composition, which to one degree or another reflected the model of the universe characteristic of the religious era, were naturally rejected. It is impossible not to notice the accentuated “horizontalism” of all the iconic buildings of the new era, as if crossing out the traditional upward aspiration of all Christian architecture. The vertical vector aimed at overcoming inert stone matter was replaced by an affirmation of the uniqueness of the physical dimension. New figurative expressiveness replaced traditional ideas about the beauty of a building as proportional harmony and elegance 1.
So, using the term S.O. Khan-Magomedov, the new superstyle deliberately opposed itself to the very tradition discussed above. Thus, modernism is a culture based on negation, i.e. alternative culture. At the same time, the further emasculation of the concept of “tradition” and the weakening of religiosity as a determining factor of consciousness means for modernism the loss of the tuning fork, its starting point and “source of adrenaline.” As a result, it has long lost its original pathos and revolutionary sharpness of form, fragmenting into many independent “anti-traditional” movements.
Neoclassicism, which had prevailed in Russia, was stopped by the revolution and was forced to adapt to new realities. Today it is difficult to say how sincere the search for I.A. was. Fomin adapting the order language to the new social order. Obviously, at least in a purely formal aspect, the task could not help but captivate the architect. In parallel, in Europe, P. Behrens, O. Perret and others were engaged in experiments of such adaptation (with a predominance of engineering and technical and formal rather than ideological motivation). Art Deco's quest also took place at the intersection of tradition and innovation.
One way or another, pushed aside by experiments " modern architecture"or forced to adapt, classical reserves were again in demand with the strengthening of Stalin's dictatorship in the USSR, as well as with the establishment of the regimes of Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. At the same time, the order wave swept across France and Great Britain, the USA and Japan, essentially becoming the last universal consistent appeal to tradition.
2nd floor XX century was marked by a new balance of power in world architecture. The discredited “neoclassicism,” associated primarily with totalitarian regimes, gave way to a new onslaught of functionalism, which found fertile ground in the post-war housing crisis. After overcoming the consequences of the war and with increasing prosperity, the unified international style provoked an alternative in the form of postmodernism. This was no longer a consistent appeal to tradition, even at the formal-aesthetic level. Individual words and quotations from the classical dictionary were involved in more or less fascinating, but more often cold intellectual games. While externally borrowing classical elements, this new “system” (rejecting the very principle of systematicity) rather states the agony of the classical tradition than its continuation.
At the same time, the modernist mainstream was not going to give up its position, producing mass products in the form of multi-storey functionalist housing and elite examples in various neo-modernist styles in a wide range from high-tech and minimalism to non-linear architecture and deconstructivism, united, however, by the common sign of denial of historical tradition. Against this background, individual regional schools, such as Finnish, Japanese, Brazilian and others, appeared on the scene. Based on modernist principles, they developed the ideas of organic architecture and national traditions, forming different versions of “humanized” modernism.
Today, traditional value guidelines are more confidently opposed than ever by the aesthetics of the absurd. If the old masters made every effort to comprehend harmony, today it seems that many inquisitive minds and bright talents selflessly strive for the scientific and artistic comprehension of chaos. This is clearly reflected in the new, irrational modifications of modernism: deconstructivism and nonlinear architecture, associated with the development of philosophical thought (Derrida, Deleuze).
Bio-tech, genetically related to organic architecture, has become a kind of ghostly alternative to the many-sided modernist style and a variant of the “third way.” In general, “green (sustainable) architecture” today seems to be a gigantic laboratory of new form-building, which has not yet produced independent sustainable stylistic results.
However, the orthodox traditionalist line did not disappear. Along with direct classicistic stylizations (Quinlan Terry, Robert Adam), the search for a dialogue between classics and modern technologies, materials, style. Today a number of masters belong to this conventional trend, such as R. Bofill, P. Portoghesi, Leon Krie, M. Budzinsky, in Russia these are M. Filippov, M. Atayants, M. Mamoshin, etc. However, it should be noted that only very few of the architects conducting their searches in this direction have a consistent creative platform; the majority solve purely formal problems with varying degrees of success, essentially representing the modern echelon of eclectics.
Tradition in urban planning
The twentieth century was marked by a number of urban experiments related to the search for practical solutions to acute problems. social problems and problems of big cities in general. The garden city of Ebenezer Howard, the linear city of Soria i Mata and Milutina, the radiant city of Le Corbusier and the Charter of Athens are the main milestones that determined the development of urbanism in the recent past and present. As a result of these experiments, the structure of cities radically changed, and a system of strict functional zoning became one of the fundamental principles.
Meanwhile, the denial of the evolutionary experience of European urbanism, neglect of the communicative component of urban space (pedestrian zone), and the predominance of a planned, rational approach to organizing a living and diverse urban environment have posed new problems for cities. As the famous Danish urbanist Jan Gehl writes, since the Middle Ages there have actually been only two radical changes in the ideology of urban planning: the first is associated with the Renaissance, the second with functionalism. The Renaissance marked the transition from the naturally formed city to the city as a work of art. The second turn occurred around 1930, when the physical-functional aspects of cities and buildings took precedence over aesthetics and became the main dimension of design. At the same time, it sometimes happened that some exemplary blocks from the point of view of new urbanism often became hotbeds of crime, which sometimes even led to the demolition of houses that had not had time to age. The dull monotony of residential areas aesthetically, culturally, and socially devalued the vast urban spaces. The isolation of mono-zones has created huge transport problems, as a result of which megacities are turning into cities for cars, not for people. On top of the flaws of the pseudoscientific, purely rational approach are the costs of the market system. The total sale of urban land plots into private hands, including those that are fundamentally important in the urban planning sense, turns modern urban development into a patchwork quilt, a motley crowd of buildings, the only illusory regulator of which is land, construction and other countless standards. As a result, we see that in the twentieth century, any outstanding ensemble achievements in architecture are associated, as a rule, with periods of strong centralized political power. The time of democracy, pluralism and freedom of conscience, in a paradoxical, at first glance, way, is marked by the atrophy of ensemble thinking and a deep permanent crisis.
