The context of the seaside resort town is, on the one hand, mountains, and on the other hand, ships. Sochi, however, is a special city, it has been a favorite Soviet resort since Stalin's time, so it also has a third component - the architecture of Soviet Palladianism, which here, by the sea and in the sun, blossomed in a very special way, leaving the gloomy severity of Moscow palazzo hybrids with Roman insula and turned into enlarged, but similar copies of the country palaces of the Italian Renaissance.
The hotel complex of Yuri Vissarionov responds to all three themes dictated by the Sochi environment. Its main building resembles both a ship and a mountain at once: one might think that a square glass tower has sprouted through the earth, lifting layers of rock behind it, interspersed with glass walls and horizontal ribs of ceilings. This is especially noticeable in the lower tiers of the building, where the outlines of the opaque planes are wider, the pattern is freer, and the roofs are planted with grass, interspersed with water spots of pools. Continuing the theme, behind the line of the beach above the sea, an artificial island appears, connected to the coast by a thin isthmus - a nostalgic hint of the Norman mountain of San Michel in miniature. As if, due to tectonic cataclysms, a new mountain rose on the shore, and next to it, an island from the water.
Note that the resulting geological image stems directly from the peculiarities of the technology of modern monolithic construction, which does not require the density of external walls, but makes do with internal supports. Concrete floors can be taken out relatively far, giving them, without any particular problems, almost any outline. Strictly speaking, many modern buildings in the casting process also resemble layered mountains - however, in Yuri Vissarionov's Sochi project, the effect is fixed and played up: if you imagine the view of the building strictly from above, then the smooth contours of concrete ceilings, especially in the lower floors, will look like a drawing of a geographical map …
The power of wild tectonics, however, is tangibly comprehended and cultivated: the island will have a restaurant, lawns are flat, water in heated pools, and the sloping ledges of the middle floors of the hotel are more reminiscent of ship prows than rocky cliffs. The main tower is wrapped in a net of decorative tackle that echoes the working trusses of the cable car linking the hotel and the island. In some places, "tackle" passes through the glass mass of the main skyscraper, stringing large semicircular balconies onto themselves, adding to the "mountain" of lace man-made.
The multilayer tiered composition will take the place of the 70s vertical plate of the Kamelia sanatorium. However, the new building will be noticeably larger and more spacious, it literally merges with the park, becoming a part of the landscaped landscape and at the same time solving the main problem of the luxurious Sochi resort, which is cut off from its beach by a railroad track. The trains will be surrounded by noise-suppressing barriers, the existing under the railway track to the beach will be widened and supplemented with an upper footpath and a funicular. Gyms will occupy an uncomfortable space next to the rails. Thus, trains will be isolated from vacationers "somewhere below", and will turn from an inevitable hindrance into a fun ride.
The second difficulty: one of the buildings of the sanatorium, the classic "Intourist", built in 1935-49. architect A. V. Samoilov, in 2002 recognized as a monument. It consists of a Palladian palace with long wings extended towards the sea, with arched loggias and colonnades, and several small buildings behind it - all together, being assembled at the base of the mountain, can look quite luxurious, although in detail it resembles a little VDNKh. The condition of the building, once one of the best sanatoriums of the Intourist network, is now poor - experts estimate its wear and tear at 70%, which is expressed from the outside in the form of shabby plaster, smudges and the absence of glass. The architects are going to preserve, reconstruct, and add similar buildings with arches and balusters. As a result, a kind of "historical center" will appear next to the futuristic mountain, a small center of "Sochi" classicism - it will be possible to comfortably move from one to another, and the richness of impressions is one of the signs of a pleasant resort.
