The business center "Depo No. 1" is located in depth from the red line of the Obvodny Canal, although it is visible from the side of the embankment. Formally, this is a reconstruction. The two buildings of the office center were designed within the old two-story brick buildings of the 19th century, which historically belonged to the railway department. They did not have the status of monuments, they were repeatedly altered, distorted and came to almost complete destruction in more than a century and a half. On the neighboring site there is just a monument - the Round Depot of the Nikolaev railway (architect R. Zhelyazevich, 1847) - one of the first in Russia. The office center was named after him. Since it was impossible to use the old two-storey buildings with arched windows in the new building due to poor preservation, Artem Nikiforov found an artistic solution to perpetuate the memory of the past. Everything that was old buildings is marked with patterned cast-iron panels framing the arched windows of the first and second floors, and on the second floor these are windows of a small, ancient scale. And the "new", third and fourth, upper floors are designed in the "loft" style, with huge square windows. And it looks natural, because there is another structure, more traditional, and one shines through the other. But more on that later.
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zooming 1/5 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 2/5 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 3/5 Business Center Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 4/5 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 5/5 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
There was a void between the parallel historical buildings, and there a third building appeared, which both functionally and in style differs from regular offices with a strict rhythm of windows. There is a ceremonial foyer-atrium and a conference hall (the hall was actually conceived as a concert hall). There Artyom Nikiforov allowed himself more freedom and went beyond the industrial style and reconstruction logic: he designed a curved "curtain wall" four stories high, attracting attention with a beautiful texture (brick, iridescent in many shades, laid at 45 degrees). The curtain wall was conceived for a dramatic effect: it is like a theater curtain, which parted at the bottom of the main entrance, and a person enters the bright, high space of the atrium with a glass roof and a sparkling white floor. In part, this is a brutalist technique - to push the tectonics of a solid wall without windows, so that the perceiver would feel the weight of the material, but Artyom denies this source of inspiration.
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zooming 1/9 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 2/9 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 3/9 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 4/9 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 5/9 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 6/9 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 7/9 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 8/9 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 9/9 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
Artem Nikiforov applies the techniques of traditional architecture delicately and without “pressing the pedal”. He is not afraid of them, but he does not absolutize them either. For example, in the first sketches, the architect drew pitched roofs, and the whole image was closer to the 19th century. But then, due to the helipad that arose in the task, the roofs became flat, and the style also shifted to a more industrial, loft-like.
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zooming 1/3 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 2/3 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 3/3 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
Brick walls are richly detailed, multi-layered surfaces built on a combination of two shades of brick and cast iron bas-reliefs. The deepest layer of the wall is a black cast-iron backing, a kind of “linen”, the next one is like the basic “clothes” of a building made of dark bricks, and on top of it there is a ceremonial red brick. In the atrium, the idea of layers is continued. It was planned to be more complex, with brick arcades, but what was built, the author approved. Working with layers, typical of Artem Nikiforov and in other works, unobtrusively means that this is architecture of the XXI century.
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zooming 1/6 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 2/6 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 3/6 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 4/6 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 5/6 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 6/6 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
The cast-iron bas-reliefs framing the arched windows on the first and second floors are based on sketches by Artyom Nikiforov and are inspired by Louis Sullivan's ornaments. Technical motives like gears and springs are mixed with natural ones like thistle leaves. In the early sketches for this project, the theme developed in more detail: the metal railings of the stairs in the atrium also varied the motives of the gears, and the panel on the wall showed the wheels of a steam locomotive and fragile lilies: the energy of technology and the fragility of beauty.
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zooming Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
Compared to Sullivan, whose ornament in the famous Guaranty Building crawls along the facade, destroying the shape and crawling along the cornices to the roof, Artyom Nikiforov's ornament occupies a more traditional place in the structure of the facade. Sullivan was Nietzschean, his ornament, climbing over the cornice, embodies the will to power. Artem Nikiforov's ornament is tectonic, corresponds to the articulations of the arches, marks their tympans and heels. At the same time, this is such an attentive reflection on the topic of what is dear to us in industrial architecture, what is beautiful about it.
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zooming 1/7 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 2/7 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 3/7 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 4/7 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 5/7 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 6/7 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 7/7 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
The quality of craftsmanship and construction is amazing. The customer, Larisa Karaban, who acted as both a developer and a contractor, was vitally interested in quality. So the architect was lucky. This also applies to the various methods of brickwork, and bas-reliefs cast in cast iron according to specially made models, ideally close to the author's sketches. The union of architecture with art makes the building unique. The synthesis of an architect and an artist represented by Artem Nikiforov, a graduate of the Art and Industrial Academy named after V. I. Stieglitz, too, pleases (by the way, Sullivan also studied drawing at Ecole de Beaux-Arts in Paris).
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zooming 1/4 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 2/4 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 3/4 Business Center Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 4/4 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
In addition to beauty and craftsmanship, an important structural role of cast iron panels is that, together with black window frames, they unite the second, "old", and third, "industrial" floors, creating a common basis for a conventional mezzanine. This separation is supported by brick edging. The upper floor contains a half-hidden-half-manifested gallery: half-columns recessed into the wall, flanking the windows. This technique gives the facade a traditional three-part structure: bottom, middle and top - which holds the tiers together with a diverse rhythm.
The centers of most of the facades are highlighted - there is a soft, but hierarchy in the form. In the center of one of the facades on the fourth floor, there is a terrace with a black metal colonnade and access to an exploited roof. The center of the facade, overlooking the Obvodny Canal embankment, is also marked with a black panel made of metal tubes, right behind it is a conference room, the panel corresponds to it. In another office building, the façade in the center is crowned with a round clock in a square window - the rose of a Gothic cathedral, and that's all. And, perhaps, due to this, the square - cozy, European, chamber - also begins to seem like a cathedral. Diagonal paving lines lead directly to the entrance to the curtain wall. Which is located, naturally, in the center of the facade.
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zooming 1/4 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 2/4 BC Depot # 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 3/4 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
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zooming 4/4 Business Center Depot No. 1 Courtesy of Artyom Nikiforov
The industrial style can be very receptive to both the past and the present, and is certainly appropriate in a historic city. This is happening in historical Petersburg, where it is not easy to build something new. In this case, Artem Nikiforov reproduced the scale of the surrounding buildings and the rhythm of the historical building in the window divisions and outline. He created a rich cut-off surface of the facade, equal to the historical one. The old and the new in the building are marked, but this is not a contrasting comparison, as required by the Venice Charter (when the old order facade is one thing, and the glass is another), but a delicate continuation or overlay. There is a distance in relation to the past, but not ironic, but respectful. The form as a whole is perceived as organic, it all consists of one "substance", the brick gives it man-madeness. Thanks to the order and the traditional structure, the shape is comfortable for human perception. It would be worth considering this experience and, possibly, continuing it.
