MONSTER HOUR
A monster is SOMETHING, unusually large, scary, causing exciting emotions. From the point of view of the architect, this is only an enlarged original, a game of scale ...
There is something in common between architecture and cinematography. Designing architecture is the same "DREAM FACTORY". Arising at the turn of the century, the art of cinema used ready-made architectural images. Now happening the opposite, in my opinion. It is cinema that is on the crest of "MODERN ART" and the development of "NEW STYLE", which affects architecture. TV in every apartment, but these are only moving pictures, and the product of architectural dreams is real buildings built for centuries. Why don't I like modern architecture so much? Why is it unpleasant for me to walk around the "UPDATED" Moscow? And when I get home, I enjoy watching some good Hollywood movie. What's new in NEW ART? What is MODERN ARCHITECTURE?... My view is subjective and emotional, but it determines my position and view on common problems.
HOLLYWOOD
Two years ago, my colleague A. Brodsky and I were invited to Los Angeles as artists and architects to work on a science fiction movie. It was interesting to be in the very center of Hollywood cuisine, and we agreed. The main theme of the film, according to the director, was to be an unusual architecture. No one doubted the receipt of OSCAR. The main artist, an Italian by birth, received an Oscar for his work on the "Restoration" movie a year ago. Two leading Hollywood stars were also invited to the main roles. The work was in full swing... In the center of the studio they put the best copy machine and began to copy the achievements of mankind on this subject. I remember that the source of inspiration was the engravings of Doret, the projects of Ledoux and Boule, the paintings of Brueghel and Bosch... as well as the thin book of etchings by Brodsky and Utkin. Then the master painters from different countries gave the familiar images an unrecognizable angle. Scale, color and lighting changed. The image was inhabited by characters and introduced into the context of the future picture. We did not find prototyping, as well as computer processing. We did not have a relationship with the chief artist, and, to everyone's surprise, we parted... What is new in the art of cinema? This is a modern technology. As for the rest, we did not see anything new, once again, making sure that the new is the well-forgotten old.
MONSTER
We have known for a long time that Hollywood is the center and distributor of new ideas. One day, a model of the fantastic city of the future for the "Blade Runner" movie, worth $ 400,000, was exhibited at one of the Venice Biennale. The layout resembled the Cheops pyramid. Well, which customer from architecture can do this? And Hollywood brings together the best actors and directors from around the world. The best artists, architects, psychologists, couturiers, etc. work for them. The latest technologies and the latest achievements of technology are used. And, in fact, Hollywood now is the Center for World Contemporary Culture. Lord of the minds. Creator of contemporary art. The creative direction in "NEW ART" defines one thing: the success of the SHOW. Therefore, all means of influence are used. All human vices and hidden desires are being pulled out. Arguing coldly, “NEW ART” is designed for simple and convenient superficial perception, for animal reactions - excitement, fear, fear, sex drive, surprise... One must be surprised with something new, supernatural. Thus, by hypertrophing old ideas, changing their original meaning, new images are created. Monsters and Monsters, Star Wars, Cyborgs and other "Virtuality" are put on the production flow. They took root, entered the canons of cinema, and the Dream Factory became the Factory of Nightmares. Unrealistic in their scale images - recall, at least, “Seven Wonders of the World” - have always worried mankind. They peacefully coexisted with the art of past eras and began to appear in reality only at the beginning of the century... There were too many of them, and monsters began to give rise to monsters. Somehow imperceptibly there was a shift in human values, a certain proportion was violated. Hypertrophy and ugliness has become an integral part of art, and now monsters enjoy popular love. Children play monster toys, my son with pleasure draws only monsters, my daughter shaves her head and paints her lips black... Monsters everywhere - in art, in architecture, in human relations. Monsters came into life... They are everywhere... Used to them... without them it’s already boring.
