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| ZAIGA GAILE’S RECYCLED VALUES Ieva Zībārte Zaiga Gaile, architect, head of the "Zaiga Gaile Architects", among the founders of Latvia Nostra Major projects: Reconstruction of the Ķīpsala Gypsum Factory Restoration of the Philosophers' House, Ķīpsala Hotel BergsReconstruction of the Bergs Bazaar Reconstruction of the Vereinsbank Rīga Reconstruction of 18/20 Kalēju iela Reconstruction of 10 Aldaru iela Development proposal for the wooden architecture of Kalnciema iela | |
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It's hard to picture Zaiga Gaile on a building site, or on the pages of a construction industry journal, although she has been on both. Zaiga's legacy in architecture will not be marked by groundbreaking achievements in modern-day technology, but rather by the development of a consciousness of order and aesthetics in the environment, and of a perception of the contemporary hearth and home. Her lifestyle has allotted Zaiga the role of an expert in public style and a defender of old houses. Zaiga is accused of elitism, meaning a high standard of the quality of space, including purity and order. The view of her work tends to be clichéd, since, when in a hurry, it's more convenient to reiterate the generally accepted view.
I have been thinking about the approach represented by the "Zaiga Gaile Architects". This is something that Zaiga herself, and her colleagues Iveta Cibule and Liene Griezīte, have often tried to formulate. To some degree, they do stand alone, since their work combines two opposite fields - restoration and new architecture. Only recently, visiting the Philosophers' House on Ķīpsala, did I realise that this standing-apart has, for a decade now, prevented a clear view of the essence of Zaiga Gaile's architecture. The little wooden house on the bank of the Daugava close to the heart of the city is a monument in miniature to visions of global development much more revolutionary than Zaiga's major projects - the hotel in the Bergs Bazaar and the Ķīpsala Gypsum Factory. Zaiga does not stand alone, since she belongs to the movement known as ecological architecture. This may seem a bold assertion, but only to those who connect ecological architecture with log cabins, which in fact destroy forest. Ecological architecture is nowadays connected with re-utilisation (old wooden floors in Zaiga's projects), natural ventilation (windows, chimneys, stoves) and benevolent, environmentally sound living (Zaiga is famous for her bicycle and for shopping at the market stalls). Ecological architecture invites a return to tradition, which Zaiga has always been reminding us about, since the time when she was actively studying Latvian houses at the beginning of her career, but it doesn't ignore the contemporary demand for comfort. Just like the architect herself, the Philosophers' House is a poor candidate for pigeon-holing into some category: it's not a newly-built house, and neither has it been restored as a museum exhibit, let alone a reconstruction, since only the old mantle chimney could actually be reconstructed. Zaiga is a re-worker of the past, recycling values and adding the ideas of today. Zaiga Gaile - an architect of Riga or Latvia? I'm an architect of Riga, though for many years I felt myself to be a rural architect. At that time, I was very deeply involved in traditional architecture, and in terms of my perception of the world, I felt like a pagan. I suffered painfully the herding of people into villages during the time of the collective farms, and, together with the Māja (‘House') group, I studied the traditional Latvian home. I never saw Riga at all, but nowadays I don't understand Liepāja or Kuldīga. They're beautiful, and the scale is good, but I no longer have a feel for other places. Is it that the rhythm of life differs elsewhere? I don't know, but I have noticed that in Riga too, we are mostly designing right in front of our noses - in the Bergs Bazaar and Ķīpsala, the places where we walk every day. I often think of the great masters and their ability to produce designs for other places. There are good examples and bad ones. Take Niemeyer and Le Corbusier, for example, who went to India or Algeria and thought out what was needed there. At the same time, Oscar Niemeyer and Le Corbusier were able to create a strong architectural movement and promoted the development of architectural thinking. Yes, especially Le Corbusier. Though in those days, they were all obsessed with the idea of travelling to some other country and telling the locals how they should live their lives. In the Soviet Union too, the Chukchi were transferred to three-storey blocks. But the Chukchi cannot live in such houses. For example, they don't have any use for underwear, being kept warm by furs instead, and that's part of their way of life, part of the essence of their being, which is destroyed when you put them into a flat in a three-storey block. White men have greatly damaged and degraded the traditional environment. Neither did Latvia ever have any villages, apart from the fishing villages, only single farmsteads, so you can't offer the Latvian a village with a main street and a bench to sit on. The Latvian marks out the boundary of his farm. As with the Chukchi, by placing a Latvian in a village or a multi-storey block, the rhythm of life is disrupted. Small wonder that people turn to alcohol in such a setting. What is happening to these villages today? What has happened to those Latvians who are in contact with the aesthetic heritage of the peasant farmstead, but who insist on building aggressive houses? What is it that prevents people from perceiving that a simple table with four legs is no worse than a table with a curved edge? Why do