Relentless Beliefs: ZVON Collective's Maria Kremer on Politics and Architecture, and Her Search for Beauty
By Julia Gamolina
Maria Kremer studied architecture the Technical University of Munich, Germany and Superior Technical School of Architecture Madrid, Spain. Previously she has been working in various architectural offices in Germany, including Wörner und Partner, Frankfurt am Main, AFF Archikten, Berlin and Tochtermann Wündrich Architekten in Munich.
At the present, Maria is involved with interdisciplinary architectural projects, collaborating with Alexander Brodsky and Strelka Institute in Moscow as well as Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. Her work has been exhibited in Shchusev State Museum of Architecture (Moscow), 2017, at the Tbilisi Architecture Biennial 2018 and at the virtual reality art gallery, Architectural Association London (AA Earth Gallery, 2020). In 2020 she founded a currently emerging architecture and art collective ZVON. In her interview with Julia, Maria talks about questioning the profession of architecture as it is, advising young architects to be as adaptable as possible and to anticipate change.
JG: How did your interest in architecture first develop? What did you learn about yourself in studying it?
MK: When I was nineteen years old, a sudden thought came up – “I want to do Architecture!” I just went for it. My first years of studies were like diving – with my eyes closed - into a vast ocean full of alien creatures, exotic senses and alluring instant enlightenments. Back then I learnt to respond to my intuition and to be adamant — relentless, even — in my beliefs.
I hated everything connected with digital representation of architecture, was working a lot with handmade models and explored my hands as a tool to understand architectural matter. So for the first seven years in architecture, I focused on working with my hands. I used to carve wooden Japanese joints, polished jewelry, and made sculptures out of clay.
Habitat 1st for the Tbilisi Architectural Biennial, 2018. Photography by Georgi Chalauri
Stones of Vyborg, Jhoeko.
How did you get your start in the field?
By knocking on doors. After my studies in Munich I was offered to take a full time job as an architect, where I supposed to design quite luxury housing for a higher middle class of Bavaria. But, my hands couldn’t quite allow me to proceed with such a project – so I took a risk of coming back to my home city, Moscow, and started working in the office of Alexander Brodsky in 2016.
Why was that more appealing to you?
After having obtained my master degree in architecture at the TUM in June of 2016, I believed that the profession of an architect starts with being an apprentice, in the sense of a European medieval journeyman — in my case a “journeywoman” — who travels to the workshop of a master and starts practicing architecture by living and embracing a certain ideology, doing small architectural assignments. The office of Alexander Brodsky in Moscow became such a place for me.
“When talking about ‘career’, I imagine a straight forward pathway...being an intern or employee at a world famous architecture office, so that eventually she can open up her own studio. But such an approach of career and success seems to me too obvious, and hence, not attractive.”
You focus quite a bit on exploratory work, and research. Tell me a little about that.
Whilst working as an architect in Moscow, I developed an interest in temporary structures and began to express my thoughts through outdoor installations, entitling them as “urban insets”. The first statement was “Coulisse”, as part of a group exhibition, “Portal Zaryadye” at Shchusev Museum of Architecture. Coulisse was built in the courtyard of the museum cluster and reflected on a significant change in the urban landscape of Moscow. This installation expressed my perception of a freshly built park Zaryadye (a disputed project by Diller Scorfidio and Renfro) in front of the Kremlin. Coulisse — also a scaffolding structure — was both a metaphor for a social, architectural and urban reset, I would even say a metaphor for a strong connection between politics and architecture, which one can trace back examining the history of the place where park Zaryadye was built.
In 2018 I could built another urban inset – “Bridge Habitat” as part of the 1st Tbilisi Architecture Biennial with the topic “Buildings are not enough”. The installation explored informality and emphasized the beauty of vernacular architecture by incorporating a new living unit within the bridge of Gldani (suburbs of Tbilisi). It told a story of an informal private structure and created a semi-public situation anchored inside a transitional space of the bridge.
Coulisse installation, 2018, Moscow.
Palazzo Navale Competition entry, 2020 by the ZVON Collective.
In 2019 I was invited to make an installation and stage design for an open air opera “Imprints”, which was set in the art park Nikola-Lenivets. Existing Pavilion of Cones and its surroundings - the field and the forest - dealt as setting for the production. The project resulted in the total work of art, based on the principles of inclusive theatre. The opera took place around the pavilion, in the adjacent forest and the final act was set inside the pavilion, where original excavated objects from GULAG camps were dispersed.
These projects rotated around certain topics and themes which I now call “grey zones” – a grey zone can be more a physical construct, like an architectural morphology (a scaffolding structure, a vernacular extension). But could equally be a mental construct, such as a split identity of a place - a state of being detached or at odds with the dominant culture. Awareness of grey zones as a leitmotif in my practice was a significant moment in my artistic path as I see it now.