Against this background, the movement of New Urbanism, which turned to the classical urban planning tradition, was born and developed. It combines elements of architecture, planning and town planning, united around several key ideas. These ideas are used at all levels - from planning a region of a number of cities to planning a small neighborhood. The main idea of this development strategy is that people should live, work and relax in the same place, as it was in the pre-industrial era, but at a new level. Enriched with the best urban planning finds of the 20th century. New urbanism gives our cities a chance to turn towards people, although not much depends on architects in this complex field.
Urban planning theory, including many important aspects human life, reveals more deeply the confrontation between new and traditional architecture. However, today she also turns to tradition, without affecting the original foundations, studying the effect, not the cause.
Conclusion
So, speaking today about tradition in architecture, I mean a tradition that has sacred, religious roots and provides a consistent, evolutionary path for the development of architecture until the beginning of the twentieth century. Being different in style and technology, the architecture of traditional religious societies maintained continuity and had fundamental similarities based on the ideas of ontological world order and divine hierarchy.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the evolutionary development of architecture gave way to a revolutionary one. New era– the era of materialism – created a fundamentally different art, which consciously opposed itself to centuries-old tradition. From my point of view, it was the atheistic impulse, with its priority of material function over all others, that became the main source of modernist shaping and planning at all levels.
Today, atheistic pathos, closely intertwined with social pathos, has outwardly weakened, giving way to the prosaic ideology of a consumer society. The general form-creative crisis, associated with a mental and ideological crisis, associated with the lack of large-scale unifying ideas, is obvious; it has once again found confirmation in a new round of eclecticism.
The universal gave way to the subjective, the spiritual to the material, the harmonious to the disharmonious, the ordered to the chaotic. Beauty, truth, harmony - all these absolute categories, being definitions of God, were subject to doubt and revision. The appeal to tradition as a treasury (albeit not preserved in its integrity) of objective sacred knowledge began to be replaced by external copying of antiquity, turning art into a dead mask. It is falsely contrasted with freedom of creativity, which, being a particular manifestation of freedom in general, has come to be understood as permissiveness. This deadlock confrontation prevents the search for a full-fledged new path. Ethical categories are leaving art; it increasingly exists on the other side of good and evil. Even such a seemingly unshakable stronghold as beauty, which has a powerful effect on the intuitive level of “recognition,” is subject to powerful revision and devaluation, the consequence of which is indifference to beauty and addiction to the aesthetics of the ugly.
In our time, a return to tradition in its pre-Renaissance understanding is more important than ever. Tradition as a lexical set or set of ready-made rules must give way to creative continuity, the search for form must give way to the acquisition of Meaning.
Armed with all the latest technologies and the experience of mistakes, it can, over time, give a modern, humane architecture in line with a centuries-old successive culture.
References
1. Khan-Magomedov, S.O. Ivan Zholtovsky. – M.: S.E. Gordeev, 2010
2. Ikonnikov, A.V. A thousand years of Russian architecture. – M., 1990
3. Neapolitansky, S.M., Matveev, S.A. Sacred architecture. – St. Petersburg, 2009 4. Smolina, N.I. Traditions of symmetry in architecture. – M.: Stroyizdat, 1990
5. Vitruvius. Ten books about architecture. – M., 2003 Shuisky, V.K. Strict classicism. – St. Petersburg, 1997 Rappaport, A.G. “Style as transcendental, or how now dead architecture will rise again and save the world.” – Lecture at MARSH 10/25/2012. http://archi.ru/russia/news_current.html?nid=44965(access date 04/26/13). Stern, Robert. Modern classicism. – New York, 1988
6. Dobritsina, I.A. From postmodernism to nonlinear architecture. – M.,
2004
7. Glazychev, V.L. Urbanism. – M.: Publishing house “Europe”, 2008
8. Jacobs, D. Death and life of large American cities. – M, 2011.
9. Ikonnikov, A.V. Architecture of the 20th century. – M., 2001
10. Gehl, Jan. Zycie miedzy budynkami. – Krakow, 2009
1 Let us remember that beauty was characterized by Vitruvius by “the pleasant and elegant appearance of the structure and the fact that the ratios of its members correspond to the proper rules of proportionality.” - Vitruvius. "Ten books about architecture." Book I
[...] The appearance of residential buildings often represents grandiose palace-dwellings, rich in colonnades, with powerful rustications and colossal cornices. At the same time, the architect ignores the specific requirements of modern man. This is one of the serious shortcomings of our architectural practice.
The very fact of serious study classical heritage in the field of architecture marks a big shift towards overcoming the influences of constructivism. But, instead of studying the working methods of the masters of the past, we often transfer into our housing construction the image of the building borrowed from the past.
We haven't studied it very well yet 19th century architecture century, although a serious analysis of it can give a lot to determine modern moments in housing construction. [...]
[...] Studying the working method of the great masters of the past reveals their basic essence - the ability to express the image of a structure based on the constructive capabilities of their time and taking into account the needs of their contemporaries. Knowledge of the method of such a master is much more important than the formal study of the order with its details or the fanatical transfer of individual formal techniques. [...]
* From the article “Architecture of a Residential Building” in the newspaper “Soviet Art”, 1937, June 11.
True art is progressive. And this primarily applies to architecture, the most complex of arts.
Wouldn't it seem unnatural if a modern steam locomotive entered a station built in classical forms Greek temples?
What will a Soviet person feel when he disembarks from a plane in front of an airport whose appearance reminds him of the distant past?
On the other hand, can we discount all the architectural achievements of past centuries and start all over again?
