Ever since the times when churches and their bell towers were the tallest buildings, Muscovites got used to the fact that such dominants highlight a specific “point” in the city. While St. Petersburg architects could afford - sometimes, on Nevsky - to subordinate the temple to the avenue line, Moscow, right up to Stalin's, was guided almost exclusively by dominants - suffice it to recall the "Palace of the Soviets" and the ring of skyscrapers. After the war, however, even high-rise buildings began to line up (the project of Lyusinovskaya Street) and large houses in the capital began to be built with avenues. Now Moscow hesitates between the desire to have dominants and the reluctance to have infinity buildings.
The design of the tower at the end of 1812 Street dates back to the mid-1990s and the first version was made by the architect Boris Paluy. It was an imposing tower - (the refrain of the then only in the plans of the City) with a golden church helmet, somewhat reminiscent of the Church of St. George on Poklonnaya Hill. Then the construction began, but it froze at the "zero" mark, and until this year, for almost 7 years, it was mothballed, having replaced three customers-developers
The idea of placing a high-rise dominant here remained, and Andreev's workshop got the problems of linking the number of storeys and the total area of the object declared in the IRD with the constructed five-tiered underground parking, which did not meet either the planning standards or the bearing capacity of the completed structures.
Over the past time, a lot of architectural, planning and design options have been worked out, which are reflected in the figurative-compositional solution. Compared to the gold-headed project of the 1990s, the exterior of the skyscraper has become much more modern and less pompous. The final option at the moment, according to which working drawings are already being carried out and construction is underway, is a composition of two towers connected at different levels, including the top 5 floors, or a portal - a tower with a giant opening in the middle, it depends on how you look.
In total, there are 32 floors, and the shape of the plan is dictated by the ultimate bearing capacity of the base and the structure of the previously completed underground part, the height of the building has been reduced from 200 m to 25 and brought in line with the requirements of the Moscow City Architecture Committee. The dimensions of the building in terms of - 54x63 meters, made the volume unrealistically massive and uneconomical for commercial use, which, in the end, was the main reason that determined the compositional solution and the presence of a central opening.
By tradition, the first two floors of the stylobate are given for public needs (a restaurant, a canteen, a branch of an insurance company, etc. small trade), above, up to 22 floors - offices, in the upper lintel - apartments. A group of panoramic elevators, separate from the office ones, rises there, together with others located outside on the walls of the opening between the towers. The towers are connected by two-storey (and more) spatial structures of bridges - lintels, which will house not only offices, but also conference rooms, and on their roofs there are open "hanging" gardens.
The architectural image of the building is determined by the walls of light beige granite with strict rows of windows and - glass-metal structures, landscaped with hanging gardens. These two components are usually perceived as contradictory - the first refers to the "Stalinist" Kutuzovka. The second - high-tech - part of this context explodes. Or rather, it pushes it apart with the help of its technical mechanisms, as if controlling some screws inside. More precisely, it creates an image of such a gap by architectural means.
As if it were an advanced theatrical set in the process of transformation. Here - she depicted a skyscraper in the spirit of Stalin's Art Deco, hiding behind shields of stone plates. But the performance came to an end - or to another act - someone pressed a button and the mechanism began to move, pushed apart the stone plates, extended the glass wings, exposed the iron trusses - and it turned out that during the performance they were overgrown with trees. I would like to note - did not this performance last ten years, since the 1990s? Enough time for the trees to grow …
The theme of movement hidden in the stirring of the architectural masses is now one of the most relevant. Architectural thought today tastes dynamics in every possible way: modern volumes either explode, then bend, then twist with a screw, then break, then move apart - as if preparing a new stage of the technical revolution, after which houses will be smart and mobile, like large robots.
This theme of mechanical movement is new and, it seems, Andreev's favorite. We have already written about at least two projects in which it sounds very distinct: a building at the beginning of the Entuziastov highway and a residential tower on Yakovoapostolskoye. Large load-bearing elements of lintel structures are deliberately exposed and demonstratively rigid, they reveal themselves in every possible way as knots of metal structures and demonstrate that it is he, a large glass-iron mechanism, that bears shields of stone planes imitating the old-school architecture familiar to people. But he does it only out of necessity, at the whim of people. And if he wants, he will throw it off. Or bend. Or push it apart.
In the project for the 1812 street, the mechanism obviously plays the role of a skyscraper. He plays without hiding, keeps a mask on himself, although he does not avoid the features of reincarnation - steppedness and torn attics with hints of pilasters, which look very curious in metal. In the course of the game, this - very theatrical - mechanism transforms the image, hi-tech is born from the Art Deco “mask”.
But the main thing is that the opening opens.
For the Stalinist style (and for the pompous Moscow 1990s), such a giant opening, destroying the middle, is unthinkable. There, the arches never reach such exorbitant heights. For modern times, he, on the contrary, is native - now it is very important to connect two neighboring houses with passages hanging at any (preferably high) height. The center turns out to be empty, penetrated by the tensions of metallic bonds.
Which is very good for this place, if you look at it from an urban planning point of view. The street is a dead end, it rests on the railroad tracks. The initial project brought it to a close. And this one marks a turning point, a "watershed", inviting to reunification the opposite part of the city, cut off by the railway tracks of the Kiev direction.
The building forms a different, theatrical kind of perspective at the end of the street, shows the sky, enlarges the scale. Indicates the border and at the same time - unambiguously shows that there is something behind it. And not only shows. The second stage of construction involves the construction of a three-tiered transport and pedestrian bridge with a large parking lot at the third floor level, through which it will be possible to go over the railway to the Kutuzovsky Prospekt backup, to Mosfilmovskaya and Setun streets. Thus, the building not only depicts permeability, but also creates it in reality. The image is not deceiving.
