Demolition of a wall in architecture About the group House in Memories Shares Its Member Ivars Šlivka

The first harbingers of change could already be felt in the mid-70s of the 20th century, when projects appeared that claimed originality and sought to prove local belonging In the mid-1980s, postmodernism, which merged with the so-called regionalism, had already become decisive in Latvian architecture.

The founding of the "Māja" group in 1989 can be considered the culmination of the process This is the only case in the history of Latvian architecture when a group of architects united in the name of conceptual ideas and publicly postulated them both at exhibitions and happenings and came up with a manifesto of their views.

The ideas were based on the search for the Latvian housing archetype in the cosmic scale coordinate system How relevant was it then and how is it now? About it in the Latvian Radio 3 "Klasika" program "Why design?" conversation with architect Ivars Šlivkas.

Ilze Martinsone: The exhibition at the Latvian National Art Museum is dedicated to art processes that took place during the Revival What really happened in other cultural spheres, and specifically in architecture? The first studies have started in this direction.

First of all, I myself have read the lecture "Postmodernism in Latvia Architecture and design" at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, and this lecture is publicly available on the museum's "Youtube" channel.

On the other hand, Lūcija Rebeka Brālīte's academic study is dedicated to the "Māja" group of architects: it can be consulted in the library of the Latvian Academy of Arts What is the historical background that led to the founding of the "Māja" group? The first changes, which can also be defined as political changes in Latvian architecture, were marked in the mid-1970s, when the first regionalist architectural projects appeared.

Regionalism later merged with postmodernism, and it was the desire of architects for identity, for resistance to unification, also to mark the belonging of a place, which was opposed to the prevailing modernism, unification and cheap fast construction As the first, we can mention the projects of Edgars Šenberg, for example the amusement park "Daile" in Jūrmala (1976), which has now been destroyed.

It is interesting that Šönberg turns one hundred years old this year, and his memory will be immortalized precisely with the project of this amusement park at the exhibition in Jurmala One of the turning points was also the exhibition "What will be the fate of regional architecture" organized by Jānis Lejnieks and Jura Paegles, which took place in 1979, when architects first became massively interested in traditional rural buildings, reconstructions - they began to believe that rural pubs are a value, and it can be concluded that 80 By the middle of the 1990s, regionalism had already become mainstream.

The culmination of this whole process is already connected with the time of the Awakening, when the six-member group "Māja" was founded in 1989 It is the first and only conceptual group of architects in the history of Latvian architecture, which came out with its activities and also with its manifesto.

The group consisted of Ausma Skujiņa, Zaiga Gaile, Ivars Šlivka, Zintis Butāns, Raitis Jelēvičs and Įrts Ādminis You were very young when this group was formed.

As a young specialist who had entered the professional environment, did you feel any accumulations and changes taking place in architecture even before the founding of the "Māja" group? Ivars Šlivka: You described the background of that time quite well from the point of view of our architecture students It really looked like this back then.

At that time, the perspective of the profession of an architect was not rosy, because all real architectural design was concentrated in the large state institutes - in ninety percent of cases, your professional perspective was to become a cog in the mechanism of the large institutes with not too many chances of creative expression, and only a few were destined to break through to their own for the specific projects We saw that a significant trend appeared at that time: during the Soviet era there was such a "good" formation as collective farms.

And the good thing was that the best of these formations had a certain dexterity, also a certain independence in decision-making, including construction and design: some of the kolkhozes could afford their own architects We saw the good examples.

Both Ausma Skujiņa, both Zaiga Gaile were quite noted for their interesting solutions and realistically built objects in their collective farms Following that, I also chose to go to the countryside.

And the second thing: at that time conceptual exhibitions started to become popular The annual exhibition of young architects was very popular, attended by a large number of participants - around half a hundred for sure.