These are the questions around which there have been heated discussions for a number of years, leaving tangible traces.
It is often forgotten that an architectural structure can only be created for a certain society, that it is designed to meet the worldview and feelings of this society. We must study the working methods of the great masters of the past and creatively perceive their principles. All this is far from a mechanical transfer of old architectural elements into our era. [...]
* From the article “Notes of an Architect” in the newspaper “Leningradskaya Pravda”, 1940, August 25.
[...] In Leningrad there is a great desire for a stable image, for stable details and a distrust of creative inventions. Oddly enough, the presence of a wonderful architectural past in Leningrad creates a great danger of detachment from the tasks we have set for today. [...]
* From a speech at a creative meeting of architects of Moscow and Leningrad on April 22-24, 1940. Published in the magazine “Architecture of the USSR”, 1940, No. 5.
[...] Works of architecture, designed to stand for centuries, must be above fashion, they must contain those universal human principles that never die out, like the tragedies of Shakespeare.
But often, I think, what is considered innovation is what can least of all be attributed to it. Innovation is, first of all, not an invention. [...] Art is possible only in tradition, and outside tradition there is no art. True innovation is, first of all, the development of progressive principles laid down in the past, but only those principles that are characteristic of modern humanity.
Innovation has the right to have its own tradition. Understanding innovation as an abstract principle outside of time and space is absurd in its essence. Innovation is the development of ideas embedded in historical continuity. If we talk about Corbusier as an innovator, then the ideas put forward and practically implemented by him, their roots lie in the generalization of a number of examples that were used in the light of new opportunities. Variable construction, which received a wide response from the light hand of Mies Van der Rohe mainly in Europe and America and has come down to us, has a thousand-year history in Chinese and Japanese houses.
Innovation is designed to expand the range of ideas. And we have nothing to fear from the appearance of proposals that fall somewhat outside the canonical perception and which, perhaps, are somewhat ahead of possibilities, because in architecture they, as a rule, arise as a result of the gap between the development of technology and the presence of slowly changing architectural forms. One thing is important - that the concept of innovation comes from life’s premises and is not abstract.
We often intertwine two terms that are polar in their understanding. This is innovative and banal. It seems to me that sometimes there can be more innovation in a “banal” basis than in the most poignant proposal. It is not for nothing that Matisse, who cannot be blamed for the lack of innovative proposals, urged first of all not to be afraid of the banal. More. It seems to me that what we call banal, in the hands of a true artist, approaches modernity. Genuine knowledge, creativity in a high understanding of this meaning, its depth - can be in the development of the banal. Is Thomas de Thomon's Exchange surprising in its uniqueness? But its greatness lies in the deepest understanding of its location, in the interpretation of the whole and individual elements, in the knowledge of artistic expediency.
We talk a lot about tradition. It seems to me that Voltaire’s phrase about the need to agree on terms and then enter into disputes is quite appropriate here. Tradition is far from an abstract concept. But the understanding of tradition may be different. There was a time when they thought that the checkered pants of the hero of Ostrovsky's play Shmagi were a theatrical tradition. Tradition carries within itself, first of all, the character of historical continuity, a known pattern.
But it is possible for a tradition to emerge within the memory of contemporaries. Examples can be found in the young art of cinema born today. Chaliapin, who created the image of Boris Godunov (despite his external historical appearance), laid the foundation for a performing tradition. But the important thing is that this beginning was not confined to the formal external image of Tsar Boris. Chaliapin revealed the stage image with the power of his capabilities, determined artistic body image in appearance, in its internal content. His external appearance, preserved in the present on stage, is in no way a tradition.
In architecture, tradition has little in common with rejuvenated archaeology, just as in understanding it as stylistic continuity. The architectural traditions of Leningrad are not built on stylistic continuity. On Palace Square the buildings of Rastrelli, Zakharov, Rossi, Bryullov organically coexist not because of stylistic commonality (in the understanding of style as an architectural concept).
The architectural tradition of Leningrad is in the continuous understanding of the spirit of the city, its character, landscape, appropriateness of the task, in the nobility of forms, in the scale, modularity of nearby buildings. [...]
* From the article “On Traditions and Innovation”, published in June 1945 and the newspaper “For socialist realism"(organ of the party bureau, directorate, trade union committee, local committee and Komsomol committee of the I. E. Repin Institute).
[...] The point of view that when new materials appear, then one can move on to an architecture based on their capabilities, one must assume, is more than short-sighted, because without ideological preparation, without a gradual revision of a number of provisions about heaviness, weight, concepts of monumentality and etc. we will, of course, find ourselves captive to wonderful dreams. [...]
[...] Architecture rests on laws inseparable from traditions, to which current life makes its own amendments and adjustments. A person will always have a sense of measurement based on his physical properties, there will remain a sense of perception of his time, as well as sensations of heaviness, lightness, a sense of correlation, appropriateness, expediency. But architecture is not always obliged to preserve the usual imagery, especially when this comes into conflict with all the latest technical capabilities and everyday needs, which raise modern man one more level higher.
Architecture will always express the properties of modern society. And the task of a Soviet architect is to be able to fully express these aspirations and aspirations in materials.
* From the article “On the issue of architectural education” in the magazine “Architecture and Construction of Leningrad”, 1947, October.
[...] You need to be able to show everything negative aspects of modern architecture, which formally operated with the progressive data of science and technology that was contemporary to it, be able to separate one from the other, and not silently ignore these complex issues of the recent past of architecture.
In particular, you should pay attention to one significant detail: the loss of the sense of plasticity, the sense of chiaroscuro at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In this regard, two examples are not without interest: one house built according to the design of academician V. A. Shchuko in 1910 on Kirovsky Prospekt in Leningrad, which was a kind of reaction to the properties of planar modernism. Here is a genuine large order with strong chiaroscuro. The house of Academician I.V. Zholtovsky, built in 1935 in Moscow on Mokhovaya Street, which was also a kind of reaction to planar constructivism, had the same properties. I. V. Zholtovsky also used a large order here, taken in the exact relationship of Lodjia dell Kapitanio by Andrea Palladio with its strong chiaroscuro.
