The theoretical core of the book consists of three publications on methods of architectural morphogenesis, published in the St. Petersburg magazine Credo New in 2022-2023.
I deeply and cordially thank my mother Lyudmila, who supports my endeavors; my father Alexander – for helping me in forming my architectural and philosophical library; Uncle Vyacheslav – for my first drawing lessons when I was 2 years old; Grandfather Ivan – for collecting me after classes in art school; Uncle Sergei – for intellectual development; my wife Zoya – for constructive criticism and creative like-mindedness; Viktor Petrovich Troitsky – for wise mentoring and support in the development of the dialectical concept of architectural propaedeutics based on the principles of philosophy and aesthetics of Aleksei Fyodorovich Losev, Sergey Petrovich Ivanenkov – editor-in-chief of Credo New magazine – for help in publishing my articles on architecture; Nikolai Petrovich Pyatakhin, the artist and teacher of drawing in St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – for kindness and consistency in the profound mastering of live freehand drawing; Aleksei Dudin, the rector of the Church of the Holy Great Prince Vladimir, Equal of the Apostles in Kommunar Town of the Gatchinsky District, the Leningrad Region, and priest Constantine Slepinin – for prayer support; all the teachers who taught me in Saint Petersburg Gymnasium School No. 114, Saint Petersburg Georgy Sviridov Art School No. 1, Saint Petersburg Interregional Centre (College) of the Ministry of Labour of Russia at the Design faculty, St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the architectural faculty; my students – for the fruitful study and excellent works.
I would be grateful for the feedback and comments that can be sent by email:
yuripogudin@archineo.ru
Have a co-creative reading! Yuri Pogudin,
July 24, 2023
Introduction
One day, the author wrote such a comment to a post about an architectural biennale2: «We can consider the history of modern architecture as a struggle against the peripter. First, the pediment was cut off, and we got a flat roof. The abolition of symmetry gave a free plan and dynamics. The separation from the base gave the «house on pillars». Then we see two parallel processes: identification (walls, wall and roof, etc.) in curvilinear structures and division (walls, wall and roof, etc.) into free elements. The third stage is pixelation: architecture turns into a screen, a mirror, and performance. And electronic baroque. The path of form: from the Egyptian Pyramid to virtual reality.»
This somewhat caricatured description reveals categoriality as the basis of architecture: such things as roofs and walls and such qualities as symmetry and transparency are substantive categories for architecture in the same way, as the concepts of finite and infinite, subjective and objective, etc. are for philosophy. Just as a philosopher performs intellectual actions of analysis and synthesis with abstract concepts, so an architect performs visual and material actions with volumetric and spatial forms and their qualities. When Zaha Hadid identified the floor and the wall in the interior through curvilinear plasticity at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, it was a new action, it was a new categorial step.