Introduction

I gave up a long time ago on the idea of being an architect that could write something about theory or any other topic regarding architecture. Unfortunately, I have always lacked that skill that enables scholars to connect ideas, to foster synergies and to produce a thesis as a natural and almost inevitable result. Once in a while though, I indulge myself and write something or I produce a little personal research. That said, I considered the offer to write an article for the Bezalel Papers on Architecture as a good chance to commit one of these little inoffensive crimes.

I agreed with a friend, Cristina Alcantara (photographer), that the article would also be a great excuse to travel to Livny (Russia), where hopefully we would meet and interview Trebor Irutnev, a not very well-known architect from the post-Stalin era. Our interest in Irutnev´s architecture started when we met one of his granddaughters, Lyudmila, during the summer of 2006 at a party in Ibiza. She told us about her grandfather and, after that summer, emailed us some amazing photos of his works. We were impressed by the body of work that Irutnev conducted from the fifties up until the eighties in the USSR and in almost every other Soviet satellite state. The commissions included government facilities in Poland, industrial master plans for Romania, a small airport in Bulgaria, sanitary buildings and social housing constructed in the German Democratic Republic and an endless list of many other masterpieces. I got really disappointed when I could not find even a single page written about his architecture. I looked for information about him in libraries, googled him, flickred him, tumblred him… I just found a short essay with a couple of spreads in a sixties magazine from the Czech Republic in a small anarchist library in Barcelona. Besides that, nothing has been ever published about him.

I manage to find Lyudmila through Facebook, and she kindly arranged an interview with her grandfather on January 20^th 2011. This is an excerpt from the astonishing conversation we had with Trebor Irutnev, and photos of his buildings, some taken in our visit to Russia:

Trebor and Rimma Irutnev. Photo Courtesy of Rimma Irutnev.

Elementary School in Livny. Photo Courtesy of Rimma Irutnev.

First of all, I would like to thank you, Trebor, for having some time to share with us. Lyudmila just told us you are pretty busy these days. I would also like to apologize in advance for some of our questions. They might sound silly to you or extremely irrelevant, but we could hardly read or see anything about your work before coming to Livny.

Could you tell us something about your background as an architect? How did it all started?

Well, I have to confess it was not as romantic as you may believe. I was born in Noginsk, a small city west of Moscow. Both of my parents worked at a factory, building ventilation systems before the war started (World War II).

I began working at the factory when I was twelve. I had a really hard time adjusting to those hard conditions. I was only a kid, and I was terrified. After a while I got used to it and, later on, ventilation systems started to really interest me. By the time I was seventeen, that interest developed into a deep obsession with vents and how they worked and structured buildings. I learned everything I could about them, and I discovered Nikolay Lvov´s work. I was deeply impressed by Lvov´s inventions and I decided I wanted to become an architect. I went to Moscow and enrolled at the Palace School of Architecture. I bet you can imagine the rest.

Could you please elaborate on Nikolay Lvov? To be honest is the first time we heard about him.

Nikolay Lvov was an extremely relevant figure in the late eighteen century Russian architecture. He was one of the main representing characters of neoclassicism in Saint Petersburg. He certainly embodied the paradigm of the Age of Enlightenment man: He was a poet, a musician, a politician, an ethnographer and, just as a curiosity, he compiled the first significant collection of Russian folk songs (the Lvov-Prach Collection). Yet, his main contribution was the revolutionary technology that allowed for the design of ventilation in a much more efficient way in buildings. He was responsible for the first heat exchanging ductwork. He wrote a whole treatise on ventilation called Русская Пиростатика  (Russkaya Pyrostatica). I am not very good with dates but I bet it was around 1793, and in my opinion, it was the work of a brilliant genius. His best building might be the Priory Palace in Gatchina, you should go for a visit it if you have time.

Lvov's furnace design, Ruskaya Pyrostatica, 1793

Were you not influenced by Russian Constructivism at all?  Your architecture looks like it negates that period. It seems that you have always had a much more “International Style approach” in mind. That is one of the things that really stroke us when we first saw some photographs and plans of your buildings. For instance, your extension of the government facilities in Moscow (Fig 2) could be the placed almost anywhere.

I did deny all forms of relationship with the architecture and art of that period in the USSR. All of my generation was very much against anything that smelled like Constructivism. We were looking for a much more social, plural and open architecture. In fact, the social concern in our time was bigger than that of the beginning of the century. We truly believed that all the body of work from that period was somehow based on propaganda. Our interests were focused on the real problems that were the consequences of the war. We did not have time to speculate or think much about anything. We had to solve social issues. We pursued diversity and equality. That was our main and only goal at the time. We were dealing with a communist system. You may think it was repressive and that it erased all diversity or plurality from the country, but we thought just the opposite. Communism was the device that could make everybody´s expectations real, and architecture, of course, was one of its main tools to make that happen. I was extremely shocked when I discovered the interest in Constructivism that some famous western European architects showed during the eighties.