[...] In order to remind you how we understand architectural traditions and the laws and norms embedded in them, I will give attempts to define the progressive traditions of St. Petersburg architecture.
We say these include:
1. Accounting and skillful use natural conditions the city, its flat topography, water spaces and unique flavor.
2. The solution of the architecture of the city as a whole as a complex of integral, large architectural ensembles, based on the spatial organic connection of both individual ensembles with each other, and the elements that make up each given ensemble.
3. Organization of the unity and integrity of each ensemble not by the unity of the stylistic characteristics of individual buildings and parts of the ensemble, but by the unity of scale and module of the main divisions.
4. Achieving great diversity and picturesqueness of the different style characteristics of the buildings that make up the ensemble and at the same time preserving the full individuality of the creative person of each master architect and reflecting the “spirit of the times”.
5. Creation of a characteristic silhouette of the city, calm and monotonous, corresponding to the flat topography of the area and at the same time restrained, emphasized and moderately enlivened by individual verticals - towers, spiers, domes.
6. Subordination of a private architectural task to general urban planning tasks and subordination of each new architectural structure with neighboring existing ones.
7. A subtle understanding of the scale of a city, square, building in relation to them; understanding the internal architectonic logic of each architectural structure; extremely clear, precise composition of the building; saving expressive means with the resulting restraint and simplicity of decor; a subtle, deep sense of architectural detail and its scale. [...]
[...] The last 50-60 years, which are closest to us, have not been studied, and this is extremely strange. [...]
The point that we haven’t talked about so far is the most interesting - about deepening the system.
If formerly a classic late XVII, early XIX centuries could deepen systems, expand them, then in our country not a single system is deepened, but is done hastily, quickly passes, 10-15 years, and goes to the next, and the system itself becomes somewhat abstract. You see all the creative efforts of the last 60 years. We updated the non-deepened, hence the throwing. [...]
* From a speech at a theoretical conference of the Faculty of Architecture of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after. I. E. Repin of the USSR Academy of Arts December 23, 1950 Verbatim report, library of the Institute. I. E. Repin.
[...] It seems that by tradition it is correct to understand those progressive principles that played a positive role in the past and deserve development in the present. We proceeded from this when deciding on the station building*. Innovation should be an organically integral concept from tradition. [...]
* Station in Pushkin, awarded the State Prize (authors: I. A. Levinson, A. A. Grushke. 1944-1950).
[...] What is new in architecture is primarily associated with the knowledge of reality in its progressive development. This pattern of scientific development is directly related to architecture.
The struggle for something new will always exist. But this “new” must be determined based on life, and not on abstract doctrines, which, for example, are so widely used in Western architecture. The search for something new there very often comes from the formal research of the architect or is taken outside the life of the people, their customs and traditions. [...]
* From the article “The Practice of an Architect” in the collection. "Creative problems Soviet architecture"(L.-M., 1956).
[...] Architecture and related arts are not born as an art of one day. This is a complex, difficult process associated with the time factor. And hence, the understanding of modernity is not based only on formal modern “techniques” and examples generated by new opportunities of the industry, a new understanding of the surrounding world, which, however, play a major role. The solution in the art of architecture, which contains synthetic principles, is the control of time, the argument that determines and selects the authentic from the surrogates. [...]
[...] Historical examples closer to us can illustrate a lot. So, basically the progressive movement in architecture, Art Nouveau, despite all the manifestos of its adherents, due to the lack of traditions and the inability to find the necessary organic forms, grew into that decadence, which was all built on decorative principles and whose taste is still present today a striking example of the destruction of architectural forms. [...]
* From the report “On Synthesis” 1958-1962. (archive of E. E. Levinson).
[...] If we look at the past, we can see that from time to time the views of architects turned to classical accumulations in one concept or another. True, some sought in their progressive development to get rid of this influence, feeling its strength. As an example, we can point out that one of the founders of Art Nouveau, its ideological leader, Viennese architect Otto Wagner, who had a valuable library on classical architecture, sold it so that it would not influence his work. But at the same time, it is characteristic that his buildings often sinned precisely in terms of taste.
The thought naturally arises that if there is a lack of composure in the field of architectural theory, if there is a shortage after completion Patriotic War building materials, in the absence of a construction industry, architects turned, like the experiments of Shchuko in 1910 and Zholtovsky in 1935, to forms that so habitually fit into familiar brick formations.
This was perhaps facilitated by the tendency in the first post-war years to carry out construction in cities, where engineering communications were available and the structure could fit well enough into the surrounding landscape, fit into the ensemble, the problems of which we always devote a lot of space to.
There was another side - representativeness, the spirit of which was then in many branches of art. It is possible that post-war patriotic feelings, those feelings of self-esteem that involuntarily turned to the great shadows of the past - Stasov, Starov and others - played a certain role here.
Later what happened is what happens to any direction that, not having sufficient historical support, becomes obsolete and turns into its opposite, not having a solid foundation in the process of creating those architectural forms that correspond to the growth of industry, which opens up new opportunities. The architectural direction of the first post-war years, which sought to liken its creations to the classical examples of the past, turned into its opposite, in this case - towards decoration. [...]
[...] What was disorienting in the competition for the design of the Palace of the Soviets was that three projects were awarded the highest prize: Iofan’s project, Zholtovsky’s project, made in a classical concept, and the project of the young American architect Hamilton, made in an Americanized spirit *. The fact that prizes were given to projects that were fundamentally different in their stylistic and other qualities essentially opened up the way to encourage eclecticism, because if the Palace of Soviets can be solved in different plans and styles, then this conclusion is quite natural. [...]
