Architect Julia Ardabyevskaya about favorite books

IN BACKGROUND "BOOK SHELF"we ask journalists, writers, scholars, curators, and anyone else not about their literary preferences and publications, which occupy an important place in their bookcase. Today our guest is architect and teacher Yulia Ardabyevskaya.

It’s customary in our family to read: Mom read, dad read, there are a lot of books around. For example, I did not understand for a long time why my classmates go to the library to buy books - “they are at home”. Then I was able to evaluate it: my mother collected our home library herself, starting at 17 with the first salary. I remember this moment when I wanted to read myself: it was a class in the second, seven volumes of "Alice's Adventures" by Kira Bulychev were read avidly. Science fiction is still my weak point - this, along with a loud sneeze got from dad.

The book that most strongly influenced me in transitional age is Fowles's The Collector. I bought it at the airport just before departure, without having any idea. The kidnapped young beautiful artist, who creates herself thanks to and despite circumstances, could not but become a role model for a 13-year-old girl. And the list of "what you need to fight in yourself" (including not reading stupid books, magazines, not watching stupid movies, etc.), was perceived by me as an instruction for action. Another memorable book from about the same period was "Tais Athenian" by Ivan Efremov. There, the fundamental idea is kalokagatiya, the unity of spiritual and physical beauty, and it is simply impossible to remain indifferent to the beautiful heteras.

So far, I have not developed a relationship with Tolstoy. For example, it seems to me that the meaning of the "Kreutzer Sonata" lies more in the historical and social context. The power she possessed for her contemporaries cannot be compared with how it is seen now. Although now I try to be less harsh in judgments, my young man is a staunch “Tolstoyan”, so I’ll try again and again to reconsider my attitude.

The choice between fixing or non-fixing is not worth it for me. It's like deciding tea or coffee.

For me, reading is one of the most favorite activities in life, and I terribly envy people for whom this is part of the job. I read routinely, every day, I don’t get very good: I used to read before bedtime, then it was enough for one page, and when I started to cut it out in a paragraph, I recognized the failure of the habit. So now the main tool in the arsenal remained the method “hard drinking”. This happens by itself in travels, but I arrange for myself such races in everyday life.

For me, a literary language is not so much about the language itself as about the world that comes with it. The language is Andrei Platonov. The style is Isaac Babel. Feelings, people - this is Marina Tsvetaeva and "The Tale of Sonia". Some people think about space, to switch, to bring down the scale, but you can simply open "Enlightenment" by Arthur Rambo, and then remember that he wrote them at the age of twenty, after which he threw literature forever and went to Africa. Switches me.

The choice between fixed or non-fixed is not worth it. It's like deciding tea or coffee. But lately, I really began to read more and more non-fiction, not the last reason is that, thanks to Ad Marginem, Garage and Strelka, we finally have access to good, timely books. In general, I believe in the importance of translation: for example, we have a huge gap in architecture from the actual theory, including because books translate little, rarely and very late. Here, the Las Vegas Lessons of 1977 — one of the most important, “influential” books in our field — was released by Strelka in Russian only in 2015, the year.

I have long been collecting my library. Although now I regret that in the first years of the institute I did it so actively. Today, I make purchases less often and more selectively: books are getting more and more expensive, and there is less and less space in the rack. I often read in Bookmate, especially non-fiction. But I still love alone wandering through the bookstore, choosing books. It is like choosing the future. You choose what creates you in the future.

Reflections

Marcus Aurelius

I have two books that I call "living and dead water." “Living” - the energy of action - this is “Nietzsche said this way to Zarathustra. "Dead" - humility - this is the "Reflections" of Marcus Aurelius. A Stoic philosopher who had to be emperor and lead legions, he writes about death, frailty, courage, honor - in a camping tent, during the war. The tent stands at the tributary of the Danube, and I can almost make out his tired voice: "A little more - and you are dust and bones; one name remains, or you cannot find it. The name is an empty sound and a soulless echo."

There is a terrific lecturer on the history of architecture in the Moscow Architecture Institute - Alexey Musatov. When we studied, he was more like our personal doctor House, he expressed himself bitingly, in the case, he was not afraid of uncompromising statements. One of them was the following: “Who among you read the Reflections of Marcus Aurelius? Ah, no one? You have no right to consider yourself as a man.”

"Moscow"

Vladimir Sorokin

I bought this book in my favorite "Tsiolkovsky", it already belonged, rather, to the second-hand category - Ad Marginem 2001. For me, so perfect edition. I chose this book for the sake of a short work at the very beginning - Eros of Moscow. I believe that Moscow is such a woman with a very difficult fate, and she really lacks love. Vladimir Sorokin created a seven-point instruction. You can try to repeat, but maybe it's better to create your own.

"Clip, Stamp, Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines, 196x - 197x"

Beatriz Colomina, Craig Buckley, Anthony Fontenot, etc.

