When Wolf Prix received a call from the Ukrainian embassy a year and a half ago, the head of the Vienna-based architects’ office Coop Himmel(b)lau was given the prospect of imminent ruin. Because of a controversial construction project in Sevastopol. “You’re not allowed to build that,” they said, “otherwise…” – “Otherwise what?” Prix asked himself that. He doesn’t like being threatened. Today the construction is in progress. The implementation plan is complete. The opera becomes a reality in Sevastopol, “with and without Coop Himmelb(l)au,” as Prix notes.
Sevastopol is the largest city on Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. It was annexed by Russian occupiers in violation of international law in 2014. It is also one of the motives behind the new war. It’s not just a site and building site. It’s political terrain. Putin wants an opera there. Incidentally, this is not uncommon in the history of architecture: conquerors often build spaces of culture into their conquests. Presumably in the hope that, against the background of a cultural temple, it would be easier to forget the crime of realpolitik.
That’s always a mistake. At least since Hitler wanted to turn Berlin into Germania, we know that there is always something political in architecture. A rose is a rose, and building for despots is building for despots. Except that despots, as in the case of Putin, can also become war criminals. Like right now.
If Prix does not immediately withdraw his design for the multi-genre building (opera, theater and ballet) in the service of the Russian occupying forces in Crimea, the message said on the phone at the time, the Viennese architectural office will soon be finished. As a precaution, 79-year-old Prix was immediately declared an undesirable person in Ukraine. The assets were frozen. However, Prix has no assets, at least not in Ukraine.
An opera is not barracks, he says himself
Prix tells it in the spiteful and sensationally capable of sarcasm Karl Kraus tone, which makes him a particularly stimulating and particularly complicated conversation partner. In principle, every sentence by him offers as many changes of perspective as the spatially wondrous Coop architectures that are known all over the world. One of the office’s mottos is: Architecture must burn. Against the background of war, this is not a happy quote. However, Peace! is from the 1960s.
Then there’s an irritated silence on the line, and you’re afraid that the “design principal” at Coop Himmelb(l)au will throw a tantrum and hang up. Which Prix, a polite person, of course doesn’t do, but in the following the words “hypocrisy” and “hypocrisy” can be heard. Finally, Prix was asked if he would not like to distance himself from the opera in Sevastopol as soon as possible. Or from Putin.
Prix says he’s not building barracks, but an opera – and cultural projects are not subject to the embargo regulations. And the morals? In view of the fact that the corporations are making deals with all sorts of villains, Prix finds this at least ambiguous. On a global scale. And with a look at Germany’s history of understanding Putin, which currently can’t be blue-yellow enough, at least gives you something to think about.
Valery Gergiev became Just fired as head of the Munich Philharmonic by the mayor, because he did not comply with the demand for distancing. “Are you distancing yourself?” someone asks Prix, now a bit obtrusively, on the phone. A sigh is heard. That applies to a morality with a false bottom.