** From the article “Some Issues in the Development of Soviet Architecture” in the scientific notes of the Institute. I. E. Repin (issue 1, Leningrad, 1961).
Irina Bembel, editor-in-chief magazine "Capitel" and curator of the project MONUMENTALITÀ & MODERNITÀ - about the conference "Tradition and counter-tradition in architecture and fine arts Modern times."
information:
The theme of tradition in modern architecture, as a rule, comes down to a question of style, moreover, in the minds of almost the majority - the “Luzhkovsky” style. But even impeccable historical stylizations are perceived today as empty shells, dead copies, while their prototypes were filled with living meaning. Even today they continue to talk about something, and the older the monument, the more important its silent monologue seems.The fundamental irreducibility of the phenomenon of tradition to the issue of style became the leitmotif of the scientific and practical conference “Tradition and counter-tradition in architecture and fine arts of modern times” held in St. Petersburg.
Background
But first, about the project itself. “MONUMENTALITÀ & MODERNITÀ” translated from Italian means “monumentality and modernity.” The project arose spontaneously in 2010, under the strong impression of the “Mussolini” architecture seen in Rome. Besides me, its origins included the architect Rafael Dayanov, the Italian philologist-Russianist Stefano Maria Capilupi and the art critic Ivan Chechot, who came up with our beautiful motto.
The result of joint efforts was the conference “Architecture of Russia, Germany and Italy of the “totalitarian” period”, which turned out to have a distinct “Italian flavor”. But even then it became clear to us that it was pointless to remain within the zones of the main dictatorial regimes - the topic of interwar and post-war neoclassicism was much broader.
Therefore, the next conference of the project was dedicated to the “totalitarian” period as a whole (“Problems of perception, interpretation and preservation of the architectural and artistic heritage of the “totalitarian” period”, 2011). However, this framework also turned out to be tight: I wanted to make not only a horizontal, but also a vertical section, trace the genesis, and evaluate further transformations.
The 2013 conference expanded not only geographical, but also chronological boundaries: it was called “ Classical tradition in architecture and fine arts of modern times."
It must be said that despite the virtual absence of a budget, our conferences each time attracted about 30 speakers from Russia, the CIS, Italy, the USA, Japan, Lithuania, not to mention absentee participants. Most guests traditionally come from Moscow. Over the past time, the co-organizers of our events have alternately become the St. Petersburg state university(Smolny Institute), Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy, European University in St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. And most importantly, we managed to create a positively charged field of rich and relaxed professional communication, where theorists and practitioners exchanged experiences in one audience.
Finally, the theme of the last conference was the phenomenon of tradition as such, since the term “classical” is strongly associated with columns and porticoes, while tradition, as is known, can also be orderless.
Thus, moving from the particular to the general, we come to the question of the very essence of tradition, and main task was the transfer of the topic from the category of style to the category of meaning.
So, the 2015 conference was called “Tradition and counter-tradition in architecture and fine arts of modern times.” To the constant organizers - the magazine "Kapitel" in my person and the Council for Cultural and historical heritage The Union of Architects of St. Petersburg, represented by Rafael Dayanov, added the Research Institute of Theory and History of Architecture and Urban Planning, which was represented by the scientific secretary Diana Capen-Vardits, who specially came from Moscow.
Tradition and counter-tradition
The theme of tradition in modern times is as relevant as it is inexhaustible. Today I have a feeling of a question being posed, which has begun to take on, albeit vague, but still visible outlines. And they began to touch this block from different sides: what is tradition in the original philosophical sense? How was it understood and is it understood in the context of modern times? As stylistics or as a fundamental orientation towards the timeless, eternal? What manifestations of tradition in the twentieth century need to be reassessed? Which ones do we see today, which ones do we consider the most interesting and meaningful?
For me, the fundamental antagonism of two superstyles - tradition and modernism - is a question of fundamental ethical and aesthetic guidelines. The culture of tradition was focused on the idea of the Absolute, expressed by the concepts of truth, goodness and beauty. In the culture of tradition, ethics and aesthetics strived for identity.
As the idea of the Absolute began to erode in modern times, the paths of ethics and aesthetics diverged further and further, until traditional ideas of beauty turned into a dead shell, a peeling mask, filled with many secular, rational meanings. All these new meanings lay in the material plane of linear progress, the sacred vertical disappeared. There has been a transition from the sacred, qualitative world to the pragmatic, quantitative world. By the beginning of the twentieth century, a new paradigm of consciousness and an industrial mode of production exploded forms that had become alien from within - the avant-garde emerged as the art of negation.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the picture became more complicated: having abandoned the idea of the Absolute as an invisible tuning fork and even the avant-garde anti-orientation towards it as a starting point, culture exists in a formless field of subjectivity, where everyone can choose their own personal coordinate system. The very principle of systematicity, the very concept of structurality is called into question, the very possibility of the existence of a unique unifying center is criticized (poststructuralism in philosophy). In architecture, this was expressed in postmodernism, deconstructivism, and nonlinearity.
To put it mildly, not all colleagues accept my point of view. The position of our absentee participant G.A. seemed closest to me. Ptichnikova (Moscow), speaking about the value essence of tradition, about its vertical core, “bombarded” by “horizontal” innovations.
I.A. writes about the sacred basis of tradition in his correspondence report. Bondarenko. However, he rejects the idea of counter-tradition: the transition from an essential orientation towards an unattainable ideal to the vulgar-utopian idea of calculating and embodying it here and now, he calls the absolutization of tradition (from my point of view, this is the absolutization of individual formal manifestations of tradition to the detriment of its essence, and in the period of modernism and completely tradition inside out, that is, precisely counter-tradition). In addition, Igor Andreevich is optimistic about modern architectural and philosophical relativism, seeing in it a kind of guarantor of non-return to the undue absolutization of the relative. It seems to me that such a danger cannot in any way justify the oblivion of the truly Absolute.
