For the last five thousand years, the significance of architecture has been constantly decreasing. From the ancient cult, architecture first turned into art, then into a stepdaughter and a servant of the power. The contemporary structures express no common cultural mythology of life and the world. They have no proper effect of reference to sociology or philosophy. Hypothetically, it is possible to return to architecture its fundamental functions erased by the centuries-long verbal culture. ; За последние пять тысяч лет значение архитектуры непрерывно падало. Из древнего культа архитектура сначала превратилась в искусство, а затем в падчерицу и служанку власти. В современных сооружениях не выражается никакой общекультурной мифологии жизни и мира. Не дают должного эффекта обращения ни к социологии, ни к философии. В гипотетической перспективе не исключена возможность возвращения архитектуре ее основополагающих функций, стертых столетиями вербальной культуры.
The article observes intellectual and cultural level of architecture and its important functions in social process. Historical analysis shows constant decline of intellectual level of profession, as a reaction on radical changes in its social functions and mass scale, leading to degrading of individual critical reflection and growing dependence of architecture to political and economical bureaucracy. ; Культурный уровень профессии архитектора рассматривается как условие развития архитектурной мысли и влияния архитектуры на судьбу социальных процессов. Исторический анализ свидетельствует о неуклонном падении интеллектуального и культурного уровня в профессии, вызванном изменением ее социальных функций и утратой способности к критическому осмыслению происходящих в обществе архитектуре перемен, о растущей зависимости архитектуры от экономической и политической бюрократии.
Many critics consider Richard Serra the leading sculptor of the 20th century. He is famous not only for inventing something new in sculpture (abstract sculpture compositions existed before him, having been opened by constructivist vanguard of the beginning of the 20th century). Material selections by Vladimir Tatlin and sculptures by Osip Tsadkin, as well as compositions by Henry Moor appeared before Serra. Serra is famous for transferring his works' accent from the works as they are, which could be installed in any place, to their environment. That is he saw in the sculpture a key to understanding the urban space. His crude metal sheets and profiles, rectangular and curvilinear, exceeding regular scale of sculpture, come closer to architecture. Richard Serra places them near architectural constructions as checkpoints of intermediate scale category of space located between so-called «street furniture» – lamp posts, stalls, fountains and benches – and buildings, especially huge modern ones.But the matter is not only in the scale. Serra's sculptures are not only abstract compositions that harmoniously add to the space with their spacious scale. They have some mystery, some implicit sense appearing before a pedestrian as an enigma. Their mystique opposes both street furniture and architecture. But first of all it opposes the historical sculpture with its enigma always overshadowed by historical or biographical topic. Krylov's sculpture in the Summer Garden or Minin and Pozharsky's monument on the Red Square do not strike us, because we know that those monuments are erected IN COMMEMORATION of prominent people, as fellow citizens' tribute to their great contribution to the national history. But the crude metal sheets welded at different angles – what are they for? Who needs them?As an art critic, Edward Goldman, said, fame came to Richard Serra in 1989, when the sculpture composition Tilted Arc erected eight years before it was demolished by request of the public, that did not understand its sense and was exasperated with the obvious absence of this sense. However, Serra sees his sculpture's sense not only in its filling a scale gap in the environment, but also in its instigating a man to think and to concern the environment and the space as a problem, linking this problem with a problem of human's being. Is there any other way to explain the public's indignation? Serra's sculpture compositions do not obstruct pedestrian flow and do not offend anyone's dignity or memory, do they? They act as Zen koans, as if mutely asking a spectator about the sense. Not knowing the answer, the citizen gets exasperated – not with his inability to answer, but with the sculptor (or city government), imposing this enigma to him. Only children are always happy to get an enigma. They like to train their mind in determining the sense, because they believe in the sense of being and consider themselves successors of this sense. A grown-up member of the state, both of a totalitarian one and of one with a market economy, loses this ability, believing neither in God nor in devil, neither in state officers nor in heroes. He only gets annoyed when reminded about a sense. This irritation can be explained in terms of a conflict between conviction in his right to freedom and real feeling of his fatality. He is not disposed to play with the world and the artist. He is willing only to take sedative pills, cheering drinks and all kinds of flattery. Seeing a hero made of bronze or cast iron, he feels free either to share his respect towards the hero, or to spit upon the false idol. In both cases the sense realized by him remains in his power. When this sense escapes, the illusion of his power disappears too, in other words the illusion of his rights in this world where he is kicked by those who have more power and rights.Reasoning from quite Utopian ideals of Democracy, Richard Serra believes that to train such play of mind is as necessary as to brush teeth or to button a shirt. A man with this ability not functioning falls out of the society, officially remaining its member though.But there is also another aspect – relation of such enigmas to architecture. Architecture differs from Richard Serra's sculptures not only in scale. The difference is also in the fact, that, being a plastic object like an abstract sculpture, architectural composition has social and functional status, and therefore it does not represent any special enigma. Looking at a grand construction we understand that it is a City Administration, or a Bank, or a Library, or a Museum, or… whatever having its own socially approved status and sense never doubted. So, one can treat it either with respect or with hatred, not losing the feeling of ability for sense orientation. But Serra's sculptures sometimes lead to this.Nevertheless, architecture has turned out to be sensitive to such things and it currently tries to propose an enigma to a citizen instead of suggesting its status. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao or the Hundertwasser Viennese House in this regard come closer to sculpture, as if crushing differences between architecture and fine arts and making needless an artistic gesture such as Serra's. The question is to what extent this architectural aping is appropriate. Or maybe it is better to leave the sense space to the sculptor, focusing on the senses peculiar to architecture, which are claimed neither by Serra nor by his possible progeny. Evidently Serra experienced those problems himself, appealing to the authorities and searching for their support. Probably he was looking for support not only as an artist in need of a client, but also as an artist confronting social determinancy of architecture in urban environment. Thus he was indirectly returning to architecture its sense space, which architecture is currently ready to play with, forgetting about its sense limits. So it is a big question: whether his sculpture does harm to architecture with its competition with the latter or releases it from plays that are not appropriate to it in order to perform its maybe more sublime mission – not only to ask but also to answer the questions on the sense of being?However, solution of this problem is to what extent architects and their clients are ready to give such answers, to what extent these answers are sincere and realistic, and to what extent the society is ready to ask itself about the sense of its own being. But it is another topic.
