Presenting the prize, Yevgeny Ass said that he chose the Skuratov project for the poetry brought to architecture. In modern architecture, according to the expert, there is very little poetry, and the works of Sergei Skuratov significantly stand out against the general background. Indeed, completely different things prevail in it, and Skuratov's buildings do not hide their artistry, attention to plastic, worked out to the smallest detail, such as, for example, gradient transitions in the color of facing bricks, specially calculated on a computer. Or imitation of irregularities in the future cladding, when some bricks are placed a little deeper than others. Or the ability to see graphic beauty in a front-to-back view, which transforms from technical graphics to conceptual sketches of a house in general. This is thought out to the smallest detail, beautiful architecture, architecture-sculpture, and it is especially captivating that the author does not in the least hide his enthusiasm for purely artistic, actually plastic problems, without hiding behind technical, social, economic and other explanations. For example, he determined the height of houses on the basis of purely plastic considerations, and not calculating the ceiling height necessary for elite housing in so many meters.
Now openly declaring one's interest in pure art is bold and unexpected. We asked Sergei Skuratov if he feels himself, as an artist among pragmatists, to some extent an oppositionist, and in response the architect spoke about the difficult process of coming up with special words to agree on "Tessinsky" … A kind of translation, according to the architect's figurative expression, from Russian, beautiful and poetic language into the language of formalized concepts that have a chance to "pass". This is an obligatory ritual, poetry is valued only at competitions, and even then not at all, and the project's journey through poetry authorities cannot stand.
The critically acclaimed "Tessinsky", upon agreement, wanted to be cut in height so that it would not be visible at all from afar, to lead to a common building line. The architect was told that he "hid" a seven-story building in a five-story building (this means that the house is higher than the usual five floors). And in general, what a disgrace, why is the house somehow similar to a factory building of the 19th century, but there is no complete resemblance? Where is the fidelity? Explain! And we can explain it either technically, or - thereby copying the environment. Artistic arguments are not taken into account in our country; an architect seems to be not an artist, but an application to construction. And how does architecture sprout in such conditions?
Amazing, I must say, the desire to preserve context through cutting off the head of everything that sticks out. One gets the impression that in some cases the context is understood as general dullness - the more imperceptible, the more contextual. It is hardly possible to preserve the city in this way - destroying the original buildings with one hand, and forcing them to make dummies with the other.
Skuratov's house is not a dummy at all, it looks not back, but forward, forms a new image of the building for the city center. I must say that both "Butikovsky" and Cooper house do the same, consistently offering beautiful solutions that do not so much "fit" as they comprehend, and while creating something new do not resist tradition, but confidently exist within it. Among the two extremes - denying modernism and counterfeit-contextualism - there is probably a middle way through comprehending the urban fabric, solving the problems of the place, treating them, so to speak. “Tessinsky” does just that, according to Sergey Skuratov’s plan, it should become the “core” of the rehabilitation of its quarter, its transformation into a modern and most importantly beautiful one. Moreover, the treatment is carried out in the way that now, for some reason, neither here nor "there" for some reason no one believes for a long time, according to a country-style architectural recipe, which not everyone uses now, and of those who dare, few admit it. Treatment through beauty.