Other competitions also started to appear, but more or less they were not specific, but conceptual, where young architects could let off steam - express their creative potential with, perhaps a little naively, but the hope that these ideas would reach the decision makers of the time and something would change as well in general construction policy Ilze Martinsone and Ivars Šlivka Photo: Arnolds Auziņš / Latvijas Radio How did the group "Māja" itself come about? It all started with a group of Latvian rural architects.

We, the architects, each of us was in our own collective farm, each in our own fields - basically we were alone, and we had an abnormal lack of communication There was also a lack of fairly elementary knowledge that colleagues at design institutes could learn much faster.

We also missed the creative environment That is why the group of rural architects also worked very intensively: we traveled, organized exhibitions.

During my time there were two exhibitions where we presented our country houses At that time, postmodernism experienced its heyday.

Based on our own experience and looking at trends in the world as much as possible, we tried to understand what creates harmony - why do we feel so good in old country houses? Maybe the layers of postmodernism are just layers, but what is this essence? Maybe this question was not originally formulated in that text, but we went to it unwittingly We ourselves organized expeditions both to Estonia and here in our countryside, we met a lot of people who were more or less related to this sphere.

Little by little, a small group of activists crystallized out of the whole group - we, six people, who met more often and met separately I don't remember very well at which moment it was decided that we would have a group, we would have a "House" and that we would do something not only in our group, but also take something outside.

The project of the "Māja" group in the exhibition hall "Latvija" 1991.

World model of a Latvian homestead, marking the path of the Sun Photo: from the archives of the Latvian Architecture Museum It is interesting that the "Māja" group did not design anything, but dealt purely with architectural concepts The result of your activity was several exhibitions - "House of Books", a manifesto.

It was such a purely theoretical, conceptual activity What exactly did you do when you got together in your meetings - discuss? Yes, yes, of course! Everything arose directly from internal discussions.

And we have to thank Zaiga, who had the talent and experience to bring her creative works to the outside world Then it was decided that something should also be shown more widely.

As a result, we mostly gather in the premises of the Union of Architects, we were more or less noticed there by the leadership of the Union of Architects, Jānis Dripe, who was at the head of the union I don't remember exactly what the start was like.

I think it had to do with the Tallinn Triennale, when we started to collect what we had learned One reference point was indeed the Tallinn Triennale - it is even believed that this is the only reason you came together, but I understand that this is not true at all.

After the Tallinn Triennale, the idea was transferred to the then exhibition hall "Latvija", where the performances took place Around the same time, the artists also held the performance "Gentle Oscillations".

And for you, architects, it wasn't just an exhibition where something was displayed, but it was a living process Now, looking back on that very distant past, it really seems like something grand! Today it is hard to imagine something similar.

I Call It Happening

It was ten or eleven days when we lived inside, above and around the largest exhibition hall in Latvia, "Latvija", and a house was built there! It seems to me that the whole event rather drew towards art, because there was both a day for scientists and aderists - a conference-style event with a social touch, and "Gentle Oscillations" – our then leading group of avant-garde artists with their performances and creation of real works in this place, and Hardijs Lediņš with his NSRD.

A very well-attended two-week event Apart from the event, I remember more the "after-parties", if that's what you can call the evening events, when the official entrance was already closed: we sat there for a long time with a glass of wine and discussed with artists and all kinds of intelligentsia.

Happenings in the "Māja" project in the "Latvija" exhibition hall 1991.

Photo: from the archive of the Latvian Architecture Museum The group's concept was based on studies of mythology and the cosmogenic structure of the world, and the main principle was to search for the theoretical archetype of the Latvian home.

You also had your own manifesto, where you you formulated all this theoretically - what is the center and what is God Judging from today's point of view, there is also quite a lot of esotericism, quite a lot of Renaissance romantic naivety.

How do you look at it now? Undeniably, it was, but I look at it normally At that time, the iron curtain gradually fell, and we literally grabbed information like fresh air in all possible directions, wherever we could at that time: we looked abroad, we looked at our past, and a certain part of esotericism was definitely present there - it was like a forbidden fruit before.

