standardisation (ГОСТы) standardisation (ГОСТы)

The Standarisation Group looked at two sites, the All Russian Exhibition Centre and Novy Arbat. They came with numerous proposals how to restore the identity of the individual pavilions at All Russian Exhibition Centre, and how to reclaim the public space in Novy Arbat. All proposals are made affective by impose new regulations.

The group looks for potentials that are hidden behind the 'totalitarian' commercial functions that occupy the All Russian Exhibition Centre and Novy Arbat. They did visual analyses and came up with three categories which will be worked out by smaller groups. - Tools of distractions. At the All Russian Exhibition Centre you experience the problematic relationship with the past. The pavilions were built to celebrate the nation and collectivity, right now they are decorated sheds for individual commercial activities. The sub-group will come up with a new program for the AREC that focuses on the architecture but leave out any connotations to the past. - Laboratory of functions. How to regulate the space between the commercial space and the public space? The group analysed all functions that are not directly linked to commercial activity and will come up with a new set of rules. - Seuil / Schwelle/ Treshold. How do people act in public space, where ends the private and starts the public? The public space is being 'attacked' from two sites, the commercialisation of public space, and on the other site the individualisation of it.

Every time sets its own standards, what can be the standards for the future Moscow? To answer this question the group will analyse two locations where at the time, new standards were set for the way the city developed: the All Russian Exhibition Centre (1935-1937) and Novy Arbat (for Kalinisky Prospect) (1968). The All Russian Exhibition Centre is now in total decay, and as Anton Ivanov put it at the presentation, an arena for bad taste. Novy Arbat was designed after Nikita Khrushchev visited the USA, on it you could find the largest restaurant in Europe, the first large media screen in the world, and the largest bookstore in Rusland, which is still there.

> Mattijs Brands > Tina Bremer > Labib Hossain > Gabriel M Kozlowski > Katja Mihaleva > Almudena Cano Pineiro > Camiel Van Noten > Sarah Herbert Tack

We prepare compact version of workshop ideology brand - just “What?”. As the object of collective professional attention going to be Moscow, word “What?” (or question “What’s happening?” or “What is the order behind the happening chaos?”) is the main coordinator with the reality of that city nowadays. Amazement and surprise accompany urban experience both of locals and voyagers. City works unpredictable in every level, from small objects and transport layering to commercial development and urban governing. Visibly this cacophony has no system or any hope for order. But paradoxically the whole city production is tightly bent by rules. Urban standards and rules are the legacy of non-existent nation, but maybe this vocabulary of ghost civilization is the most productive remaining of the past in contemporary Russia. They still work and form the present urban reality by means of bygone past. The main enthusiasm of workshop will be dedicated to asking the simple question. What is happening in this city? How it is orchestrated by norms and rules and what is the potential of present city confrontations for future? How is it possible to improve or adjust the existing rules in postsovjet space? The workshop will be mostly based on the field trips in Moscow and exploring the reality and finding together the highest controversial points in urban space of the city. Sofia Gavrilova studied at the Moscow State University geographical department, and at the Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. She lives and works in Moscow as independent artist, curator, and research associate at the geographical department of the Moscow State University and the School of Geography of the Oxford University Centre for the Environment were she works on the project gulagmaps.org