This book is part of the scientific work of the architecture historian Beatrice Colomina. The work is devoted to the archzines of the 60-70s. There were certain periods in history, like the 20-30s, and then the 60-70s, when architectural magazines became a special genre. Extremely serious search for a new life with all the passion. And irony, radicalism, pathetic, courage - everything is there at the same time. And what a layout, what a collage! (Here I am able to go exclusively to interjections.) In general, this is a source of inspiration in its purest form. In the same row are the magazines "Soviet architecture" of 1927-1931. Thanks to the Russian Avant-garde publishing project, they were republished, and now you can read Ginzburg’s ardent report to fellow architects very easily. The book "Clip, Stamp, Fold" also consists of a facsimile of these magazines (which is very rare, especially all at once, very convenient) and an interview with the creators. I bought by chance by going to the store “Beautiful Books”, which did not last long at the corner of Kuznetsky and Rozhdestvenka, now there, of course, is simply “The Messenger”.

"Next - the noise. Listening to the XX century"

Alex Ross

Thanks to my mother, I once studied musical literature, but, despite the amazing teacher, the composers and their works were separate, and the time, the political and social context remained only echoes somewhere. This book links the twentieth century into a single narrative. Meyerhold sits next to Shostakovich when Stalin listens to Lady Macbeth, and Strauss and Mahler walk through the mountains before the premiere of Salome. The book should not just be read, but in parallel to listen to these works. The speed, of course, is lost, but these are the rules of the genre.

"School for Fools"

Sasha Falcons

This book was recommended to me by my friend Lena Uglovskaya, whose advice I really value. Then, in 2013, a new edition of the OIG was released - with drawings and ideally suitable large text. A novel is an alien universe plunging into itself. The stream of consciousness, there is no direct speech, sometimes the commas disappear, the narrative turns into fantasy, and interrupts yesterday. "Obviously, I can forget something: a thing, a word, a surname, a date, but only then, on the river, in the boat, I forgot everything at once. Dear Leonardo, everything was much more serious, namely: I was in one of stages of extinction. You see, a person cannot disappear instantly and completely, before he turns into something different from himself in form and in essence - for example, in a waltz, in a distant, sounding barely audible evening waltz, that is, it disappears partially: and only then disappears completely. " The magic thing.

"Fallen leaves"

Vasily Rozanov

The Fallen Leaves genre is difficult to determine, but I am very close (in fact, in its image I began to write in one endless file). The leaves in the box, large and small - some are written as telegrams, some as letters, others and just kind of notes in the margins. The form is different, but the thought is one, it is like a continuous radio signal to which you can connect.

"Invisible Cities"

Italo Calvino

Unfortunately, it is often impossible to find good books in a good edition, then I resort to electronic editions, and if neither of them does not exist, I have to agree to a paperback and a bad design. Marco Polo and Kublai Khan are sitting in the garden and chatting slowly. Marco Polo tells wonderful and strange stories about wonderful cities in which he was either, or he invented them altogether. We, like Han, are completely unimportant. I have defined this book for myself as my favorite genre "poetry in prose".

"One-way street"

Walter Benjamin

This book by Benjamin is not similar to his art history, critical texts. Little, it is read in one breath. It is a city and poetry, dreams and memories. Gastronomy of words and images. For me, this is a book that I would like to write myself.

"Favorites"

Federico Garcia Lorca

Because of Lorca, I would like to learn Spanish. But even in Russian she sings absolutely: Natalya Goncharova, having arrived in Spain, noticed that the souls of the Spaniards and Russians are equally composed. His poems are some kind of primeval magic of poetry. The book was presented to me by my mother from her collection.

"Letters of 1926"

Rainer Maria Rilke, Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva

For me, this is the best triangle of letters that you can only imagine. Constantly drowning in feelings and confessions, Tsvetaeva interrupting, refining herself with dashes, brackets and exclamation marks in them. Calm Rilke. Doubting Pasternak: "I have a request for you. Do not give up on me ahead of time." I am very glad that in Tsiolkovsky we managed to buy such an edition.

"Cross without love"

Heinrich Böll

I brought the “Cross without love” as a sign - “Böll's book”. Introduced me to them, my favorite art teacher. Unfortunately, my favorite novel, "Through the eyes of a clown," is almost impossible to find: the first time I took a volume in the library, the second time I reread the electronic version. But Billiards at half past nine, in the plot of which generations of architects are passing, has recently been reprinted in paperback. In general, Böll's novels are the shrill stories of a man who was locked up between mutually exclusive (or rather, excluding him) circumstances of life.

"Poems"

Sergey Shestakov

I am convinced that favorite poems and philosophy should be in paper form, so it is more convenient to constantly return. I learned about Sergey Shestakov from the interview of Shargunov to the School of Slander. I started to search, I didn’t find much: he graduated from the Faculty of Mechanics and works as a math teacher. He is fifty years old, and he is not at all like a poet. But his poems are my most favorite of the modern ones: “you go and mumble mama mama, and she responds to Kathmandu Kathmandu”. In general, I had to print it myself.