Saint-Petersburg
Magazine#1
12.11.14
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This year’s “FUTURA” addresses the non-trivial and somewhat clichéd topic of SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN ARCHITECTURE, an attempt to feel this complex state in some way through words and pictures.
Firstly, let’s try to define Self-sufficiency. At first glance, it’s quite a simple phenomenon, or even a Quality, which many people would like to cultivate. Perhaps, this is because this is the quality of the Absolute in the European cultural tradition, namely, the quality of the Creator, whose mentality and creative ability is inside Him. An architect, in his or her professional quality, gets closer than other people do to representing the Creator: the architect has the ability to convert ideas, thoughts and life itself, spirit into a substance—a thing that draws the admiration of the uninitiated. But is the architect able, as the Creator, to possess another quality of the Absolute—to be SELF-SUFFICIENT? And should the architect possess this quality?
Architectural self-sufficiency sounds like an oxymoron. Undoubtedly, we reprove any unlimited citing and total copying. But being human-beings, i.e. material creatures, we remain within the traditions of material culture. No matter how hard we want to give up the past and create Something in the future that never had counterparts, we will be unable, and the Villa Savoye will be just an antitype or a negative of the Parthenon.
Perhaps the whole question is contained in the following: what are the Bases of creativity, and how can we find the Power inside to go from these Bases? And how can we define all these bases within ourselves? Are they all the same for everyone, or does everyone determines them for him or herself? What is the basis for the motion of the thought and the hand that are creating space? For some people, this is the reliability of water, while for others this is the flexibility of a bird’s wing, and for others it is the roughness of solid granite. And if we feel these Bases, then self-sufficient architecture won’t become an ivory tower, the foundation of which is sharpened with the waves. More likely it will be similar to the notorious rhizome by Deleuze with “ its immanent creative potential to self-organization.” Well, May the Force of Yoda master and the Fundamentals of Rem Koolhaas be with us!
Anna Sirro Editor of “FUTURA” magazine