But it was just the kind of period that everyone has to get sick Next, there were already "complications of the disease" - no matter who had them left.

I remember that you also had studies of Japanese culture, mandalas were also involved, and from that you tried to synthesize the Latvian archetypal building image in the context of the cosmogonic view of the world I took it a bit the other way around.

Not that we tried to extract Latvianness from the whole world, but by cleaning up all the information about the Latvian concrete homestead and homestead as a model, as well as everything else connected with it (including mythological, philosophical, ethnic and other motifs), it became visible, that there are some global models and systems of harmony that adapt differently in each place, in each nation Therefore, there were both pyramids and mandalas next to each other.

As examples The game published by the "Māja" group is a newly acquired farm model.

Drawings by Rait Jelēvičs Photo: from the archives of the Latvian Museum of Architecture One very interesting direction that you talked about was that you were engaged in map mapping and tried to connect it with the history of architecture and the principles of modern architecture It's also such a slippery topic.

What conclusions did you come to then? It was probably also a kind of fashion thing - laces In one sense, it was certainly fashionable at the time.

You should interview Đirta Admini, because he was much more focused in this direction Maybe he could argue with me, because I still think that aders are more on the esoteric side than on the rational side, but he even had a specific program with radon radiation measurements.

Lija Bērziņa, professor of geology, if I am not mistaken, also participated with her theory about particle flows from cracks in the Earth's crust I became quite a skeptic in this direction: first of all, because I could see that the maps they drew in the same place were quite different for different toolmakers.

Then I also read that measurements were made: in reality, the rod muscle reacts first and only then the rod But I accept this system as a global energy system, which I think we may never really know - that absolutely everything is energy.

A person is also a source of energy, and we each have our own specific, unknown, unknowable energy Maybe there is not even much to go into.

But I also respect the opinion of those who think it's important: if they don't want to sleep on a bed, let them move their bed where it isn't I personally can sleep anywhere, I have no sleep problems.

(laughs) The single tree publicly created by the artist Jura Putrāms in the project of the "Māja" group in the "Latvija" exhibition hall 1991 Photo: from the archive of the Latvian Museum of Architecture The "Māja" group existed only for a short time During the revival: 1991 is officially considered the year of the end of the group .

As if the mission was accomplished, however, some activities continued The biggest activist seems to have been Ausma Skujiņa, who organized the celebration of the Vast Slavs in Riga with a special procession marking the bed of the old Rīdzina river.

There was also a whole series of projects where the group "Māja" was also mentioned Did you participate there yourself, or were you already isolated? The dawn called me.

She asked me if I could figure out how to spatially mark the center of Riga, which, according to her, was the intersection of Daugava and Brīvības streets I made such a sketch with some giant fountains on both sides of the bridge.

But I no longer saw myself in that story of the search for centers But I remember that there were several other activities closer to the beginning of the 90s.

I remember more the working group in which we worked for several months, by the way, it coincided exactly with the time of the barricades The leader of the group was Imants Ziedonis, and it contained all the flower of our intelligence of that time.

we, the mentioned gentleman unfortunately passed away, and with him - this idea too In my opinion, the group "Māja" once carried out its great mission, searching for identity, laying the seeds for this process.

Only maybe at some point we will have forgotten it But in the global space and in the current crisis situation, when Russia has started its invasion, it becomes relevant for us - that architecture is not only global and that we need our own attraction.

I can't remember exactly, I should reread the text of our manifesto for the center, but I think it defined the importance of being a center and organizing life around it, and the manifesto ended, I think, with the realization that awareness of the center is especially important in times of change when you need unity Then, when the space and at the same time life becomes more organized, we can afford to move further away from this center.

So I could agree with you that this moment is what makes us re-center ourselves a little Highlight the text and press Ctrl+Enter to send the corrected text fragment to the editor! Highlight the text and press the Report an error button to send the corrected text fragment to the editor!.