The newest among this triad is MARCH, an independent school of architecture founded by Eugene Asse, an established professor and architect in Moscow, in collaboration with the British School of Design and London Metropolitan University. Located on the grounds of the cultural and design hub Artplay, MARCH will provide a two year graduate program certified by LMU for Russian and foreign students already possessing a bachelor degree.
The new school, which will start its educational program in October, will be focused on design and will train architects through immersion in the contemporary social, cultural, economic and political context by organizing interdisciplinary projects with professionals from different fields: architects, engineers, sociologists, designers, artists and managers. We met with Eugene Asse to understand what mobilized him to create MARCH and what his intentions are.
Ekaterina Golovatyuk: Please describe the context of architectural education in Moscow and Russia. What prompted the decision to open a new school and what is the main idea behind it?
Eugene Asse: Architectural education in Moscow is extremely monopolized. In fact, this monopoly is held by the Moscow Architecture Institute (MARKhI), which remains the most significant school in Moscow and Russia as a whole. Methods developed in MARKhI remain the primary methodological base for all Russian architectural education. So, to answer your question, one of the reasons was the desire to resist the monopolism of this institution. I think that in a city like Moscow, inhabited by twelve million people — twenty millions including the Moscow Region —, the existence of one architectural center is clearly insufficient.
Additionally, the Moscow Architecture Institute is afflicted by a certain degree of conservatism, which derives from the fact that most of the curriculum was developed back in the early 1960s. I studied the same programs that are still being taught today, which is unacceptable. Architecture has gone a long way in the past 50 years, and new approaches, experiments and fresher views on the educational methodology are needed.
Another important reason is that Russian architectural education became provincial to a certain extent. In other words, it does not develop its own concepts and is primarily based on borrowing from European or international architecture practice. And I highlight practice, not theory, because theory is poorly known in Moscow. Most of student designs here are developed copying other projects or prototypes, mostly by "starchitects", without penetrating the essence of problems that the authors of these projects were trying to solve. In other words, our ambition is to create a new platform, competitive within the international architectural discourse and capable of developing original concepts.
One more important part of this project is integration in the international architectural context, both through a direct partnership with London Metropolitan University and also by attracting international architects and students. In the future, we expect that half of the teaching body will be foreign, while for the first year we plan 5-6 visiting guests from abroad leading lectures and workshops.
There is a certain contradiction in the institute's program, because it is based on two sources: École des Beaux Arts and VKhUTEMAS. These two mutually exclusive foundations can drive any thoughtful student mad. The first assignment that a student does is a wash drawing of a classical façade to understand the proportions and harmony of classical architecture. The second project is a composition in the spirit of Ladovsky, built on intuition and interaction of forces. So, conceptually, very different things. No one explains what is interesting about this contradiction and how did architecture move from one phase to the other. As a result, from the first-year students perceive everything as an issue of style. The rest of the process turns into endless attempts to extort various formal expedients. We'll work with the students who survived 4 years of such training. Nevertheless, there are many students who have found their own expression and language, with whom it will be interesting and productive to work.
Three new schools of architecture, design and urbanism appeared in Moscow between 2010 and 2012: Strelka Institute, Higher School of Urbanism and now MARCH. Do you think this reflects a new or different type of public interest in the discipline or a particular concern regarding the quality of life in Moscow?
The appearance of new schools does not reflect so much the general interest of the community towards architecture, nor of the state for that matter, but rather the interest of a few people towards creating of a normal cultural and professional climate in Russia. It is probably an indirect response to public inquiries and dissatisfaction with the situation in urban planning and architecture which the society evinces. Characteristically, these schools are not public but private individual projects, as the state did not make any efforts towards creation of new educational structures, and generally did not respond to important challenges.
Each school has its own story. I've been actually trying to create a new school for more than 10 years, a school that would be more adequate concerning public demands. I think the founders of Strelka were more focused on creating a new intellectual environment, in which a new generation of thinkers could be raised. As for the Higher School of Urbanism, planning is probably the most pressing issue today, because the appearance of a large number of urban projects in Russia revealed a complete lack of preparation of Russian architects to solve urban problems. And eventually for many projects, like Ekaterinburg, Pem, Skolkovo, foreigners were invited.
How do you position MARCH in relation to Strelka?
There is a certain complementarity to the two schools, but Strelka is not a university. In my view, it is a kind of school of advanced training in broadening the perspective and developing skills of critical thinking and research, though without creating a professional base. I believe we are on the same wave, but MARCH will focus on projects, rather than pure research.
In Russia, global decisions are made regardless of an expert community, which the architects should be a part of. The most important recent decisions regarding big projects, such as Skolkovo, Moscow Expansion or Zaryadie, were not taken in consultation with the architectural community, but purely at the level of power. In this context, Russian architects appear more as victims than decision makers. And when they enter into play, it is clear that they take part in the game which they've been offered by the power (big business or government), and not the one they formulate as the expert community. In Russia, with its "feudal" state structure, the role of architects is quite limited.
On top of this, architects en masse don't speak out publicly in favor of or against the demands that society addresses to them, namely, the preservation of historical heritage, or infill development or other subjects popular among Moscow inhabitants. I hope that at MARCH we can create a new platform for dialogue with the greater society, which would enable the realization of public interest through architectural projects, and not vice versa.
Do you think there is a direct relationship between the recent transformations of Moscow and the state of education?
Yes, there is such a relationship because the architects here are formed in the paradigm of progressivist creation, which operates without regards to specific needs. I think that the absence of ethical readiness to resist the power and pressure of big money, and the weakness of the architectural community as a whole, unable to question the obviously false solutions are all results of the lack of education. For example, the architectural community has not expressed any opinion on the Great Moscow project, which annexes a territory of larger than as the existing area of Moscow to the southwest of the city. It just acknowledged the expansion and continued working. It's like in the education of a child: the first few years of his life create a matrix of his future behavior. He will do what he has been taught. If he was not taught to resist the evil, he becomes a villain, or at least indifferent.
Who will teach at MARCH?
For the first year, we invited practicing architects. We believe it to be extremely important that our students are guided by practicing architects, rather than academic teachers. This creates a very important connection to reality, which, in my opinion, is lost in today's architectural education. I sincerely disagree with the existing educational paradigm, where all educational processes exist in a sort of virtual space.
The design teachers for the first year will be Sergey Skuratov, Yuri Grigorian, Alexander Brodsky, Nikita Tokarev and others. We also invited Piotr Tarczynski, from the central European branch of Buro Happold in Warsaw, who is developing the program for structural engineering, building infrastructure systems and environmental design. Besides this, we will also have a very broad block of humanistic studies, which will be led by the famous Russian theorist and critic Sergey Sitar. We'll invite philosophers, sociologists and political scientists to participate in our educational process.
What is the role of the London Metropolitan University besides providing the diploma?
We received significant methodological assistance from our British colleagues, and the role of the university is quite important. It was very useful to have the outlines of educational programs of London Met as the starting material. These programs have been carefully and cleverly designed, and were easily adapted to our own views and interests in the field of education.
What is the meaning of MARCH? It has a slightly 'revolutionary" tone…
The name literally means Moscow Architecture School. It is a simple abbreviation (in Russian), but of course, thinking about how to name the school and grinding in my head all possible variants, I stopped at this one as the most energetic, loud and characterizing certain aggressiveness with which we'd like to enter the architectural scene. The name crystallizes this determination.
The name literally means Moscow Architecture School. It is a simple abbreviation (in Russian), but of course, thinking about how to name the school and grinding in my head all possible variants, I stopped at this one as the most energetic, loud and characterizing certain aggressiveness with which we'd like to enter the architectural scene