At the end of Stromynka Street, in front of the Matrossky Bridge - where the street is already noticeably descending to the river, the construction of a small store has been completed. Its owner, the architects say, once owned two tents, which she sold to make her own shop. She is warm and welcoming, prepares delicious salads and makes great coffee.
This determined the initial design of the architects Nikolai Lyzlov and Olga Kaverina. They decided to make the building white on the outside, like sugar, and on the inside, on the second floor, where the cafe was supposed to be located, dark brown, like coffee. In the evenings, the coffee interior was supposed to be cut through by the thin rays of the sun passing through a scattering of miniature square windows in the western wall. The dark walls of the interior were echoed outside by a gray-brown balcony on the west wall; under the balcony they were supposed to sell salads and various goodies. On the opposite side, on the roof of the protruding first floor, an open terrace with an open stone staircase was formed.
Conceived as a filter for sunlight, square windows were not limited to the western wall and spread along the southern and eastern facades, hinting at the current "pixel" and at the same time reinforcing the "sugar" theme - whether these are grains of sand falling out of a piece of refined sugar, or dots that have died out on the monitor. Because of the whiteness and these crumbs, the project was named "Refined".
But strictly speaking, the resulting house is not sugar at all, it is not even completely white in color, but slightly grayish. His closest relatives - which becomes quite obvious if you walk around the area - are constructivist buildings standing around. At some distance, but on the same Stromynka, there is one of the masterpieces of the 1920s, the Melnikov club named after V. I. Rusakova. Not so famous, but quite characteristic buildings of the same time, mixed with later inclusions, are nearby. Nikolay Lyzlov's new house fits perfectly into this company.
"Rafinad" is a carefully thought out architectural miniature in the spirit of constructivism. Most of the techniques, from the light gray plaster of the façade, take us back to the 1920s. So, the southeast corner is glazed, letting in a maximum of light and opening from the inside a maximum of views of the bridge and the river; in the evening through this stained-glass window the illuminated interior of the store will be clearly visible, so it is also a large showcase. The western corner, on the contrary, is the top of the closeness. A high concrete wall grows out of it, which in the upper part merges with the canopy and forms a small spatial whirlpool in front of the wall of the main facade, a "buffer zone" inviting passers-by to go inside. Between the corner of the house and this wall there is a thin vertical gap to facilitate massiveness, which also intrigues passers-by, creating a curious "frame" - a view of the street framed in a concrete frame. Needless to say, similar glass corners and similar walls in front of the entrances can, if desired, be found among the constructivist buildings of the surrounding quarter.
But the matter is not limited to the context alone. In front of the most modest northern facade facing the courtyard, two trees, preserved during the construction, grow close to the wall. Together with a lawn and birches, they form a completely idyllic, rare for Moscow and in an amicable way a modern picture. As a rule, the constructivists did not preserve vegetation at their construction sites; at that time, architects were interested in somewhat different problems.
This whole plot is very cozy and pretty, but very uncharacteristic for Moscow. When, according to the next municipal decree, temporary stalls began to turn into shops, this process somehow passed by famous architects, for obvious reasons, passionate about offices and elite housing. Now giant complexes are in vogue: if housing is a block, if a store is at least a shopping center, or even better - a multifunctional complex. Nikolai Lyzlov also designs giants - in particular, we have already written with his "Perovsk" and "Sunflowers". But very few people have tried their hand at the miniature genre of the "shop" - this genre has somehow not taken root in our serious architecture.
And the story itself is not entirely Moscow: the customer sells two tents, and instead orders a new store for architects who think over everything to the smallest detail - lighting the interior of a cafe, balconies, ways to attract the attention of passers-by. They carefully fit into the context - partly, I must admit, in order to go through the most difficult Moscow approvals, which are especially difficult for such a small and low-budget project to overcome. They preserve the trees … Everything is very chamber and - humanly, I suppose. Moreover, it is obvious that it is precisely for these qualities that the project is loved by architects (which they sincerely admit). Small such utopia in the spirit of the popular fantasy genre of alternative history. A similar shop could have been built by the Constructivists for some Nepman, if the avant-garde of the 1920s. respected the Nepmen and if it were not for industrialization … In a word, a utopia, and not so much an architectural as a plot. This utopia was built for almost eight years and it is doubly pleasant that it was finally built.
But, like any utopia, it has not been fully realized. Everything was built as planned, but during the construction process the upper floor was sold for offices, so there will be no cafe or black "coffee" interior with sunbeams in the evenings. At least for now.