A significant portion of researchers do not see the antagonism between tradition and modernity at all, believing that architecture is only “bad” and “good,” “authorial” and “imitative,” and that the imaginary contradiction between classics and modernism is an indissoluble dialectical unity. I have come across the opinion that Le Corbusier is a direct successor of the ideas of the ancient classics. At our current conference, V.K. Linov, in continuation of the theses of 2013, identified the fundamental, core features inherent in “good” architecture of any era.
The report of I.S. sounded like a parallel. Hare, who focused on the functional and practical (“use - strength”), basic manifestations of architecture of all times. Personally, I was sorry that Vitruvian “beauty”, which the author completely attributed to the private sphere of taste, was initially removed from this analysis - main secret and the elusive intrigue of tradition. It is also a pity that, even trying to comprehend global architectural processes, researchers most often ignore parallel phenomena in philosophy - again, contrary to Vitruvius...
I have long had the feeling that everything new in modern architecture that has a creative meaning is a well-forgotten old thing, inherent in traditional architecture from time immemorial. It became new only in the context of modernism. Now new names are being invented for these fragments of the lost essence, new directions are being derived from them.
- Phenomenological architecture as an attempt to escape the dictates of abstract rationality to the detriment of sensory experience and the subjective experience of space.
- Institutional architecture as a search for basic, extra-left foundations of various traditions.
- The genre of meta-utopia in architecture as a manifestation of a super idea, “metaphysics of architecture” is an echo of well-forgotten Platonic eidos.
- Organic architecture in its old and new varieties as a utopian attempt by man to return to the bosom of nature that he is destroying.
- New urbanism, polycentrism as a desire to rely on pre-modern urban planning principles.
- Finally, the classical order and other formal and stylistic signs of tradition...
The list goes on.
All these scattered, fragmentary meanings today are opposed to each other, whereas initially they were in a living, dialectical unity, naturally born, on the one hand, from basic, integral ideas about the world as a sacred hierarchical cosmos, and on the other, from local tasks, conditions and methods of production. In other words, traditional architecture expressed timeless values in contemporary language. Incredibly diverse, it is united by genetic kinship.
Modern appeals to tradition tend to take the opposite approach: they involve different (usually fragmented, particular) modern meanings expressed using elements of traditional language.
It seems that the search for a full-fledged alternative to modernism is a question of the meaning of tradition, and not one or another of its forms, a question of value orientation, a question of returning to an absolute coordinate system.
Theory and practice
This year the circle of active practitioners who took part in our conference has become even wider. In the mutual communication of art critics, designers, architectural historians, as well as representatives of related arts (though still rare), stable stereotypes are destroyed, the idea of art critics as dry, meticulous snobs who have no idea about the real process of design and construction, and of architects as about smug and limited art businessmen who are only interested in the opinions of customers.
In addition to attempts to understand the fundamental processes in architecture, many conference reports were devoted to specific manifestations of tradition in the architecture of modern times, starting from the constant “totalitarian” period and ending with the present day.
Pre-war architecture of Leningrad (A.E. Belonozhkin, St. Petersburg), London (P. Kuznetsov, St. Petersburg), Lithuania (M. Ptashek, Vilnius), urban planning of Tver (A. A. Smirnova, Tver), points of contact between avant-garde and tradition in urban planning Moscow and Petrograd-Leningrad (Yu. Starostenko, Moscow), the genesis of Soviet Art Deco (A.D. Barkhin, Moscow), preservation and adaptation of monuments (R.M. Dayanov, St. Petersburg, A. and N. Chadovichi, Moscow) - these and other “historical” topics smoothly transitioned into the problems of today. The reports of St. Petersburg residents A.L. were devoted to the issues of introducing new architecture into the historical center of our city. Punina, M.N. Mikishatieva, partly V.K. Linova, as well as M.A. Mamoshin, who shared his own experience of working in the historical center.
Moscow speakers N.A. spoke about examples of informal, essential disclosure of tradition in modern Japanese architecture. Rochegova (with co-author E.V. Barchugova) and A.V. Gusev.
Finally, examples of the formation of a new habitat based on tradition were demonstrated from Muscovite M.A. from his own practice. Belov and St. Petersburg resident M.B. Atayants. Moreover, if Mikhail Belov’s village near Moscow is clearly designed for the “cream of society” and is still empty, then the “City of Embankments” for economy class in Khimki by Maxim Atayants is filled with life and is an extremely human-friendly environment.
Babylonian confusion
The pleasure of communicating with colleagues and general professional satisfaction from the bright event did not, however, prevent us from making an important critical observation. Its essence is not new, but is still relevant, namely: by delving into particulars, science is rapidly losing the whole.
Traditionalist philosophers N. Berdyaev and Rene Guenon loudly declared about the crisis of a fragmented, essentially positivist, mechanical-quantitative science already at the beginning of the twentieth century. Even earlier, the largest theologian and philologist, Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov). In the 1930s, the phenomenologist Husserl called for a return on a new level to a pre-scientific, syncretic view of the world. And this unifying way of thinking “must choose the naive manner of speech characteristic of life and at the same time use it in proportion to how it is required for the obviousness of evidence.”
This “naivety of speech”, clearly expressing clear thoughts, is, in my opinion, sorely lacking today in architectural science, which is replete with new terms, but often suffers from a blurred meaning.
As a result, delving into the texts of the reports and getting to the bottom of the matter, you are surprised at how much different languages people sometimes talk about the same things. Or, on the contrary, they invest completely different meaning in the same terms. As a result, the experience and efforts of the best specialists are not only not consolidated, but often remain completely closed to their colleagues.
