- New alliances
Our project is about developing a community of people who are interested in exploring old and creating new ways for retreat, via digital and offline initiative “Sanatorium Premium”.
Eastern bloc countries developed their own vision and infrastructure of care and rest. Previously seen as curiosity, heritage of a bygone era, they are regaining relevance in the conditions of closed borders and rising regulations over body/health.
Existing as an instagram blog, the project is exploring an alternative vision of what care is and how it is integrated into contemporary society. By organizing events, fieldtrips, parties, talks and creating collections of rituals, meals, architectural details, we avoid romantization or exotization of this phenomena and focusing on infrastructure, preservation and new life.
Eventual ambition/aim of the project is to create spatial strategies for neglected infrastructure of care and restart the sanatorium spaces.
Infrastructure of Sanatoriums is developed across Central and Eastern Europe and Middle Asia. This infrastructure is less visible nowadays, it is not advertised but it is still in use. Many sites need repair and investments and, most importantly, a new generation of users.
Today the country borders are closed and a model of global resort isn't working. it's time to regain these landscapes of care back.
Sanatorium is part of an industrial project. It is a place to repair the body of a worker. The rest in sanatoriums was regulated. Daily schedules were defined by specific rituals designed to recover in a most efficient manner and return to the “machine”. Now, in the pandemic world, we are also, in a way, responsible to society for our health. The format of strict, scheduled vacation in these conditions becomes more preferable than hectic and exuberant resorts.
Technology and gadgets are an essential part of the sanatorium project. Different tools were used to repair bodies of workers. Today, our bodies and minds are exploited by a contemporary economical regime, suffering from burn outs and zoom fatigue. Can the tools of care help us in the same way they helped industrial workers of the 20th century?
Fantasies of Ivan Leonidov in Sanatorium in Kislovodsk, rooftop “urban farming” in Pushchino Sanatorium (local vegetables from the greenhouse were served in a hotel restaurant until recently), Neoclassical thermae in Sochi’s Sanatorium Ordzhonikidze - Sanatoriums were once the spaces for an experiment and discovery.
New generations of users were born and raised with the idea about global resort turism. Sanatoriums weren’t part of this idea. Understanding what values sanatorium’s spaces can offer to a younger audience is the key for the future of the project. How can monofunctional space become diverse and interesting?
