TATLIN NEWS №37

residents imprisoned for life. It was HMP Gartree that became a basis for this concept as a result of cooperation. The architectural project concerns the residence of prisoners and offers twelve-storey blocks, each having a shared kitchen, rest room and an indoor garden. The project highlights the ways for architecture to improve the security, increase the social interaction, training and education. Among the exhibits there is a film entitled Squint/opera. It presents the implied interior of the prison in the videoinstallation of Shona Illingworth considering current conditions in the prison. Will Alsop said, «Creative cities where people feel they are busy are more successful both economically and socially. Why should prisons differ?» «The Prison of Creativity» is a positive effort to look at it at a different angle. IN THE CONTEXT OF TIME Object: Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum, the Netherlands Designed: 1999 Construction started: 2003 Construction completed: 2006 Architects: Neutelings Riedijk Architecten, Rotterdam (Willem Jan Neutelings, Michiel Riedijk, Frank Beelen, Joost Mulders, Tania Ally, Wessel Vreugdenhil, Lennaart Sirag, Bas Suijkerbuijk, Julia Soeffing, Willem Bruijn, Stan Vandriessche, Wonne Ickx, Patricia Lopes Simoes) Client: Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum Design and concept of the facade: Neutelings Riedijk Architects in cooperation with the Bureau Bouwkunde Rotterdam Graphic design of the facade: Studio Jaap Drupsteen Photo: Daria Scagliola Text: Anna Lengle is popular in the humanitarian world for its active innovations in the two fields that became its symbols along with celebrated Dutch cheese and tulips. Here Contemporary Holland

we are talking about media-art (video art and pieces created with the help of computer) and of course architecture. The synthesis of these two field has been successfully done by a Rotterdam- based bureau Neutelings Riedijk Architecten in the media center recently built. Audio and visual information accumulated within the whole period of operation of the Dutch radio and TV has been gathered by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The institute hosts an archive, a museum, offices, reception and service rooms. They all are linked by the central space, the heart of the building. Thinking about the general composition and indoor planning and starting with the contents of the building, the architects decided on the horizontal division of the building into two layers. Underground the archive zone with its special climatic conditions, where daylight is not needed, is located. Above it there are the museum and administrative offices requiring natural light. The main space in the vast exhibition is taken by Media Experience. It is a hall divided into 15 subject pavilions, where the viewer can watch the sacral process of creating TV broadcasts. The spacious hall with a high ceiling lets the visitors feel the enormous scale of the building. This central space, with coloured scattered lights coming through the glazed facade, allows the light into the lowest levels of the storage. But the originality of the new building is not about its interior. The most interesting element is its facades designed by the artist Jaap Drugsteen. The author chose several hundred pictures illustrating the history of the Dutch television, had them digitally processed so that the images were smeared horizontally, and put them in dry paint to the glass panels outside. The facade looks like a huge screen from the distance. It seems to be divided

turn it back to the search of morals and truths by raising a question of belief into human values. This is one of the eternally discussed subjects, which in turn has its own advantage – no one would be able to reproach it for its irrelevance – and at the same time is as old as Adam, and it would be difficult to show or say something new about it. Nevertheless, Oleg Kulik used this commonplace idea to gather a legion of artists and send them on the crusade searching for their own truths that could breathe life into the contemporary Russian art. According to the traditions of the Russian culture everything we do must happen on a noble scale. Therefore the exhibition space was calculated for effect produced by its scale, so that peoplewould come and gasp just seeing it, and their hearts would miss a beat, as if they were standing in front of a huge Russian cathedral. Apart from the fact that project is being considered to be a foretaste of the biennale, it also commemorated the opening of the new«Vinzavod» art center located in a building where they made wine in the Soviet times. This architectural structure with vaults over enfilades tiled with terra-cotta is as beautiful as Roman thermae. Cognac and wine vaults with thick walls remind of the early ancient Roman basilicae. Closing themselves in the cellars of «Vinzavod» the artists play the role of pioneers of some new belief of the contemporary art, just like the first Christians hiding in catacombs did. The space chosen gave the exhibition several other advantages. The lighting in the warehouses inside a former industrial building conceals the bad and highlights the best in the works, and the bigger space gives an opportunity to look carefully and comprehend the large-scale installations in a more objective way. The spiritual search announced by the curator was interesting for the artists as an opportunity to express their understanding of the eternal, of approaches to something which is the truth. After getting acquainted with the exhibition the words «I Believe» pronounced aloud do not sound that convincing anymore. But then the more extensive meaning of

into separate coloured pixels and looks like a large video installation, with colours of all flags of the world mingled together. Glazing the whole facade is not a new idea, today we come across such an exterior virtually every day. But the idea to put a digitized coloured image onto the Institute building reflects the interpretation of architecture as a carrier of emotional, psychological and cultural information. Architects of the new generation have conceptualized the external image of the Institute building as a piece of art. Being constantly dependent on the media system and various media carriers, the authors have been considering the architectural image connectedwith the context of time and culture for a long time, and eventually managed to implement it in the project of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. DO I BELIEVE IT?… Project: exhibition «I Believe», Moscow In the end of January an exhibition optimistically titled «I Believe» opened in the capital of Russia. By its scale it could be compared to such a grand event as the Second Moscow Biennale of contemporary art coming up in March this year. «I Believe» in particular is the first sign of the awaited biennale. After the exhibition titled «Attention! Religion!» (even though enough time has passed since that notorious action at the exhibition) titles sending thoughts back to religion will be taken by the society as a provocation. As the curator of «I Believe» Oleg Kulik, who is a notorious artist, claims, the idea of the exhibition has nothing in common with religious beliefs. The thought leader of the project hoped to bring the provocative art out of the long-lasting crisis and Curator: Oleg Kulik Implementation January 28 ‑ March 30

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