Vladimir Orlov - in the position of an internal photo observer
The postmodern culture of recent decades could not help but cast a glimpse into the perception of the urban environment - both by a professional and by “a man from the street”. In particular, this can be traced on the material of the evolution of urban photography: ironically, and sometimes even a mockingbird, is added to the academically serious photographic fixation, offhand shooting and nostalgic tinted photo guide. Mayakovsky Square. Photo 2004. Construction of Leninsky Prospekt. Photo 2002
However, carnivalization of consciousness is not the only prerequisite for the spread of the "Gegovian" view of the city and the metamorphoses it undergoes. There are also objective circumstances related to increasing contrast and antinomy of the urban environment - especially the modern metropolis, where the incompatible coexists side by side: extravagant architectural gestures and “mass-type”, architectural monuments and consumer goods, corporate-privatized urban spaces and massive domesticated territories, natural-artificial landscape inclusions and deprived areas of urban slums, the vast monumental scale sculpture and unbridled advertising. Gagarin Square. View from the Third Ring Road. Photo 2002
For Moscow, where different-time strata, sacred and profane, high and low, one's own and another's, mix up in a historical whirlpool, this is especially typical. The building of the library library Lenin - through the wattle of the food court. This is not the first photo of 2000 by V. Orlov among the guests of our magazine - as an architect and as a photographer. This time we selected both well-known and new photographs for the ArchiGag column, in which a good-natured smile often gives way to a sarcastic grin. However, the author never crosses the line separating the internal and external observer.
It is curious that the indirect criticism contained in his photographs happens to achieve its goal - for example, the building that was occupied by the Gosstroy Licensing Center in Zaryadye has already taken a more noble form ...
Gosstroy RF Licensing Center in Zaryadye. Photo 2001. Magazine: Architectural Gazette