The author questions the generally accepted definition of architecture as a profession, because the genuine subject of architecture has not been defined yet. The article underlines the systemless selection of subjects studied at architectural schools and an indefinite status of the architect in the democratic society. Either the crisis faced by architecture in the third millennium can finish the transformation of architecture into building design or architecture will acquire a professional status. ; В статье подвергается сомнению общепринятое определение архитектуры как профессии, поскольку подлинный предмет архитектуры не определен. Подчеркивается бессистемный набор изучаемых в архитектурных школах предметов и неопределенность статуса архитектора в демократическом обществе. Кризис, переживаемый архитектурой в третьем тысячелетии, может либо завершить превращение архитектуры в строительный дизайн, либо архитектура обретет профессиональный статус.
The article analyses the problems of architectural education, mechanisms of formation of architectural schools, their peculiarities depending on concrete social and cultural goals. The author focuses on the notions of academic and non-academic school, as well as the interrelation between architectural practice and university leadership. He draws comparisons between world and Russian experiences and describes the personalities of the leaders of architectural schools of different theoretical and socio-cultural types. He proposes a wide interpretation of the current development of the global and the local as cultural paradigms that absorb essentially close, but also internally contradictory attributes that compose a dialectical unity and contradiction. The article describes Russian versions of regional architectural practices, interaction of architectural theory and practice with political power and business, as well as relations between the capital and the province. ; Анализируются проблемы архитектурного образования, механизмы формирования архитектурных школ, их особенности в зависимости от конкретно-социальных и культурных задач. Предметом изложения автор делает понятия учебной и неучебной школы, соотношения архитектурной практики и университетского лидерства. Проводятся параллели между мировым и российским опытом, описываются личности лидеров архитектурных школ разных теоретических и социально-культурных форматов. Предлагается широкое толкование глобального и локального в современном развитии как культурных парадигм, вбирающих сущностно близкие, но и внутренне противоречивые признаки, образующие диалектическое единство и противоречие. Описываются российские варианты региональных архитектурных практик, взаимодействие архитектурной теории и практики с политической властью и бизнесом, отношения столицы и провинции.
"The Image of the City" by Kevin Lynch gave rise to the environmental approach, which expressed demographic values. In the environmental approach, architecture of a separate structure merged with the city, losing its aristocraticism and transcendental isolation. The word "lynching" is used in wordplay and means a democratic trial of the aristocratic architecture. The environmental approach results in the death of architecture. ; Книга Кевина Линча «Образ города» положила начало средовому подходу, который был выражением демократических ценностей. В средовом подходе архитектура отдельного сооружения сливалась с городом, теряя свою аристократичность и трансцендентную обособленность. Игра слов «Суд Линча» обозначает демократический суд над аристократической архитектурой. Результат средового подхода – гибель архитектуры.
In the shift from aristocratic society to democracy professional and social elites still are lacking definite cultural norms and attitudes. Rapid change of tastes and political influence blurs common attitudes and values, intuitive and rational methods of decision making, moral and artistic values. Architectural schools trying to accommodate to those changes lose their professional permanency. ; Элиты вне и внутри профессии в процессе перехода от аристократического общества ХIХ века к демократии ХХ века до сих пор не обрели устойчивых культурных ориентаций. Быстрая смена потребительских и властных сфер препятствует становлению устойчивых нормы и принципов. Судьба архитектуры зависит от того, как будут складываться элиты и насколько сама профессия сможет влиять на свой культурный статус.
The article analyzes international political architecture of government buildings in Russia, the U.S., Western Europe (UK, France, Germany) and Asia (China, India, Japan). Conclusions that the architecture of government buildings reflects the values of the dominant society's political culture. Some government buildings are prototypes constructed previously in other societies and cultural traditions (for instance, the Capitol in Washington, USA, and the Capitoline temple in Rome). ; В статье проводится международно-политический анализ архитектуры правительственных зданий России, США, а также некоторых стран Западной Европы (Великобритания, Франция, Германия) и Азии (Китай, Индия, Япония). Делаются выводы, что архитектура правительственных зданий отражает ценности господствующей в обществе политической культуры. Некоторые правительственные здания имеют прототипы, построенные ранее в других обществах и культурных традициях (например, Капитолий в Вашингтоне, США, и Капитолийский храм в Риме).
