As you know, the competition was held by the Office of the President among Russian architects, in parallel with another competition in which foreigners participated. We have already written about this, to put it mildly, unusual situation for an architectural competition - however, I would like to emphasize that we have before us the results of the first competition of a very high, relatively speaking, “federal” level.
The new building of the congress center should be located to the east of the Konstantinovsky Palace, to the west of the Makarov Academy, and its section is separated from the coast of the Gulf of Finland by the so-called. Consular village - rows of identical palace-type cottages built by the architect E. Yu. Merkuriev in 2003. In total, a rather variegated environment appears - on the one hand, a monument of the 18th-19th centuries, but not classicism, but baroque, on the other, modernist buildings of the Academy, around a park, partly French, partly just greenery. In the distance - water, but in front of it - rows of overgrown cottages, with which you also need to somehow architecturally "bow" - what can you do, such is the task!
In response to the difficult conditions in the project of Dmitry Alexandrov's workshop, a kind of contextual solution emerged, which could be called “two-part”. Since the immediate historical environment is colorful, the authors turned to the history of St. Petersburg in a broad sense and recalled the Peter's bastions. Indeed, a bastion for the 18th century is a purely functional thing; the bastion has no chance of plastically competing with a baroque palace. On the other hand, for us now this topic is very romantic, for it reminds of Peter's achievements in the spirit of the various films seen by everyone. In addition, a bastion is, by definition, an earthen structure and it is very logical to bury it in the ground, and this move already leads us to the second part of the idea - natural. The bastion is not simple, but green. The latter can mean either that the structure is ancient and overgrown with grass on its own, or, on the contrary, it is modern, environmentally friendly and inconspicuous, does not spoil the precious Strelna landscape. Note that both remarks are true. The moss-covered "Petrovsky" bastion on the plain in front of the Gulf of Finland - this plot successfully solves the problems of context: it is invisible (almost invisible from the water), and historical, and green - not just inscribed, but even "dug in" by the lower tiers into the landscape. And most importantly, this plot, with its abstract ecological historicism, ultimately leaves no doubt that it belongs to the 21st century.
In sum, the project most of all resembles a modern "picturesque" landscape park, which, however, takes into account the neighborhood of a regular French park, the so-called "Nizhny Konstantinovsky". According to one of the co-authors of the project, Pyotr Kholkovsky, from this neighborhood emerged "strict straight lines, without curls of curves."
The second feature of the project is that the authors violated the test task - or "surpassed" it by adding a set of functions that were not listed in the conditions. Paradoxically, the architects are convinced that they received the honorable second place they received not despite, but thanks to this violation of the rules.
The main meaning of the discrepancies in the project to the competition program is that the authors made the complex seriously multifunctional - thinking about how this gigantic structure could function in the periods between major international events. The architects proposed: culture - a center for contemporary art and sports - a yacht club and an ice arena, as well as a hotel for 400 people. It would be possible to attend cultural and sports events by sailing from Pulkovo and St. Petersburg by sea, or by land - along the Tallinn highway.
Combining the functions of a congress center and a yacht club in one complex was a rather bold and risky decision, but quite reasonable, given the proximity of the sea area and the possibility of communication with it through the channel named after. Makarov. Therefore, another important digression arises here - the division of the reception area into two blocks: for land and sea transport. The convenience of this division lies in the fact that guests could go inside the complex directly on the yachts, leaving them for storage in special docks.
The Center for Contemporary Art, attached by the architects to the congress center, is a trapezoidal ramp system, somewhat reminiscent of the Guggenheim Museum; it is functionally created as an alternative to the basement exhibition rooms of the Constantine Palace, where the famous collection of Rostropovich is moving.
The deviations from the program also include the fact that the Sea Restaurant, which was supposed to be located directly in the main building, the architects decided to move to the border of the site, where, thanks to carefully selected angle points, a beautiful view of the Gulf of Finland and the Konstantinovsky Palace opens up, bypassing the unfortunate coastal development of the Consular Village.
In other respects, the conditions of the competition program are strictly observed, as a result of which some elements structurally differ little from the projects of other competitors, including the winners (projects of A. Kuptsov and S. Gikalo). For example, the main block of the building - the Congress Hall - is a system with 3 levels and several variants of the transformation system. The chamber hall is designed in a classical way, with standard seats, it is located across the VIP-foyer from the Congress hall. The connecting link between this block and the hotel with its internal recreational area is the Conference area and the Press Center with its own entrance and entrance.
As you know, the Russian competitors were given only a month to design - an almost unrealistic period for a serious project. The authors of "Green Bastion" speak with regret about its incompleteness - they would like to finish a lot, and in the process of thinking it out, perhaps new ideas and architectural solutions could arise.
