TATLIN Mono #3/21/87 Сергей Скуратов 2005–2010

and such splendid architects and engineers that it seems he grows them artificially in containers with automatic downloading of all the necessary information into the brain. However, Skuratov still didn’t give any them any principal function, nonу of them became his official “right hand”. Skuratov holds everything under his own control, considering it to be his mission and the essence of the work of the bureau named after his own name. The client can be sure that all decisions from global to very specific, are made by one and the same person according to the same standards and are aimed at the same goal which is set by Skuratov. The architecture that results is a very integral, personal and, if I may, branded one. There everything from the city planning concept, spatial solution, planning, façade finishing and constructive details is provided on a level of quality that is still unreachable for most of Russian design organizations. How can one person solve creative tasks, control the design process and ensure such quality? This means not just to keep the quality level but to raise it from project to project and clearly evolve, especially in the last 5-7 years, to improve and change the architectural language, to extend the palette of creative tools, perfecting the shaping and plastic solution creating skills! The easiest way to achieve such results is to divide the project stream that goes through the bureau (read: Skuratov’s head) into average and top projects. Projects of the first type are cash cows, second type projects are made to improve the image. This approach is very widespread in the West and is considered a normal way of doing business and making profit on a well-developed brand name. However, among dozens of designs created by Sergey Skuratov Architects no one can name one where the master ‘relaxed’ or gave carte

Самым простым способом добиться та- кого результата было бы разделение потока проектов, проходящих через бюро (гово- рим бюро, подразумеваем голову Скурато- ва), на проходные и top’овые. Первые дела- ются для выручки, вторые для имиджа. Такая практика широко распространена на Запа- де, считаясь нормальным способом ведения бизнеса и извлечения прибыли из раскру- ченного бренда. Но в случае с бюро «Сергей Скуратов Architects» никто не сможет назвать среди десятков проектов, созданных Скура- товым за прошедшие 10 лет, тот, на котором мастер «отдохнул» или отдал часть работы на откуп подмастерьям. Каждый проект соз- дается словно манифест, ни в коем случае не повторяющий уже сказанное, уже найден- ное. Про его постройки можно и не говорить. История реализации каждой из них – это «Илиада», «Слово о полку Игореве» и «Война и мир», смешанные и сублимированные до сверхконцентрации. В том, как бьется Скура- тов на каждой стройке, есть что-то нечелове- ческое. Сам он в одном из интервью назвал это необходимостью «умирать» на строй- ке. Невозможно представить, чтобы Homo sapiens настолько утрачивал инстинкт само- сохранения, элементарные защитные функ- ции организма, чтобы таким образом жертво- вать собой ради работы, пусть даже любимой; ради идеи, пусть даже удачной; ради только одному ему необходимого качества (да кто увидит стыки каменных панелей на облицов- ке заднего фасада!?). Очевидно, что Скуратов не дает поблажки в том, что касается каче- ства архитектуры ни себе, ни своим сотрудникам, одновременно ухи- тряясь «проповедовать» ее идеалы среди «диких племен» заказчиков и защищать свои проекты от по- сягательств «доброжелательных»

blanche for part of the work to his juniors. Each project is created like a manifest that in no case repeats something that has already been said or found. Let alone any of his buildings. The history of each of them is Iliad, The Song of Igor’s Campaign and War and Peace combined and sublimed to very high concentrations. There is something inhuman in the way Skuratov fights for each building. He called it the necessity to ‘die’ at the construction site in one of the interviews. It is impossible that a homo sapiens can lose the instinct of self-preservation and the elementary protection functions of the body because of work, even a favorite one, or an idea, even a lucky one, or a quality he only needs (who on Earth will see the alignment of stone panels on the finishing of the rear façade)? It is evident that Skuratov never gives himself or his people a break in what concerns quality of architecture and simultaneously strives to propagate its ideals among the ‘barbarian tribes’ of customers and protects his projects from the 'benevolent' regulating bodies. By some strange way Sergei Skuratov manages to play on several courts simultaneously. discrepancies in estimation of the creative personality of Skuratov in different articles about him and in his interviews. In some of them he appears to be a successful architect who sees the main trait of the essence of his profession in the possibility to make his ideas come true and build here and now. In others we see a very different Skuratov, who magically switches his style of speaking and easily uses It may seem that he has a clone or a split mind. The latter can be argued based on the amazing

ТАТLIN news 3|21|87 2010

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