we buy Armani linen rather than Latgale linen? By the way, in buying Armani, we buy Kaugure. But I do agree that the balance has been disturbed, that people are bewildered. Travelling through Europe - Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany - we see that the houses are simple and readily perceptible. Over here, everyone wants to do something topsy-turvy and way-out. And moreover, function and convenience are sacrificed. The model of the Latvian farmstead is excellently suited to Latvia's climatic conditions, being both monumental and beautiful. But people are desperate to escape from it. Latvians are quick at catching onto fashion trends and various distortions. If a spider starts spinning a crooked net, it means the spider is ill. The building of crooked houses also points to a disturbed balance. I think it's also a legacy of the Soviet occupation, which deformed the national identity - traditional culture. In an e-mail letter, you wrote that you were pleased about the "Architecture 1900" exhibition at the Latvian Academy of Art. Yes, because it shows an age when a single kind of architectural thinking suited everything - residential buildings, religious buildings, public buildings, concert halls, both large and small. I recently read a book on styles, where it was stated that Gothic architecture is appropriate only to churches. Attempts to adapt the style for residential buildings are generally failures, and vice versa. Likewise, Greek temple architecture has nothing to do with Greek residential buildings, and even the International Style of Le Corbusier is not universally applicable. The exhibition beautifully presented the architecture of the whole northern region. Formerly, when I regarded the houses of Aleksandrs Vanags, they seemed to me expressly Latvian, but then I visited Stockholm and saw houses that were just the same. At that time, a unified and balanced architecture was created, and the pride of Riga is still the architecture of that time, rather than its new architecture or Old Riga. If we look at Riga as a metropolis, we have to consider the phenomenon that occurred at the turn of the century, because the figures are staggering. In the space of a few years, the whole ring of boulevards was built up. The level of crafts was very high. No architect drew windows or doors. The craftsmen had skilled hands and a sense of the style. They had a feel for it and were capable of producing the most complicated details. Details that are endowed with unusual naturalness and lightness. Details are style, though architects may repudiate style. They say that style is like the feather in a lady's cap. Every generation of architects has an illusion of longevity, and I too am prone to saying that my projects will be long-lived, and try to avoid fashion. At the same time, I read in a book that the best architecture is a sign of its time. If architecture has been good in its own time, within the frame of its own style, then it'll be good afterwards too. It also said that if architecture is compared with language, then today it is jargon. Something grabbed in a slapdash way, without any tectonic significance. Were you pleased about the exhibition of designs for the Liepāja concert hall? The works submitted in the concert hall competition are of a high standard. It's been a long time in Riga since you could enter a room to find five good designs. They are professional. I was happy to see that there were two clear tendencies - the approach of Andris Kronbergs, sensitively hiding behind a glass façade, and that of Volker Giencke, with a degree of impertinence and the attraction of the great orange. I can understand the jury's choice, since we want to be noticed. Is the wish to make every new piece of architecture a symbol not harmful? It's understandable in human terms, since, for example, in former times too, churches were built to dominate and were set apart. The church was both a symbol and a dominant feature. A concert hall doesn't really form an organic part of Liepāja, but then neither do sports stadiums. Its always a problem with major projects, they cause a great deal of argument. This we also see in the case of the Latvian National Library. Birkerts is a thinker, but the library is not at all in his style. The project involves a great deal of sentiment and childhood impressions of fairytales. On an everyday level, this problem is seen in the penchant for log cabins. It conveys the appearance of being the right model for life, though the contemporary versions are reminiscent of souvenir kitsch. You tend to say that you feel lonely in professional terms. It happens that somebody asks us to recommend an architect capable of restoring wooden houses, but we can't find one. Of course, there's the AIG company and others, but we differ from the traditional school of restoration. Our projects are based on a strict plan, and we design details - windows, doors, windowsills, skirting boards, floor patterns and railings. The plan and lighting of historic tenements is inadequate. You have to understand that in those days the rules of the game were different, with maidservants, back staircases, and so on. It all has to be put in order so as to suit contemporary needs. If the plan is firm, then the house is stable too. We've introduced the French balcony, which gives the tenements additional light and atmosphere. Our interiors don't have colour, they consist of line. Our houses and our clothes are like that too. Seemingly, it's the same all the time with us, but nevertheless on each project we draw new doors. We have no curved lines or plasticity. What we lay on top of the old is functionalism. I put the space in order, so it can be lived in. | |
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