The site on which the reconstructed building of the Mir cinema is located is located between Red Army Avenue, Ovrazhny Lane, Mitkina Street and Karl Marx Street, directly opposite the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, which has the status of an architectural monument. The reference material contained in the "Initial data for the development of the project for the reconstruction of the building of the cinema" Mir "is scary to read: there are continuous prohibitions everywhere - you must not violate the characteristic environment of the Lavra ensemble, you must not exceed the altitude allowed within the block (from the ground mark to the ridge of the building's roof should be no more than 10 meters - by special agreement, no more than 12 meters), you cannot build high fences; it is impossible to admit a "sharply dissonant" architectural solution in terms of silhouettes, volumes, building materials and color. It would seem that the architect does not really turn around here. And Ilya Utkin could.
Ilya Utkin completely changed the look of the existing building of the 1970s, having managed to comply with all the requirements for preserving the integrity of the Lavra ensemble. Surprisingly, at the same time, the facades in his project did not turn out to be gray and monotonous - their architecture resembles old living rooms.
The building designed by Ilya Utkin has three floors. Each of its four facades is, as it were, "complex" of one module. This module is formed by Tuscan pilasters standing on a rusticated pedestal, between which there is an arch on the first floor, on the second there are three windows with maximally simplified platbands, on the third there are three windows without platbands. Basically, all the arches are glazed, only two of them are walk-throughs - one leads to the courtyard of the building, through the other you can go through the entire building and go to Ovrazhny Lane. The facades facing the Lavra and Mitkina Street differ from the other facades only by the presence of a bypass gallery on the first floor. Everything is very neutral, but by no means boring. Stylistically, this is somewhat similar to Russian provincial classicism.
Ilya Utkin also made a proposal in this project to improve the infrastructure of the district. On the site where the Mir cinema is now located, there is a strong relief difference - from Karl Marx Street to Mitkin Street, where the end facades of Ilya Utkin's building face, the relief drops by more than ten meters - accordingly, the Red Army Avenue passes through a certain interval over the bridge. More precisely, on an overpass with a gloomy crossing like Moscow pedestrian crossings under busy highways. A darkish tunnel serves to move from the Lavra to the other side of the street, to the 17th century chapel above the former source of Sergius, to parking lots and restaurants. On both sides of the tunnel there is trade of the Izmailovo-Arbat (who remembers) type, aunts on stalls offer tourists scarves and nesting dolls. Ilya Utkin proposed to put in order this passage and the squares in front of it. On the sides of the bridge, he proposed to arrange two wide staircases with escalators, along which it would be possible to go down from the Main Square in front of the Lavra to the aforementioned tourist square.
Now about the functional component of the project. Apartments of 11 types are located along the perimeter of the building. The entrance to these apartments is through galleries that encircle the facades of the courtyard. The courtyard itself is visually divided into two parts by a volume passing across it, containing a public area (cafe, etc.). At the level of the first floor, this volume has a passage that provides communication between two parts of the courtyard, one of which is covered with a roof, and the other is not. The courtyard facades are also laconic and strict, like the external facades: all are in arcades decorated with Tuscan semi-columns, and in the center of the part of the courtyard covered with a roof, Ilya Utkin placed a sculpture that is perceived as the spatial dominant of the entire courtyard.
I remember that in one conversation with me, Ilya Utkin uttered approximately the following phrase: “I think that if a bastard breaks down old houses, then I will rebuild them.” Looking at the modern projects of Ilya Utkin, I understand that this phrase may well be considered his creative credo. All that he is doing now is, in a sense, a tribute to the architecture of previous eras, an attempt to express nostalgia for the past time, longing for structures that no longer exist. I myself have such experiences, so the architecture of Ilya Utkin somehow touches me very much, takes me to heart. In this sense, the project of reconstruction of the old cinema "Mir" can, perhaps, be considered the apotheosis of the late, post-perestroika creativity of Ilya Utkin, because it is in the projects of restoration and reconstruction that the architect's attitude to heritage is manifested, and Ilya Utkin has it the most respectful - and here this attitude found him the most complete expression.