I cannot say that the conference managed to completely overcome these language and semantic barriers, but the very possibility of live dialogue seems important. Therefore, we, the organizers, consider one of the most important tasks of the project to be the search for a conference format that is maximally aimed at active listening and discussion.
In any case, the three-day intensive exchange of opinions became extremely interesting; it was nice to hear words of gratitude from colleagues and wishes for further communication. S.P. Shmakov wished that the speakers would spend more time on modern St. Petersburg architecture “with a personal touch,” this would bring even closer together the representatives of a single, but split into separate sections of the profession.
Comments from colleagues
S.P. Shmakov, Honored Architect of the Russian Federation, Corresponding Member of IAAME:
“On the topic of the last conference, dedicated to “tradition and counter-tradition,” I can confirm that the topic is relevant at all times, as it touches on a huge layer of creativity, painfully resolving the issue of the relationship between traditions and innovation in art in general and in architecture in particular. In my opinion, these two concepts are two sides of the same coin, or the yin and yang of Eastern wisdom. This is a dialectical unity, where one concept smoothly flows into another and vice versa. Innovation, which at first rejected the traditions of historicism, soon becomes a tradition itself. However, having spent a long period in his clothes, he then strives back into the fold of historicism, which can be qualified as a new and bold innovation. Today you can find such examples when, tired of the dominance of glass architecture, you suddenly see an appeal to the classics, which you just want to call a new innovation.
Now I will clarify my thoughts on the possible form of such a conference. So that practicing architects and art critics do not exist in parallel worlds, one could imagine their head-to-head clash, when a practicing architect reporting his work is joined as an opponent by an art critic and they try to give birth to the truth in a friendly dispute. Even if the birth is unsuccessful, it will still be useful for the audience. A lot of such pairs could be assembled, and the participants-spectators of these battles could, by raising their hands (why not?) take the positions of one or the other.”
M.A. Mamoshin, architect, vice-president of St. Petersburg SA, professorIAA, academician of MAAM, corresponding member of RAASN, head of Mamoshin Architectural Workshop LLC:
"Past conference, dedicated to the topic“traditions - counter-traditions in the architecture of modern times” attracted the participation of not only professional art historians, but also practicing architects. For the first time, there has been a symbiosis of practice and art historical information in the context of this topic, which leads to the idea of the need to revive such practical (in the literal sense of the word!) conferences. Overcoming this barrier between practicing architects and architectural theorists is not a new idea. In the 30-50s, the main task at the Academy of Architecture was to combine the theory and practice of the current moment. This was the flowering of theory and practice in their unity. These two essential things complemented each other. Unfortunately, in the revived Academy (RAASN) we see that the block of art historians (theory) and practicing architects is divided. Isolation occurs when theorists are absorbed in internal problems, and practitioners do not analyze the current moment. I believe that further movement towards bringing theory and practice closer together is one of the main tasks. I express my gratitude to the conference organizers who took a step along this path.”
D.V. Capen-Vardits, candidate of art history, scientific secretary of NIITIAG:
“The fourth conference within the framework of the MONUMENTALITÀ & MODERNITÀ project left the impression of an unusually busy day. A dense program of more than 30 reports right during the meetings was supplemented by unplanned detailed presentations on the topic, and the discussion that began during the discussion of the reports smoothly turned into informal lively communication between participants and listeners during breaks and after the meetings. It is obvious that not only the theme of the conference declared by the organizers about the problem of the genesis and relationship between tradition and counter-tradition, but also the very format of its organization and holding attracted many different participants and listeners: university professors (Zavarikhin, Punin, Vaytens, Lisovsky), practicing architects (Atayants , Belov, Mamoshin, Linov, etc.), researchers (Mikishatyev, Konysheva, Gusev, etc.), restorers (Dayanov, Ignatiev, Zayats), graduate students of architectural and art universities. The ease with which people from the same workshop, but of different views, occupations, and ages found common language, undoubtedly, was the merit of the organizer and presenter of the conference, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Kapitel” I.O. Bembel. By bringing together interesting and interested participants and managing to create a very relaxed atmosphere, she and her colleagues who led the sessions always guided the overall discussion in a professional and diplomatic manner. Thanks to this, the most pressing topics (new construction in historical cities, problems of restoration of monuments) were able to be discussed taking into account all points of view, which in ordinary professional life have little chance or desire to be mutually heard. Perhaps the conference could be compared to an architectural salon, where anyone can speak and anyone can discover something new. And this is the most important quality of the conference and its main point of attraction.
The creation of a permanent platform for professional discussion, the idea of overcoming intra-shop disunity between theorists and practitioners, historians and innovators for a comprehensive discussion of architectural problems in the broad context of culture, society, politics and economics is a huge achievement. The need for such a discussion is obvious even from the number of ideas and proposals for “improving” the genre and format of the conference that the participants put forward at the last round table. But even if the scale and format of the conference and the enthusiasm of its organizers and participants are maintained, a wonderful future awaits it.”
M.N. Mikishatyev, architectural historian, senior researcher at NIITIAG:
“Unfortunately, I was not able to listen to and watch all the messages, but the general tone of the speeches, which to some extent was set by the author of these lines, is a depressing state, if not the death of modern architecture. What we see on the streets of our city are no longer works of architecture, but products of some kind of design, and not even designed for a long life. Famous theorist A.G. Rappaport, like us, notes the “gradual rapprochement of architecture and design,” while pointing out the insurmountable divergence of these forms of creating an artificial habitat, “for design is fundamentally oriented toward mobile structures, and architecture toward stable ones,” and moreover, design based on Its very nature presupposes “the planned obsolescence of things and their liquidation, and architecture has inherited an interest, if not in eternity, then in great time.” However, A.G. Rappaport doesn't lose hope. In the article “Large-scale reduction” he writes: “However, it is possible that a general democratic reaction will arise, and a new intelligentsia that will take responsibility for correcting these trends, and architecture will be in demand by the new democratic elite as a profession capable of returning the world to its organic life."
