The urban space in the area of Nizhnyaya Krasnoselskaya Street now looks rather sad. This is where the conventionally cultural area of the German Sloboda, adjacent to Baumanka, ends, and a rather dull mixture of industrial and residential buildings begins, stretching to Three stations. The border between them is marked by the bright turquoise temple of the Epiphany in Yelokhovo, most Muscovites are known for the fact that in Soviet times it was a cathedral - the main patriarchal cathedral, and for guides and their listeners it is wonderful because in the wooden church that once was in its place was baptized newborn Sasha Pushkin. "Behind the back" of the swaggeringly decorated cathedral covered with columns, the Nizhnyaya Krasnoselskaya street leading to the train stations, if not specifically looked for, is somehow not particularly noticeable: sharp breaks in the "red line", two residential brick houses - Khrushchev's, followed by Brezhnev's, sloppy buildings 70s buildings of the plant of calculating and analytical machines. Between these, in general, little notable objects, the office building of Alexei Bavykin is built in.
Considering the project, one cannot fail to notice several features of the future construction atypical for modern Moscow. First of all, the building surprisingly manages to spread its charm to the entire nearest block, without going beyond the physical boundaries of the allotted area. It is not striking - but decorates, and I want to say - heals this uncomfortable place, instilling in it an unobtrusive intrigue, implicated in the relationship of the new building to the surrounding houses.
The house expresses judgments about neighboring buildings very clearly with the help of its own, architectural means. It is fenced off from the plant with a metallized "shield" - the illusion of a galvanized sheet that envelopes the house from the rear side and embraces its main volume with a visor hanging from above, created with the help of facade panels imitating the steel sheen. The building, on the contrary, "grows" to the nearest residential building with a smooth stone arc - looking from the side you might think that it will rely on a "neighbor" who has turned up by the way. However, according to modern standards, such a technique is impossible, therefore, says Alexei Bavykin, the five floors adjacent to the residential building are a hinged console that completely belongs to the structure of the new building. The original solution made it possible to achieve a lot at once, giving the customers additional office space, the city - the passage to the courtyard required by the standards, and the street was given integrity and even some harmony.
The fact is that the wide arc of the main, fine-looking "stone" facade overlooking Nizhnyaya Krasnoselskaya solves several problems at once. It "splices" the red line of the street, smoothly connecting two neighboring buildings and at the same time - creating an illusory bend in the trajectory; with its appearance, several scattered boxes standing in the neighborhood turn into a meaningful row, which is recognized as a sign of urban comfort, characteristic of the center and lost on the outskirts. If you take a broader look, this same arc of the facade becomes an exquisite "curtain" against the background of the Yelokhovsky temple, building around it a "noble", meaningful space, recalling the circumference of fences and semicircles of baroque staircases of Yauz palaces, the remains of which live out their days nearby.
By the way, note that the new building is being built on the site of a two-story house, now overlooking the red line of the street - in memory of it, a brick semicircular arch of the entrance was brought here, symbolically marking the place of its predecessor. Behind the arch there is a lawn-front garden with three trees, a path under a glass canopy: a fragment of a furnished space that belongs to both the city and the house.
It turns out that the house not only reflects the main historical conflict of the quarter, but lives on it, plunges into it and emerges, armed with its own solution to the local urban planning problem. It splices not only a gap in the street line, but visually unites two dissimilar "matters" - the "stone" part passes through the "metal", grows out of it as a series of rectangular balconies, resembling the joint of two parts made at the factory, very different, but precisely fitted one to another. All together, they unobtrusively mend the city fabric, make a small "plastic surgery" in a nondescript street: here, there, add - and look, already pretty.
