PROJECT RUSSIA №50 - media

Each art form uses specific mediums to express itself and to communicate to its audience. In the visual arts the relationship between artist and medium is quite simple: the medium is both mediator and the art object itself. Painters use paint and canvas; photographers, film; sculptors, material. In other art forms the relationship is more complex. This is the case with theatre and film, with the applied arts, but especially with architecture. Obviously, the primary medium through which architects express themselves is buildings. However, architects are as far from their medium as painters are close to their painting. Architects do not themselves build; this work is executed by others. Moreover, since the building is constructed in a particular place and not in the architect’s studio, the architect has only very limited opportunity to supervise the process. And finally, for their work to be executed, architects also depend on their clients, who must buy the materials and hire workers. This means that architects have to use a host of other mediums in order to be able to realize their primary medium. They have to communicate with the client through sketches, texts, drawings, renderings, and models, and with builders through accurate and comprehensive documentation of the object to be built. And it doesn’t stop there: the building likewise imposes limitations on architects’ communication with their audience. Unlike other forms of art, buildings cannot travel, so they cannot be exhibited elsewhere. They can, however, be shown in other locations through the twodimensional media of photography and film. Only then do buildings become part of the architectural culture and communicate to people other than their direct users. In this respect it is obvious that here, much more than in other art forms, publications are essential for disseminating architecture and shaping architectural culture. This is a matter not so much of communicating with the general public (the audience of architecture), but more of communicating within the profession. Knowledge of architecture is not based on systematic formulas, but on precedents – the study of what has been done by others. This was for me the primary reason to start this journal in 1995: the absence of a professional press means the death of architecture, and one could see that around that time architecture in Russia was close to this point. Of course, creating the journal did not in itself solve this problem. In the first years it was difficult to find interesting content, not only because very little was being built, but also because the use by architects of various kinds of media to communicate their designs was very underdeveloped. It made me realize that this need for communication is very much related to the presence of a market for architecture in which architects can compete for interesting commissions. Since this market was almost absent, so were the media. Obtaining drawings from architects was virtually impossible and computer renderings were so primitive that we actually did our best not to publish them. The result was that for a long period we only published realized projects. Our first issue where this was not the case was PR3 , which dealt with foreign architects working in Russia. Although we could barely show realized buildings, for the first time the quality of the projects as represented in drawings and renderings was good enough to make for a beautiful journal. Not long after that, on the occasion of our 10th birthday, we decided it was time to change our policy. Since then, we have lifted our ban on projects and increasingly been publishing unrealized designs. The quality and content of architectural media has caught up with the international level. This is why we are very happy to be able to devote an entire issue, our 50th, to this subject. Bart Goldhoorn, publisher and editorial director CONTENTS NEWS Master Mason. Yury Grigorian On 75th anniversary of Moscow Institute of Architecture. Dmitry Shvidkovsky Survival experience. Elena Petukhova In brief. Alexander Zmeul The main thing is to revive dialogue with society and authorities. Andrey Bokov On urbanism. Yury Gnedovsky Reform of architectural administration. Tatiana Pashintseva Conflict of the year. Elena Gonzalez When quantity does not turn into quality. Alexei Muratov Avant-garde week. Anna Bronovitskaya Tchoban in Sochi. Valeria Sheina START lasting 25 years. Tatiana Pashintseva City №7. Elena Maslova WorldWide. Made in Russia. Elena Gonzalez Eugeny Gerasimov and Partners Apartment house on Nevsky prospect in St Petersburg Architecture and Cultural Politics Studio ‘Piotr Fomenko’s Workshop’ theater studio in Moscow MEDIA Editorial. Bart Goldhoorn The identity stage: how architecture has metamorphosed under the hegemony of information. Sergei Sitar COUNCILS Tame media. Natalia Pokrovskaya Difficult exam EXHIBITIONS Exhibitions: peculiarities of a genre. Elena Gonzalez Open!Design & Concepts Exhibition by XYZ architectural officeZ Yury Avvakumov, Yury Grigorian ‘BornHouse’ Exhibition Alexander Brodsky, Yury Grigorian ‘Persimfans’ Exhibition Yury Avvakumov Exposition of ‘Garage. Introductory Exhibition’ Alexander Kozyr’, Ilya Babak, Alexander Konstantinov ‘New cities. New in cities’ exhibition PRESS Codex news. Eugeny Korneev INTERNET The new spiritualism. Ilya Mukosey GRAPHICS Architecture on surface: the art of graphic presentation. Anna Bronovitskaya BUROMOSCOW Project of biergarten in Krasnodar region Alexander Brodsky Studio House near Tarusa Mikhail Filippov on architectural graphics Mikhail Filippov Multifunctional complex ‘The Embankment of Europe’ in St Petersburg In the field of vision: a short story of Russian rendering. Alexandra Rudyk Thinking about perspective. Kiril Ass PHOTOGRAPHY The main thing for a photographer is to be in love with looking. Igor Palmin, Yury Palmin NEW TOOLS Mock It Up Before You Fock It Up. James Tichenor, Joshua Walton MONITOR Iced Architects ‘Skhron’, the hidden house LSK Apartment in Vorobievy Gory complex in Moscow Elena and Stanislav Poshvykins Architect’s house near Moscow XYZ Yachtsman’s house. Pirogovo resort near Moscow TEXTS On radicalism and conservatism. 100th anniversary of Modern Movement. Andrey Bokov Ivan Leonidov and interiors of the House of Pioneers in Kalinin in the architectural life of the 1930s. Sergei Nikitin, Sergei Khachaturov DESIGN / TECHNOLOGY PROJECT RUSSIA CATALOGUE