Builders have never been so prolific as they are today. And never have there been so many technical and design-related options available to architects. Yet contemporary architecture often creates a sense of unease. In their book, Sergei Tchoban and Wladimir Sedow show how the balance between prominent buildings and the buildings around them in the background has been lost in the modern era. Every building strives to assert itself over others - to drown out its peers. At the same time, contemporary architects are capable of developing "a sense of harmony full of contrasts". They have a wealth of options at their disposal to this end. After prowling through 2,500 years of architectural history, the authors arrive at what makes modern buildings so particular. They show what contemporary architects must consider in order to create buildings with a satisfactory, harmonious appearance in a new way. "Sergei Tchoban and Wladimir Sedow do not write about beauty in this essay - certainly not in the sense of defining the term or putting forth a conceptual history. Rather, they write about the relationship between prominent buildings and the nameless buildings around them - the buildings in the background. Or to put it another way, they write about the relationship between architectural monuments and ordinary buildings." (from the preface by Bernhard Schulz)

The 13th issue of speech: focuses on the subway as an architectural feature and important public space. In the 21st century 'metro' is increasingly perceived as synonymous with 'megalopolis'. However, in this issue of speech: the metro is treated as a distinctive architectural type and a unique public space whose importance is growing with every year. The modern metro has ceased to be simply a means of getting to where you need to be by the shortest route; more than any other kind of public transport, it today determines the architectural image of large cities and the comfort of their urban environment. The layout and design of modern stations and entrance halls, the possibility of incorporating the widest range of functions into transport infrastructure, and the use of innovative technologies and materials are just some of the aspects which are examined under the heading of 'metro architecture'. speech: 13 looks at the best metro stations that have been built in various corners of the world over the last three years - from Rio de Janeiro and Chicago to Dubai and Singapore, with numerous stops in Europe along the way. Text in English and Russian.

Russian architect and draughtsman Sergei Tchoban has always striven to understand the laws which govern the development of cities such as his native St Petersburg and the great prototypes in whose image it was created. But is it possible to preserve such cities' outstanding quality today? Can we pursue this quality now, at the current stage of development of architecture? This catalogue poses these central questions. It accompanies an exhibition of Tchoban's work at the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica in Rome, scheduled to take place from October 2020 to January 2021. It also marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Tschoban inserts emphatically futuristic structures into the Italian artist's eighteenth-century Roman street scenes. Do such works constitute ruined masterpieces or imprints of the future? Is harmony being destroyed or is a fundamentally new type of harmony being created? Tchoban believes that a similar transformation of the European city has been happening for at least a century and that society must finally work out how to relate to this process. Essentially, Piranesi's true legacy is a call to an honest conversation regarding the layers and parts that constitute the European city as both a highly important piece of our heritage and a space for future development.