Architecture and the architect

Exercise 7. Translate from Russian into English using a dictionary.

Exercise 6. Translate this short text from English into Russian. (Back translation).

New appropriations of metal continue to evolve. A few decades ago, titanium was considered to be a week and brittle material only fit for creating pigments in paints. Yet rolled into very thin sheets, its light weight and resistance to corrosion makes it an excellent cladding and roofing material. The new Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao by Frank Gehry (1997) is clad in an extraordinary shimmering skin of very thin titanium scales.

1) Сами галереи и лестничные подходы к ним являются чудом здания.

2) Римляне первыми использовали металл в качестве строительного материала.

3) Хагия София первоначально имела свинцовую крышу, которая сохранялась в течение 1400 лет.

4) Древние экспериментировали со сплавами, смешивая медь с оловом, для того, чтобы получить новый металл – бронзу.

5) Чугун, величайший материал Промышленной Революции, революционизировал Викторианские здания (здания эпохи королевы Виктории).

6) В 1851 году хрустальный дворец Пакстона отмечал (marked) определенный момент в истории металла и архитектуры.

7) Союз (simbiosis) между металлом и архитектурой развивался в течение многих столетий.

8) Использование металлов так же старо, как и человеческая цивилизация.

Exercise 8. Read and translate without a dictionary the following:

Text 5B:

Architecture is the art and science of designing and building structures, or ensembles according to aesthetic and functional criteria. Structures built in accordance with such principles are also architecture.

The architect is a person trained and experienced in the design of buildings and the coordination and supervision of all aspects of the construction of buildings, when the architect designs a structure, he uses the cumulative knowledge of centuries. Working to the architect’s design are many consultant experts – structural engineers, services engineers and other sub-constructed specialists.

Town planning or urbanism is the preparation of plans for the regulated growth and improvement of towns, or the organization of land and building for group living. It is a cooperative process in which architects, economists, surveyors or topographers and other specialists take part. In town panning there are different street patterns: gridiron, radial, ring and functional (or organic).

According to the International Union of Architects (=IUA or UIA), at present there are 800,000 fully qualified architects per two or three thousand people. In the developing countries there is only one architect per 500,000 or one million people.

The architect’s sphere of knowledge is constantly expanding. He has to combine art, advanced technology, science, and economics in his work.

The main problem facing the architect today is to avoid any conflict with nature and the landmarks of by-gone days.

Words to the text:

to face – стоять перед лицом; облицовывать

group living – жизнедеятельность коллектива;

gridiron – гридерон, шахматно-прямоугольная (модульная) планировка улиц

landmark – архитектурный памятник

by-gone days – ушедшие эпохи

according to = to accordance with = in keeping with – согласно, в соответствии

order – ордер, порядок

pattern – образец, рисунок, узор, схема

services engineers – инженеры по водо-, газо-, тепло- и электроснабжению

supervision – наблюдение

* * *

2. HOTEL MOSKVA: TO BLAST OR NOT TO BLAST?

The Moscow government’s decision to have the Hotel Moskva demolished and a five-star hotel built in its place, allegedly recreating the original design of architect Shusev is still in the center of fierce controversy. As MN has found out one rescue project is proposed by V.Khazanova, a renowned art historian and an expert in Soviet architecture. She believes that the Moskva is a symbol of the metropolis and the entire Soviet culture of the 1930s. The building must be preserved regardless of the current vision of the age it belongs to. Ms Khazanova is convinced that the hotel ought to be state-protected as a “federal landmark” and put into mothballs until such time as a project of expert restoration is available. Involved in the work on the project should be the most authoritative specialists. Independent experts, for their part, will give their ipinion on the actual cost of the Hotel Moskva rebuilding and restoration.

Ms Khazanova’s view is shared by the experts at the Federal Research and Methodology Coucil for Cultural Heritage Protection under RF Cultural Ministry. Its Monument Registration Unit has prepared the necessary documents to request the Government of Russia’s permission to declare the Moskva a national landmark. Under the Immovable Monuments Act, the matter is within the province of the federal authorities, so the final say will be theirs.

Incidentally, the Moscow Cultural and Historical Monuments Protection Board included the hotel in the list of newly discovered monuments over a decade ago. The custodians of mentropo;itan antiquities have thrice asked the city authorities to recognize it as a local rarity. But Moscow never acknowledged its namesake as an asset.

Words to the text:

blast – взрывать

allegedly - будто бы, якобы

fierce – жестокий

rescue project – спасительный проект

renowned = famous

regardless – не взирая на, не считаясь (с к/л)

moth – моль

mothball – нафталиновый шарик

authoritative – авторитетный, внушительный

the custodians – хранители музея, сторожа

assets – активы, авуары, имущество

antiquity – древность

namesake – тезка

Exercise 9. Word control:

ancestor, tin, mercury, lead, precious, brass, patina, spire, weather (n, v), pre-patination, over-, overhang, bring about, ancient, survive (v), complexity, enliven (v), instant, maturity, shelter (n, v), cast iron, skeletal, inhibition, inhibit (v), repetition, mark (v), employ (v), mould (v), prefabricate (v), sustain (v), explore(v), lustrous, trabeat, seminal, taste (n, v), clumsy, vulgar, stainless, sleek, pinnacle, transfer (v), refinement, internal, upwards, downwards, loadbearing wall.

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