MONSTER THE DESTRUCTOR
History keeps in mind the first architectural Monster - the Tower of Babel, as well as the punishment that God sent to all the people. Mythical sea monsters and giants were known for dragging someone into the abyss or killing... And one of the first Hollywood monsters - King Kong - staged a whole massacre in the city of New York... It is significant that memories of great monsters are mandatory associated with grandiose victims, destruction and cataclysms. A monster in reality is a destroyer of harmony. The harmony of the world is given at the beginning ... where God is the creator, and Man is his creation. On this basis the whole world culture was built. But, precisely, her successes and scientific discoveries at the end of the last century led to dreams of a “New Harmony”. Thus, destroying everything in its path, resulting in countless sacrifices, the “Factory of Communist Dreams” really came into operation. It gave rise to new styles in architecture - rationalism and constructivism. From the very first meetings of the revolutionary architects of SINSCULPTARCH, the foundation of the New Tower of Babel began to emerge: "... Architects, creating cities, put upstairs, on a hill, the most valuable thing is a temple... Now science raises questions about creating new cities, and what should be put above a city instead of a temple, because the temples have died... Festivities are needed on the streets ah... - like a carnival and a mystery... This will already be the beginning of action, a fusion of arts, and the people will long for these buildings, where all life revolves, like daily bread..." (From the report of N. Iscelyonov). "to be a barbarian, to get away from erudition, to forget everything, to see objects in their essence, colors, shapes, and inherent mysterious forces". (him also) "One must learn to understand the world, and not rehash to sing. Now - a new life - creates a new one. Everything the old... must be buried..." (B. Korolev). Now it is impossible to read the theoreticians of that era without laughter and tears, but, of course, this time had its personalities and left its monuments. They were made by real masters who received a classical education in the last century. It is no accident that they, fruitfully subsequently, together with I.V.Zholtovsky, developed the Stalin's neoclassical style. It is a pleasure to look at the masterfully completed projects of that time. These graphic sheets in themselves have value. The spirit is captivating from superbly designed compositions and breadth of scale ... And in these two styles of the new era there is a unifying beginning: the deification of the human mind, and technology in architecture leads to the opposite consequences - indifference to the person himself. Architecture is becoming self-sufficient. N. Ladovsky in 1920 predicted the future of New Babylon: "Miracles are made by technology. Miracles must be done in architecture ... In space, the soaring architectural wonders of our time will be built by art plus the mind and most importantly there will be an amount of mind."
MONSTERIZATION OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY
Gradually grew a new MONSTER, dictating its own conditions. This is a state-owned construction machine. No country in the world knew such a volume of housing construction, and ... The Factory of Architectural Dreams was closed. The architect turned into an appendage to the construction machine. Design creativity was reduced to a moronic unfolding of boxes on the plan and to counting panels on the facades. Such a wretched architecture "for the people" did not know a single country in the world. So was the new Harmony shaping the “New Man”. But the leaders themselves did not intuitively rush to leave the zone of the old city. Moreover, in the center of the city, with some exceptions, they were reluctant to build during this period. The era of New Dreams, but already capitalist, did not take our “Creators” by surprise. Building plants began to be called differently, but the manners remained the same. The power of the dollar dictated a new direction of action. A new misfortune fell upon the remnants of Old Moscow like an avalanche - a construction boom. The “Renewal of Moscow” went with terrifying speed. On quiet streets, like in a scary movie, concrete monsters grow, destroying the existing structure, which has been fashioned for centuries by our ancestors. Like in films, they are different: big and small, funny and scary ... Here is the alien house - a chrome starship, here is Zombies - an inept copy of the original. There are both “Harlequin” and “Ryazhenny”, which are cheerfully painted, scoff at others, goofing around, dressed themselves in ridiculous architectural details. There is also a Golem - a bronze idol looming ominously over the city. In place of the demolished neighborhoods appeared "Solar Cities" behind the barbed wire. And much more...
"NEW RUSSIAN ARCHITECTURE" is romantic, I would say, even fabulous. This is a mixture of ideas about modern Western and “eternal” Russian art, about the near capitalist paradise, a kind of mixture of Hollywood with Russian kitsch, and people like it. It’s only sad to see how Moscow, which dreamed of becoming the Third Rome, loses its face, its real history, and in fact turns into a distinctive version of Disney Land. Police officers, as they know how, play American police, criminals in the mafia, leaders in democracy, and singers and actors in pop stars ... In general, a sense of reality leaves the country, the city, and its creators. Hollywood Laurels haunt anyone. Everything goes according to the proven scheme of success - more, higher, extraordinary, worse. You need to scream to be heard. Other art is not perceived. The contemplation and quiet mystery of perception is a thing of the past. The criterion of "NEW ART" is entertainment. Recently, all the people watched with pleasure the death of the monster ship Titanic. And even earlier, as a fascinating film, not being afraid of dying, the White House Shooting was witnessed in reality. So, along with disasters and cataclysms, the CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE has become a spectacle. The Century of Great Dreams is drawing to a close. Romantic beginnings of the beginning of the century, faith in technological progress, in a new person end in ordinary monsters.