By “famous western European architects” you mean Rem Koolhass, Zaha Hadid, Elia Zenghelis and so on?

Yes I do mean all of them. I was invited to the AA at that time to lead a couple of really short workshops, two months each one, and I had long discussions with them during dinners and parties. I was impressed with the energy and passion they had, but I did not agree with their convictions about how architecture should operate.

So you met them in the eighties in London…

I did. In fact, I had a long lasting friendship with Rem Koolhaas. We kept writing letters to each other for almost ten years. I told him about my obsession about ventilation systems, about how they could totally shape and drive any building. After that, we lost contact , probably because he was extremely busy. I was quite surprised when Junkspace was released because it was relying on issues we discussed fifteen years before. He did not send even an email to tell me he was planning on writing about it, but I can´t blame him at all. As you can imagine, as a member of the party for such a long time, I do not believe that ideas are owned by anyone or that they have any copyrights.

Are you serious?? Wow… Excuse me but it ´s hard for me to believe what you´re saying.

Don´t worry. Honestly, I could never have been able to articulate those ideas as he did. Also, his writing is extremely refined compared to mine. I could not think of anyone better to write and distribute all those arguments we had.

…(silence).

I must say you leave me speechless with that answer. Didn´t you think about publishing all of that before?

Well, I wouldn´t have been allowed to even if I wanted. During the Khrushchev era, our office as well as some of the most talented architects in the country were banned for political reasons. We did not build much for a long time. I had to close the office for some years and I was not very passionate about architecture anymore. I moved to Ukraine for a while and I devoted all my time to read and take care of my beautiful garden. Maybe that is the reason why there is hardly anything published about my work. A lot of architecture offices were silenced in favor of a “bigger” cause. As you probably know, it all somehow ended with the Perestroika. Rimma, my wife, and I came back to Livny and start working again.

Would you consider that all of the symbolic charge that nurtured Constructivist architecture is shifted in your projects to a complete lack of meaning?

I could not disagree more. Our projects try to condense every possible meaning or condition that a future user may project on them. We have been always trying to achieve a multiplicity of meanings and several layers of significance so that architecture remains plural and, if you want to call it that way, democratic. As Robert Venturi argued once; “where the Modern masters´ strength lay in consistency, ours should lie in diversity.” Learning from Las Vegas influenced deeply all of our architecture from the late period. That book was certainly a revelation.

But your buildings look like they only have the meaning that materiality is giving them. They do look like Modernist architecture.

Son, Rimma and I have always thought of our buildings as huge decorated sheds. Yet, instead of using a duck(s) as a symbolic device, we were using vents. Look at them that way and a new whole universe will be revealed.

(Laughs). They look really rationalist and positivist buildings. They do look like vents also.  Are you saying that you consider yourself to be a Post-Modern architect?

Of course! I would not use that fancy, obsolete, useless word, but yes, I would consider these projects to be much closer to Robert Venturi´s postulates than to any other stream of thought you may want to compare them with.

Single Family house in Ukraine. Photo Courtesy of Rimma Irutnev.

Office Building in Obninsk. Photo Courtesy of Rimma Irutnev.

Boris Yeltsin in front of the extension of goverment facilities. Photo Courtesy of Rimma Irutnev.

Wow…
Finally, I was wondering if you could you give us any advice in our future practice? What should we do next?

Look, this will probably sound extremely cheesy and paternalist to you, but it is all I can offer you right now. Do not let anyone fool you with their thoughts about architecture. Follow your instinct. Everything is somehow a little fiction. Do not follow trends, fashion, style or elitism. Be unfashionable. Trust your heart. Don´t trust pantheistic opinions. Start looking at things by yourself and don´t let anyone impose their opinions about what good architecture should be on you. Reason is the cruelest invention of man. Turn things upside down.  Look at situations and buildings and relationships from another side. Read backwards. Start with little things and then you will be able unravel a whole new set of possibilities. Read backwards your name. Read backwards my name. That is the clue. If you succeed in doing so, in that little gap you may produce, this is where good architecture exists.

Thank you very much Trebor for having us here. It is been a pleasure talking to you.

Well, it has also been a pleasure for me to have you here too. As a final remark on what I just told you; I read a while ago one of my favorite quotes in a Jaques Roubaud´s book talking about Thelonious Monk. The musician, after his last great performance in Paris, answered this to a very rude, insistent journalist: “Yes, I am truly happy I could play here. I am sure I will come back again soon to your country, Los Angeles”.

Jose Ahedo was born in Bilbao in 1980. He received a Bachelor of Archiecture in 2005 in Barcelona. In 2010 he received a Master of Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD Scholarship). He has worked for the firms:Emiliano Lopez and Monica Rivera.(Barcelona), aSZ architecture (Barcelona), Xavier Claramunt (Barcelona).