In
the background of the “Heart of the City” design competitions as well as the
competitions of 2014-2015 organized by Kaliningrad City Administration and the
local Union of Architects, the story about the Kaliningrad Museum of Philosophy
Design Student Competition 2016-2017 should be classified as an odd phenomenon.
Thisstoryisrathermysteriousthanshady. There is a glimmer of Russian
mysterious soul, anathema and adventure in this story, primarily on the part of
the competition organizer represented by Maxim Poleschuk who is hiding behind
numerous statements such as “with participation from…” and “together with…”.
The right way
to dig out the cranium of Immanuel Kant: the 19th century instruction
BACKGROUND.
HAMMER UNDER THE BENCH AND PERSONAL INITIATIVE
Several years ago, Maxim Poleschuk,
MARCHI
(Moscow Architectural Institute) lecturer, was a guest at the «Baltic Artek» (Youth Camp annually
organized on the Baltic Sea coast in the Kaliningrad Region). During the event,
he came up with the idea that it would be great to create a Museum of
Philosophy in Kaliningrad. Considering that there are no such museums in the world,
the area remains unexplored. The idea seemed especially attractive in view of
the forthcoming 300th year anniversary of Immanuel Kant in 2024. Having discussed the idea
with Baltic Artek young participants who are known to be always eager to
support any activities, Maxim Poleschuk began to look for supporters among
adult stakeholders. Many of those potential project
partners whom Maxim talked to appeared to be neither “pro” nor “opposed to” his
idea (in addition to the fact that the “Heart of the City” Bureau had already presented their own vision of
the subject). A lack of encouragement on the part of potential stakeholders was
attributed by Maxim Poleschuk to idleness and provinciality diplomatic
neutrality that had to be stirred up by his own enthusiasm. He announced the “International
Student Competition” for the Kaliningrad Museum of Philosophy Building Design
by publishing the competition programme on a website different from MARHI official
homepage and by making a presentation about the competitionduring the Moscow festival “Zodchestvo-2016”. The call for proposals was also published on archi.ruand a few other online
sources. Informationlookedasfollows:
dead-line регистрации:
15.03.2017
dead-line подачи проектов:
15.03.2017
дата объявления результатов:
05.04.2017
тема:
Архитектура
страна:
Россия
город:
Калининград
открыт для:
архитектурных школ (разработка концепции в рамках учебного процесса)
регистрационный взнос:
нет
награда:
три первых места - стажировка в ведущих европейских архитектурных школах (для иностранных участников - в России); два лучших проекта и архитектурные школы будут допущены до профессионального конкурса на II этапе
организатор:
МАРХИ
контакты:
support@vkhutemas.foundation
ссылки:
PRess-RELEASE
"MARCHI in collaboration with the Kaliningrad Region Administration is currently
implementing the first phase of the first in the world “Museum of Philosophy”
International Project timed to coincide with the 300th year anniversary of
Immanuel Kant. Modern societies face the crisis of positive development ideas.
Overcoming the cultural crisis of modern civilization is connected with
searching for new ideological and philosophical grounds. Thus, the creation of
the Museum of Philosophy can be seen as an important international event in the
context of contemporary social, political and cultural challenges facilitating
the introduction of new ideas on positive development. The project should become
one of the new symbols of a positive image of the future, an international
center for philosophical studies and a tourist site of world interest. The
competition is aimed at supporting cultural cooperation in conditions of
political "cooling", finding a rationale for location (five area are
proposed as a potential location), the development of a concept and structure
of the museum (building, exhibition and aesthetic image)”.
SOMETHINGWENTWRONG
The first paradox was immediately
revealed. MARHI was claimed to be the main organizer but the call for proposals
for a Museum of Philosophy competition was never published at the institute’s official
website. The only reference published was a short brief on the pre-qualification
of entrants among MARCHI students. No mentions of the
competition were made by numerous organizations (including the non-existent
“Kaliningrad Region Administration”), which were claimed to be “co-partners” and
“collaborators” in the competition process.
The second paradox was the
unclear origin of the competition programme that had nothing to do with the
current agenda in Kaliningrad.
The Terms of Reference referred
to thousands of square meters intended for philosophical studies while recommendations,
received by Poleschuk from Kaliningrad experts, with regard to the competition
mission statement and potential location of the museum were completely
ignored.
The website where the
competition brief was published was unavailable in March 2017.
The third paradox was
mentioned on the facebook group of
competition organizers: what sense does it make to design a cognac bottle
if there is no cognac? First, a museum concept
must be in place and, then, it shall be followed by the architectural design
and not the other way around.
This was the way Svetlana Sivkova
(Director of the Kaliningrad Museum of the World Ocean) followed when designing
the new building of the Museum of the World Ocean in Kaliningrad. First, a museum and exhibition
concept was commissioned, then a design competition was announced.