NEW "NEOCLASSICISM"
There is a degradation of human relations and the crisis of the "New Culture" as a communication system. At the same time, there was a superficial attitude to classicism, as to the already passed and finished art of the past. But it was Greek classical architecture that gave impetus to the development of many European styles, because it most fully contains the internal understanding of the beauty of the universe, commensurate with man... And, as has happened more than once in history, time itself requires looking back, returning to the eternal human values. Create architecture for a normal human environment. How important it is now to preserve those remnants of the monuments of past history in the form as they are, without improving them to your barbaric taste. And how important it is to raise the status of a classical architectural school, and, in general, the status of an architect - a carrier of culture. Our modern School teaches the craft of the architect: the art of composition of forms, gives an idea of styles and history. A source of inspiration in the design are foreign architecture magazines. What a disappointment it was to see first-hand the modern architecture in Japan, which we were so inspired in our student years. Graphically beautiful plans, axonometrics and pictures in magazines in reality turned out to be constructions strange and incomprehensible by their absurdity. Buddhist temples and traditional Japanese architecture made a much greater impression. There are no Greek columns, but there is that extraordinary sense of material and balance of man and nature, which is inherent in the classics. This understanding also includes the attitude to building material. The traditional material - stone, wood, brick, metal, ceramics - to varying degrees, but knows how to age, the beauty of patina only gives value over time. He is born from the earth, and leaves the earth. Artificial material no longer lives, but over time it becomes ugly and harmful to humans, and the earth does not take it, turning into a landfill. Therefore, the attitude to architecture, not as something temporary, momentary, but as living a long, almost eternal life, is also included in my understanding of “classics”. We also saw the work of Michael Graves - PORTLAND PUBLIC SERVICE BUILDING, an apologist for postmodernism, and this building has nothing to do with pastel magazine pictures. Post-modern uses only the external attributes of the classics, without delving into its internal meaning. Among the general unprincipled styles, Neo-Constructivism stands out for its compositional simplicity and clarity. He acquired bourgeois features, losing the original idea. But he is not in fashion now. The style, marked by its aggressiveness and individualism, very similar to the rationalism of the 20s, enjoys popularity ... It seems that there really already exists a need to re-evaluate the values artificially created by this century. It is extremely difficult to go against the current, against the prevailing opinion, against the convenient path. Few can afford it: Steven Spielberg, the inventor of the canons of Hollywood cinema, unexpectedly for everyone, made the “Schindler's List”, showing that a person with his real problems can again become an object of art. Robert Venturi, experimenting with architecture all his life, made in 1991. National Gallery of Art. There are few such works, but Michael Graves and Aldo Rossi, Stirling and Charles Moore, Nouvel and Norman Foster have them... In these works, one can still feel post-modern, but, in fact, it is already Neoclassic. The real beginning of this phenomenon was laid by Leon Crie, having published a scientific work entitled "NEW CLASSICISM Omnibus Volume", 1990, where he theoretically set forth his vision of the problems of today's architecture. A lot has already been built. Already have their own face in the style of "New Classics" by Demetri Porfirios, Rob Krie, Giorgio Grassi, Quinlan Terry, Alan Greenberg... Yes, and we have talented architects working in this direction... It mystically happened that the period of revolutionary transformations came at the beginning of the century, when neoclassicism was the dominant style in architecture. The next round of history ends with its beginning... In 1997, Frank Gerry, having built a museum in Bilbao, brought to life the sketches of B. Korolev and N. Iscelyonov of 1919 - "Temple of the Cult of the People." One more step to take... I consider NEW CLASSICISM - MODERN ARCHITECTURE, the main essence of which is expressed not in a certain form of volume, in the facade or in the extraordinary imagination of the artist, but in the architecture of the HUMAN ENVIRONMENT. I am for the classic relationship between God and man, man and nature, man and woman, between people and the state, man and machine, between the architect and the customer ... Although everything is not so simple and unambiguous, but for me, "Neoclassic" is the way returning home after long wanderings and the beginning of new searches... It's very often in Hollywood cinema, where monsters kill their creators, but, as a rule, the end is optimistic: a young American guy, after a little torment, saves the earth from alien monsters, and then marries a beautiful girl.
I. Utkin. November 1998
The article was published in "Project Russia" magazine No. 11 of 1998