INSIDE THE ACADEMY
I made a 32-page zine about the Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg. It is for young art and architecture students. The zine shows architecture as a form of art: the building, its plan and its models.
The institution and the zine
The Academy of Arts stands on the Neva, on Vasilievsky Island. It was built in the 1760s. Inside is the Research Museum: one of the oldest art museums in Russia, founded together with the Academy as a collection for its students.
The zine. The cover shows the bell tower of the Smolny Convent model, one of the treasures of the museum.
All 32 pages. One grid, one typeface and one red colour across the whole zine.
WHY THIS BUILDING?
I chose this museum for three reasons. Many people pass it, but few go in. Inside, buildings stand on tables. And some of these buildings were never built at all.
Many people walk past the Academy every day, but very few go inside. The first question of the zine is also its reason: «Have you ever been inside?»
From the river the building looks like a long classical palace. But the plan hides a surprise: a round courtyard inside a square.
Inside, buildings stand on tables. These are models, made before the real buildings existed. As an architect, I wanted to show them as works of art.
Some buildings exist only as models. The bell tower of the Smolny Convent was planned at 160 metres but never built. It is here, on a table, complete.
HOW I MADE IT?
I followed the course step by step: brief, content, flatplan, typography and grid, preview, feedback and print.
The page is 135 × 270 mm, a proportion of 1: 2, tall like the tower. Open, the spread is a square, and it fits on one A3 sheet. After feedback I kept the 1: 2 proportion when I made the zine smaller.
The plan of the building is the structure of the zine. The reader walks around the ring, page by page.
One monospace typeface for all text, and an 8-column grid. Text on the left, images on the right.
Six moments, from the first model in 1750 to the museum today. The images are tall and narrow, like the page.
The collection: a small library of buildings.
Three full-page photos with no text: the river, the models hall and the painted dome. Quiet pages make the reader slow down.
Two scales: the tower next to the city, and the model next to a visitor.