The article deals with the organization features of architectural education in Russia, in comparison with Western European countries, the USA and Canada; and reveals the differences in organization and plan content. Russian architectural education has passed the same way in its development, as the architectural education in other countries: from craft-labor approach in training (X-XVII centuries) to the academic knowledge. Before the October revolution in 1917, the architectural education in Russia and all over the world was artistic and engineering. But after the October revolution, this division of higher school of architecture, existing in Western countries, has been lost; architectural education has become universal: combining artistic and technical, and independent, getting in specialized institutions. The universality of the Russian architectural education complicates its comparison with the architectural education abroad in terms of content. Modern Russian model of architectural education, as the continuation of the Soviet education, stands against the Anglo-American model, with full liberalization of the education sector, free from the state; the French model, with a fully government-regulated educational standard, and the German model, with strong research component. Besides the superficial differences in the training of architects in Russia and abroad, there are deep differences with social conditionality. These differences are determined by the roles of architects in Western society, which are wider than the functions of Russian architects; and other social order, other requirements, that Western society has for the erected buildings and structures. ; В статье рассматриваются особенности организации архитектурного образования в России по сравнению со странами Западной Европы, США и Канады, выявляются отличия организационного и содержательного плана. Российское архитектурное образование прошло в своем развитии тот же путь, что и архитектурное образование в других странах: от ремесленно-трудового подхода в подготовке специалистов (X-XVII вв.) до знаниево-академического. До Октябрьской революции 1917 г. архитектурное образование в России было представлено, как и во всем мире, художественным и инженерно-техническим. Но после Октябрьской революции такое разделение высшей архитектурной школы, существующее в западных странах и сейчас, было утрачено: архитектурное образование стало универсальным, объединяющим художественное и техническое, и автономным, получаемым в специализированных вузах. Универсальность российского архитектурного образования затрудняет его сравнение с архитектурным образованием за рубежом в содержательном плане. Современная российская модель архитектурного образования как продолжение советской противостоит англо-американской модели с полной либерализацией образовательной сферы и уходом из нее государства; французской модели с максимально государственно регламентированным образовательным стандартом и немецкой модели с ярко выраженным исследовательским компонентом. Содержательные отличия в подготовке архитекторов в России и за рубежом имеют социальную обусловленность. Эти различия определяются теми функциями, которые выполняют архитекторы в западном обществе и которые шире функций российских архитекторов, а также иным социальным заказом, иными требованиями, которые западное общество предъявляет к возводимым зданиям и сооружениям.
The article reviews the most significant projects and realizations of the given period. It describes how quickly Russian architects entered the international professional community and features their achievements and technical and stylistic peculiarities of Russian architectural projects of the second half of the 20th century. It is pointed out that the creativity of the Soviet architecture stands out against the poor material resources and the strictness of architectural practice standards. ; В статье делается обзор наиболее значительных проектов и построек обозначенного периода. Характеризуется быстрый процесс вхождения российских архитекторов в международное профессиональное сообщество, их достижения, технические и стилистические особенности российских архитектурных проектов второй половины XX века. Подчеркивается, что креативность советской архитектуры особенно явно читается на фоне скудости материальной базы и жесткости нормативных требований к архитектурной практики.
Methodological issues of historical research on architecture and town planning of the Soviet period are represented in the article within a new paradigm, which is called by the author 'a political history of Soviet architecture and town planning'. Its subject is how architects that became 'government officials' were made dependent on the power, how housing and town-planning policy was predetermined by external circumstances and how designing was considered as production but not as creation. ; В статье формулируются методологические вопросы исторических исследований архитектуры и градостроительства советского периода в рамках новой парадигмы, называемой автором политической историей советской архитектуры и градостроительства. Ее предметом является характер зависимости деятельности архитекторов, превращенных в «государственных служащих» от власти, а также степень предопределенности жилищной и градостроительной политики внешними обстоятельствами, рассмотрение проектирования не как творчества, а как производства.
Based on archive and field studies of the remained fragments of the fort (Spasskaya gate tower and a chapel), the article considers an attempt to restore its plan structure and different objects: a shopping arcade, a writ hut, a complex of the tsar's military governor's yard, a tower, and salt and sable storehouses. With the help of field studies, measurements and photofixation we have revealed compositional, planning and design features of the fort (ostrog) and its structures. ; В статье на основе архивных исследований и натурного изучения сохранившихся фрагментов острога (Спасская проездная башня, часовня) предпринята попытка восстановления его планировочной структуры и различных объектов: гостиный двор, приказная изба, комплекс воеводского (государева) двора, башни, соляной и соболиный амбары. На основе натурных исследований, обмерных работ и фотофиксации выявляются композиционные, планировочные и конструктивные особенности острога, устройство его сооружений.
