This is a settlement project consisting of four private houses of 2000 square meters each. The scale of one such building is compatible with the manor house of a noble estate of the period between the "decree on the liberty of the nobility" and the beginning of Russian capitalism, which destroyed this way of life. However, the manor house of classicism was the unconditional center of the ensemble, in other words, it was alone. Modern practice requires that there be several houses, even large ones - they receive a common fence, security, communications, and construction becomes profitable. In this case, a specific architectural task arises to unite four buildings, the meaning of each of which, by definition, is to be the absolute leader of the ensemble. It is akin to the well-known anecdote about the fact that if the artists are ordered: "pay in order", then it will turn out like this - "first, first, first …".
Ilya Utkin sees his task in reconciling the four "proud egoists", and even calls the main street of the settlement "Alley of Concord", especially emphasizing that this refers primarily to architecture, built not on contrast, but on the reconciliation of forms. The houses here are like brothers, similar, but slightly different individuals.
Genetic similarity is achieved by the same compositional scheme: relatively speaking, each of the brothers has "two arms, two legs." The common ancestor must be recognized as a "Palladian" symmetrical rectangular volume with a projection of the central portico from a Russian (or English) estate. The hallmark of youth is the long indoor pool, the product of modern comfort requirements, asymmetrically adjacent on the opposite side. The "brothers" are deployed on their sites at different angles that are multiples of 90 degrees, which hints at different psychotypes: two conservatives go out onto the main alley with centered palace facades and gables, the other two are more eccentric, they stood with their ends, turning their serious faces to the fence, where only household members will see them. There are porticoes at the ends, too, but the pediment is replaced by a hip roof slope, as if it tilted back, and the columns only support a minimal cornice. The houses alternate in a checkerboard pattern, so that first we see a conservative on the left, an eccentric on the right, and then vice versa.
All porticoes are different - a whole bush of variations, there are Palladian "in the spirit of Quarenghi", next to it are balconies on rusticated supports with flowerpots, which with reservations can be imagined in an eclectic mansion, and even columns built into the stained glass window of a two-story window, one of the neoclassical techniques of the early 20th century … The quotes, however, are not literal, but rather typological. They are united by common proportions, sizes, modulus and author's style. The most noticeable features of which here are the deep extensions of the columns and pillars, forming spacious terraces, a rare love for sculpture in our time and the accentuated laconicism of smooth walls where there are no porticos.
Another author's feature is a downright classicist attention to nature, which here acts as the only environment and context. The main alley goes from the east, where the entrance is located, almost exactly to the west - there will be a round gazebo on the dais to watch the sunsets. Accordingly, the promenade will have its own southern, sunlit, and shaded north side. What influenced the front facades, decided in a certain sense "by contradiction": the mossy quadras of the "wild" rust on the right will be illuminated by the sun, and the round order, at the same time more magnificent and "correct", went to the northern porticoes, as if compensating for the shady position - or counting on a more subtle perception without sharp changes in light and shade.
The settlement will be located in a bend of a small river on a hill supported by a supporting wall entwined with plants. The author's name - "Acropolis", possibly comes from the combination of this wall, many times reduced wall of the Greek temple mountain, and the echoes of asymmetric houses with the volumetric composition of the famous Erechtheion. Or, as the architect adds, from associations with the Greek polis, where, behind a high wall, fenced off from the outside world, "all are equal" and their inner harmony and brotherhood are born. On the other hand, it is well known that Palladianism, having donated porticoes borrowed from the pagan gods to human palaces, turned them from a castle into a half-temple. The ensemble of several temples is the Acropolis, so the name was found exactly. In any case, it must be admitted that among modern palace settlements this is a rare example of a "pondering" about his historical roots, plastic prototypes and the relationship between houses.
