Sergei Tchoban — Une ville dessinée — La Galerie d’Architecture — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 13 → June 13, 2020

The exhibition “Une ville dessinée / A drawn city” by the German-Russian architect and artist Sergei Tchoban reflects the high-contrast interplay between historical and modern architecture, as it is so strongly traced in modern cities. It highlights the artist’s dedication to architectural drawings: structures of European city combined with futuristic elements as seen in his Architectural Capriccios and compositions of Urban Layers and consider them in interaction and in correlation with his built architecture. His different architectural expressions are determined by the inclusion of the urban context and the physical and historical conditions of each site.

Tchoban brings together visualized and constructed ideas on paper. Drawing is an essential component of Sergei Tchoban´s communication tool that gives him the ability to translate his ideas and visions about the relationship between contemporary and historical architecture, as well as iconic buildings and built background–architecture. With his drawings, Tchoban often brushes the topic of how contemporary architecture can exist in historic urban contexts, and how new layers play an important role in creating the heritage of the future.

„Urban Layers“ and „Contrasting Harmony of the City“ are the main topics the exhibition deals with. Tchoban’s works show visions of architecture of the new era in forms of transparent, broken galleries and pipes that fill the spaces above and between historical monuments. And although this is by no means the only form of existence of modern architecture, the contrast that arises between it and historical buildings is its inalienable and most important characteristic.

His examination of these themes is also reflected in his architectural projects, which bring a new pictorial quality, subtle but expressive and lively facades, a variety of surfaces, ornaments, a wide range of colours and an emphasis on haptic detail back to the city. Through his architecture and urban planning, Tchoban aims to create spatial compositions, spatially staged objects within the city, in which buildings and spaces stand in a clearly defined relationship to one another, creating diverse, urban contexts and giving people back a spatial experience that has suffered a break with classical modernism.

But for Tchoban this concept is not only limited to the classic field of architecture. These themes are also reflected and can be found in his exhibition and stage designs.

The harmony of contrasts is based on what the politicians of the Renaissance called “balance of power”. This concept can be applied to architecture, to the dynamic equilibrium in the cityscape: contrast harmony is created in 30 percent iconic buildings in relation to 70 percent urban environment — what means unspectacular but good detailed buildings that make a sustainable surrounding for the 30 percent of iconic buildings. It is about a proportion for urban ensembles, about a coexistence of different types of buildings, in which no direction finally gains the victory.

Ever since expressive, sculptural buildings ­– architectural manifestos and dominants — have been able to emerge in the European environment, a feeling of “contrasting harmony” has accompanied us. Many things that were previously unimaginable are now acknowledged in their existence. Sergei Tchoban is not immediately inclined to criticize new architectural forms that clearly stand out from the existing, historical environment; He would like to understand much more what impulses and processes led to their creation, what architectural layers are developing.