Moscow architect projects for UAE

Yury Avvakumov, leader of the so-called "paper architects," is finally commissioned to design a real building - in the United Arab Emirates.

Yury Avvakumov became a leading figure in Russian architecture by building communities rather than buildings. In the mid-1980s, he collected drawings and designs from his peers' studios and curated exhibitions abroad, reviving the term "paper architecture" to define their lyrical and imaginative works. More recently, he has led an initiative to reconstruct and use a languishing gallery at his alma mater, the Moscow Architectural Institute. His colleagues admire the intelligent and nuanced interpretations of 1920s Constructivist architecture in his projects, which, despite having won several competitions, have never been built.

But now, Avvakumov is finally getting ready for his first stab at construction. He has been commissioned to build an exhibition pavilion for a major cultural district in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. The tourist-friendly district -- an attempt to diversify the economy of a nation highly dependent on oil -- is part of the huge Saadiyat Island development, which also includes hotels, residences and office buildings and has a reported price tag of $27 billion.

Plans for the 670-acre cultural district were unveiled last month. They include a concert hall, a performing arts center and museums devoted to the cultural and maritime history of Abu Dhabi and the Persian Gulf. The centerpiece will be Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the sixth branch in the international chain of contemporary and modern art museums. The Guggenheim's newest installment has been drafted by U.S. architect Frank Gehry, who also designed its iconic building in Bilbao, Spain. If constructed, the Abu Dhabi museum would become the largest in the chain, with a total area of 29,728 square meters.

The neighborhood surrounding the museums will have 19 pavilions to provide venues for smaller exhibitions, conferences and festivals. In an interview Friday, Avvakumov said he was invited to design one by Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. The two have known each other personally since the latter started traveling to the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

True to the tradition of Soviet paper architecture of the 1980s, Avvakumov's pavilion design for Saadiyat Island is not just about space and form; it has a literary component as well. The five-pointed pavilion ciphers a pun. "The local vegetation is palm trees, so the contours of the pavilion are sharp and brittle, like a palm," Avvakumov said. "And it has five points, so the atrium in the center is like the palm of a hand."

Function, of course, also played a role. Avvakumov said the pavilion's unusual shape would make it easier to design exhibitions there, since designers can simply hang things along the walls of its fingers rather than seek out ways to make the space more compelling, as Avvakumov himself has had to do when designing exhibitions in boxy spaces. In addition, the fingers can be walled off from the atrium for various purposes; the pinkie can become studio space for an artist-in-residence, or equipment can be stored in the thumb. Avvakumov said he was inspired by Konstantin Melnikov's 1928 Rusakov Workers' Club, located near the Sokolniki metro station, which was designed with sections that can be incorporated into the central space or shut off from it to suit changing needs.

The legacy of Russian modernism can be found in other designs for the Abu Dhabi development. The performing arts center has been drafted by the Iraq-born British architect Zaha Hadid, who is famously fascinated with the Russian avant-garde. "In her designs the avant-garde has undergone geological mutations," Avvakumov said. "The roots aren't as visible now as they were when she started in 1984."

Avvakumov pointed out the irony of adapting the ideas of avant-garde architects -- who believed they were constructing a communist utopia -- to build a consumerist paradise. "Now the ideas of modernism are used so that visitors can go ice-skating in one place, shopping in a boutique in the next, and so on," Avvakumov said. "It's not quite what the Constructivists had in mind."

But, as a pragmatist, Avvakumov thinks there are more important concerns. "Abu Dhabi is an exemplary model for Russia," he said. "Forty years ago it was a desert, there was nothing there. Now they have a city of 1.6 million people where everything functions perfectly. All the wealth from oil has gone toward developing the city."

Russia would also do well to follow Abu Dhabi's example and give Avvakumov a chance to construct. As a result of his lack of experience building, Avvakumov had to enlist the help of a colleague with more hands-on experience, Andrei Savin of Art-Blya studios, when working on the Saadiyat Island pavilion. "I designed it," Avvakumov said. "But I needed someone who knew something about construction."


More information: context.themoscowtimes.com