However, as time passed, on
26 March 2017, Maxim Poleschuk sent a press-release saying that “a
competition jury meeting took place on 24 March and the jury’s panel consisted of A. Rubtsov (Institute of
Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences), A. Brodsky (architect, painter), V.
Bandakov (architect from Nizhny Novgorod), D. Yusupov (urbanist from
Saint-Petersburg), V. Genne (chief architect of Kaliningrad), D.
Podyapolsky (architect) and M. Poleschuk (curator of competition, Professor at
MARCHI).
Over 80
entries from Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Tomsk,
Krasnodar and Madrid were submitted. Announcement of winners and award ceremony
will be held on 24 May at the exhibition "ARCH-Moscow"”.
The apparent conflict of interests
in connection with the participation of A. Rubtsov in the student (!)
competition as a member of one of the design teams and a member the jury’s
panel was not commented.
ROUND
TABLE
On 20 April 2017, the
exhibition of the “best 30 entries” of this competition was opened in the hall
of the Arts and History Museum of the Kaliningrad Region, and a round table was
held. The round table was completely ignoredby “officials” who, thus,
demonstrated their lack of interest in the project. In my own statementat the round table I touched upon
the general relevance of “event”-buildings in Kaliningrad in view of the
Theater of the Estrada project failure (a negative experience in Svetlogorsk)
and in the context of the forthcoming completion of the new building of the
Museum of the World Ocean promising to become the major event in architecture of
Kaliningrad over seventeen years of the twenty-first century (a positive
experience).
Participants of the “Round table"
Having briefly looked through
the competition entries, participants of the round table discussed the relevance of the museum of philosophy
as an idea, expressed their surprise regarding the fact that the jury panel
completed their evaluation almost two months ago and failed to publish results
or any official information at the competition website or MARCHI official
homepage. Such a degree of public information disclosure gives a reason to
believe that either the organization of the competition failed or organizers
have something to hide. Butwhatdotheyhide? It is unclear… It remains however obvious that they
wish to take part in any anniversary events in 2024.
Leonard Kalinnikov, Professor at the Immanuel
Kant Baltic Federal University
Exhibition of students’ competition entries at the
hall of the
Arts and History Museum and M. Poleschuk giving interview of to
TV-channel “Kaskad”
ANNOUNCEMENT OF
WINNERS AND AWARD CEREMONY
On24 May, the award ceremony was
held at the site of the exhibition ARCH-Moscow. Therewith, organizers changed the
structure of nominations.
Entries were displayed behind the black
half-transparent curtain to make a visitor go through the labyrinth.
The way "the
labyrinth" looked from outside.
.... Maxim Poleschuk gave me the floor to speak at the close
of the award ceremony (as I refused the honor to hand out awards to
winners). My statement was brief. I mentioned
that any architect should test a client for “sanity”, to check if a client
understands what they do and what they write in their competition brief. In this
regard, I also said that I believe that the competition has been won by those entrants
who а)
took a dim view of the competition program and re-formulated it by themselves, and
б) selected
a strategy of disobjectification and refrained from piling up huge buildings in
the centre of Kaliningrad. These are the projects of “museum the wanderer”, “philosophical
park”, “Necropolis” and others.
And this is not the right way
to hold competitions, even if this competition is intended for students.
("Yes, yes, we agree, we agree! – Maxim Poleschuk hastily reacted).
The final press-release that
was circulated at the award ceremony and mentioning the winners’ names looked
as follows:
CONCLUSION
As there is still no official
information available on the internet and Maxim Poleschuk sent me all thirty
entries requesting to assist in spreading information about the competition, I
have
downloaded all the entries at the link here. The official website of the
competition has been down for several months:
PS
Dear citizens
of Kaliningrad, stay alert! This is only
the beginning. We have 7 years left until Immanuel Kant’s anniversary but
transcendental apperception has already been flying all over us!
PPS
...and, finally,
a quote from the living classic:
"1. Nowadays, architects
do not know anything about philosophy and if they have any ideas, then, in
contemporary philosophy, these ideas may be considered as historic phenomena or
types of philosophical misinterpretations.
2. Contemporary
philosophy does not possess any “true knowledge” or “property of relevance”
and, therefore, its foundations are under continuous discussions. In this regard, it reminds of mathematics but
mathematics has many formalized problems and methods of their solution that can
be successfully applied in some field of science and engineering. Contemporary philosophy
is a game that is partially based on rules, which are very hard to learn, and partially
based on records about the games that were held during the last century,
likewise in chess, there are records available of all prominent world chess
championships”. Alexander Rappaport, 2017,
blog “A Tower and a Labyrinth".
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