The project of a residential building on Vernadsky Avenue was submitted to the council for the purpose of assigning it the category of a unique object due to the technical complexity of the construction of a three-storey underground parking lot of 12.4 meters. The building, the architecture of which resembles a typical panel building, is conceived as a high-rise dominant of the reconstructed quarter 18, between Kravchenko and Maria Ulyanova streets on the site of demolished panel five-story buildings. The authors of the project decided to make a deep parking out of a desire to preserve as many trees as possible on the site. The discussion of this project went very quickly, after which it was sent to the scientific and technical council to determine the degree of complexity of the engineering problem.
The second issue on the agenda was the School of Modern Play theater, popular among Muscovites, which has been preparing for expansion for ten years now. Along with the chief architects of the project, Vladimir Kolosnitsin and Alexander Kozhevnikov, and the chief artist, the famous master of theatrical scenery Dmitry Krymov, the artistic director of the theater, Joseph Raikhelgauz, who was present at the council and emotionally defended the project, takes an active part in the implementation of the project.
The territory of the theater's possessions is a rather narrow piece of land bounded by Petrovsky Boulevard and Neglinnaya Street, converging to Trubnaya Square. From the west it is adjoined by the technical premises of the restaurant "Uzbekistan", from the south - the building of the Financial Academy, facing Neglinka. Finally, from the north, it is adjoined by a heterogeneous building of former tenement houses, where the publishing house "Vysshaya Shkola" is located.
The buildings currently occupied by the theater have the status of historical and cultural monuments. It has two stages - the main one for 350 seats in the hall of the once famous restaurant "Olivier", facing the corner of Trubnaya Square, and the small one, the so-called "Winter Garden", for 200 seats. Their interiors, which have even preserved stained-glass windows according to Mikhail Vrubel's sketches, want to be restored and restored, and the scenes - technically modernized. The project also involves the restoration of the lost dome and the third floor with an attic above the corner volume of the restaurant - this floor was burnt down in a fire back in the 19th century. In the narrow courtyard behind the theater, a recently built structure has already been dismantled. Its bricks are kept for finishing the future building - a new seven-story (!) Stage for 520 seats. So next to the word "demolition" in the project appears "regeneration".
Since the building of the new stage turns out to be literally "squeezed" into the surrounding buildings, the entrance will be made from Neglinka through the existing passage. The courtyard, meanwhile, turns into an alley leading into the theater complex, where a recreational space should appear in the cramped backyards.
The hall of the new stage of the theater is designed in the spirit of classical Italian theaters - the hall is horseshoe-shaped, multi-tiered with inclined galleries of boxes. The design solution is based on the idea of combining the entrance group and the auditorium into a single volume, where the multi-colored space of the entrance group and the rear part of the auditorium with open structures and two open staircases set an individual image for the theater interior. Externally, the volume of the new scene is decided in the order system, repeating the rhythms of divisions of buildings along Petrovsky Boulevard. However, the glowing stained-glass windows shown on the model are partly decoration, since the volume itself is deaf and has windows only where make-up rooms, model workshops, etc. are located.
The first referent Andrei Ganeshin, although he was laconic, pointed out the key problem of the project - this area is very small for a theater building. These problems were outlined in more detail by Sergei Gnedovsky, the author of the Pyotr Fomenko theater building. He considered the transformation of the driveway into an alley doubtful and unreliable - the device of the entrance from the corner. Trailers with decorations will not be able to turn around in the allotted space, spectators will congregate on a narrow staircase, and the auditorium, which looks like a 4.5 times smaller copy of La Scala, has 5 plans and not a single store for decorations.
This last remark was supported by Alexander Kudryavtsev, noting that the image of a chamber studio theater does not fit with a developed stage box and resembles an unsuccessful project of the Maly Theater branch on the same Petrovsky Boulevard, which several years ago did not pass approval due to exaggerated dimensions. Alexander Kudryavtsev pointed out mistakes in landscape-visual analysis, where the most important points of view were not taken into account, in particular, from Rozhdestvensky Boulevard. And in order to understand the whole danger of embedding a 25-meter building in this place, he advised to make the model smaller, but wider in the coverage of the territory and show it more clearly against the background of neighboring buildings on a scan.
Andrei Bokov raised doubts about the compliance with technical conditions, in particular, he mentioned the emergency state of neighboring buildings, which, together with the theater's possessions, are located in the area of the old bed of the Neglinka River. Andrei Bokov called the architectural solution of the building of the new stage "the last blow to the visual perception of the Vysokopetrovsky monastery." According to him, it “should be an undivided, modest and quiet structure. The courtyard facades have never been decorated like this …”.
Summing up the protracted discussion, Yuri Grigoriev stressed that he supported the proposal to expand the theater, and agreed with the restoration and regeneration. However, the new volume, according to the chairman of the council, cannot be accepted. Firstly, it is required to solve the issues of transport and pedestrian flows raised by the referees. Secondly, it is necessary to take into account all the comments regarding the comfort of the spectators and more accurately study the parameters of the building of the new scene from the point of view of landscape-visual analysis. Yuri Grigoriev supported Andrey Chernikhov's proposal to involve foreign or domestic architects - recognized specialists in this field - in the design of the stage.