The last day of the conference, which featured speeches by practicing architects Mikhail Belov and Maxim Atayants, showed that such a turn of events is not just a hope and a dream, but a real process that is unfolding in modern domestic architecture. M. Atayants spoke about one of the satellite cities he created in the Moscow region (see “Capital” No. 1 for 2014), where images of St. Petersburg as a New Amsterdam are concentrated in a small space. The breath of Stockholm and Copenhagen is also quite noticeable here. How comforting it must have been for its real inhabitants, having returned from work from the crazy capital, spoiled by all these plazas and high-tech, having passed the Moscow Ring Roads and rockades, to find themselves in their nest, with granite embankments reflected in the canals, arched bridges and lanterns, with beautiful and various brick houses, in your cozy and not too expensive apartment... But the dream, even realized, leaves a bit of fear, brought up by Dostoevsky’s fantasies: will this whole “fictional”, all this fairy-tale town fly away, like a vision, along with its houses and smoke - into the high sky near Moscow?..”
R.M. Dayanov, co-organizer of the MONUMENTALITÀ & MODERNITÀ project, honorary architect of the Russian Federation, head of the Liteinaya Chast-91 design bureau, chairman of the Council for Cultural and Historical Heritage of St. Petersburg SA:
“The fourth conference within the framework of the MONUMENTALITÀ & MODERNITÀ project allowed us to see the path we have traveled over these four years.
When we started this project, it was assumed that we would be talking about the preservation and study of objects and cultural phenomena of a certain period, limited to 1930-1950. But, as with any delicious food, I developed an appetite for the fourth course! And suddenly practitioners joined the scientific circle. There is hope that they will continue to be actively involved in this process in order, together with art critics and architectural historians, to develop a view not only on what happened 70-80 years ago, but also on the phenomena of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
To summarize, I would like to wish that the project receives more significant, comprehensive and systematic support from the architectural workshop.
Modern temple architecture does not lag behind in development and experiments with forms and styles on a par with secular architecture. The only problem is that authors often forget what they should start from, what their priorities should be.
The Moscow creative association “Squaring the Circle”, consisting of Daniil Makarov, Ivan Zemlyakov, and Philip Yakubchuk, is aimed at developing projects for new temple architecture. “Our goal is to connect the art of the past and the culture of the present. Church architecture today is Terra incognita for many people, we are studying Christian tradition And modern culture, creating designs for timely temple architecture. The architects of antiquity absorbed the best from the cultural context of their time and erected a great variety of temples and chapels, united general meaning. We continue these traditions of meaningful formation of the temple space, based on the cultural realities of our days,” say the authors themselves. Basically, their innovations concentrate on transforming the form of the building in accordance with current concepts of modern architecture.
One of the first and immediately unusual ideas was the project of a temple on the water in 2012 in the village of Lozenets (Bulgaria). The basis was based on the techniques used in the construction of ancient small churches in Bulgaria, expressed in the form of the main volume - an elongated rectangle with a gable roof. The curvature of the inner surface of the wall is designed for reflection and focusing sunlight the underwater part of the temple, in which services can be held.
The next noteworthy project - the Temple of the 40 Martyrs of Sebastia - reflects one of the main concepts of “Squaring the Circle”, namely the active construction of temple architecture in urban space, both in the city center and on the outskirts. All attention was focused on the external decor, which carries a strong symbolic meaning. The image of the 40 martyrs appears in the form of a lattice of 40 intertwined crosses. Such a metal structure is entwined with grapes planted in flower beds, as a symbol of the Life-giving Cross of Golgotha and Christ himself. On three blind pediments there is a relief depicting scenes from the lives of martyrs. The play with light and shadow is also cleverly calculated, as in the previous project - the beam enters the interior space, first through a lattice of crosses, then through a round hole in the drum and slit windows. In addition to the direct functions of the temple, the construction also solves the problem of urban landscaping.
Even more unusual lighting effects are presented in the 2013 project. The Church of the Holy Trinity directly refers to the icon of the same name by A. Rublev. God the Father - architecture (city), God the Son - tree (cross), God the Holy Spirit - mountains (stone) - such visual symbolism is embodied on the facade of the building, respectively, the glazed left part, reflecting the urban development, the tree in front of the temple and brick wall. The effect of reflection on the glass wall of all the main elements symbolizes unity and also expands the space. Therefore, the project was developed for dense urban development.
The project of the Kletsky Church combines the heritage of wooden churches and the smooth silhouette of Art Nouveau churches. The basis is the contrast of plastic facades and traditionality in the finishing of the wall surfaces. To lighten the load-bearing base of the structure, the use of glued wooden structures is implied.
An equally interesting version of suburban Orthodox architecture is the project of the Church of St. John the Evangelist in the village of Anisimovo. At first glance, it seems too simple, but this form was taken by the authors from the history of the village itself. In addition, this type of rural church implies a small size and intimate interior. This is achieved due to the fact that the structure itself refers to traditions - as if from the temple of the 11th century they took only one roof ceiling and stretched it to the size of a full-fledged building. Most The facade with flat ornamental carvings makes it unique and at the same time refers to the history of pre-revolutionary churches.
The creative association “Squaring the Circle” is a fairly young team, but it can be considered one of the most prominent representatives of modern church architecture. Combining tradition and innovation, the authors reflect this in all components: the use of wood and glass, giving traditional forms features of the latest concepts in architecture, combining different types of decor, as well as symbolic designation of design details.
Urbantemples
ChurchResurrectionChrist's
Most of the team’s ideas are currently in a draft state, but if they do come to life, this will become a new round in the development of modern Russian temple architecture. The main thing is that the masters of the 21st century do not forget that the temple must carry within itself and carry this meaning through 10 centuries of history.