Where are you in your career today?
I don’t really care much about career – it is hard to say. Muddy artistic pathways and constant search of beauty interest me more.
How do you search for beauty? What do you do to exercise your creativity, find inspiration, all that?
When talking about “career”, I imagine a straight forward pathway, which should lead a successful architect from the studies onwards - being an intern or employee at a world famous architecture office, so that eventually she can open up her own studio. But such an approach of career and success seems to me too obvious, and hence, not attractive. That is why I define my choices as "muddy artistic pathways" - it is a constant pendulum swing between doubts and questioning — questioning myself, social systems, established rules, rituals and concepts — and enlightening moments of comprehension.
Thus, my practice is defined by collaboration with the experts from other disciplines - artists, designers, musicians - and experiment in form of temporary installations, artistic contributions, development of teaching concepts and writing. Recently, I founded an international ZVON collective, based in Moscow and Munich, for emerging architects. We do projects in Vienna, Saint Petersburg, Moscow and Rotterdam. Such a transnational and transdisciplinary way of thinking reflects contemporality, as I perceive it, and is a constant source of inspiration.
“...a transnational and transdisciplinary way of thinking reflects contemporality, as I perceive it, and is a constant source of inspiration.”
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges?
My biggest challenge remains to wake up at 7am to attend an 8:45am lecture at the Technical University of Munich. I am notoriously too late.
[Laughs] I can certainly relate. What have been the highlights?
Every single time my idea – the image inside my head – becomes a physical form and a physical reality – is a highlight. However, one of the most important highlights was definitely during my studies in Spain – as I entered the interior of the mosque of Córdoba.
Who are you admiring right now and why?
People living on the border between India and Nepal and working on the tea plantations – I admire minorities of the 21st century able to live and thrive with minimal comfort.
What is the impact you’d like to have in the world?
To question, criticize, and challenge the established routines, schemes of behaviour, and patterns of reflection and perception.
“Earth in Times of Pandemics”, exhibited at the AA Virtual Gallery, 2020.
Maria portrait.
Are there any particular ones that need questioning right now?
The very idea of an architect as a profession should be questioned. Being stuck in the concept of Renaissance, the definition of an architect as a profession is outdated, and so are our daily routines as architects. With my colleague and member of ZVON Collective from Munich, Meruert Zharekesheva, we are investigating this topic in form of an essay. We question architectural practices, their structure, and their relationships with clients. Moreover we see ourselves responsible for the climate change as being part of the building industry — so we also appeal to reconsider the architects' mentality of success, which is still mostly linked with the ambition to build more and bigger buildings, something that is supported by the media industry, by the way.
A different way to question and criticize the established order of things is definitely through an art practice. Through my artistic contributions I strive to open up a discourse, and highlight the social issues which are not directly visible, and that lack discussion or attention. So my recent artistic work - Stones of Vyborg- speaks about collective memory of the region on the Russian-Finnish boarder, where the memories of the past were drastically manipulated and distorted during the Soviet period — as Finnish people were relocated from this region — and also afterwards, which is also reflected in local architecture.
What is your core mission?
To express my idea of Beauty.
“The very idea of an architect as a profession should be questioned. Being stuck in the concept of Renaissance, the definition of an architect as a profession is outdated, and so are our daily routines as architects....we also appeal to reconsider the architects’ mentality of success, which is still mostly linked with the ambition to build more and bigger buildings, something that is supported by the media industry, by the way.”
What is your idea of beauty? How do you express it?
Beauty is a composite concept based on intuition, ideology, emotions, and zeitgeist. Beauty, as I understand it, is a resonance of all these components between each other and within the percipient. Beauty operates parallel on two levels - universal and subjective. Universality makes it tangible for everyone, subjectivity reflects the personality of the author. So, my idea of beauty is highly bonded with my origins and experience, which I constantly investigate and question at the same time.
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career?
Being as adaptive to the cultural and social changes and demands as possible. Our world is changing so rapidly, that it’s really a challenge for the young generations of architects not only to react, but also anticipate those social changes in form of envisioned future scenarios of our co-existence. I see a great potential, for example in temporary architecture, as a catalyst of experiment and source for inspiration. Right now I am teaching environmental design at the HSE Art and Design School in Moscow, where students explore the potential of temporary structures as an efficient medium to express their visions and criticize existing patterns of co-living.
Would your advice be any different for women?
Recently I was having a conversation with a male colleague from London, and I’ll never forget his remark — “Honestly, the whole world is still patriarchal!”
My advice is to strictly ignore such comments wherever you hear them…and just focus on doing a damn good job!