Nevskaya Ratusha is another project developed by the creative union of two architectural workshops - Evgeny Gerasimov and Partners and nps tchoban voss. However, in this case, the design in tandem was a prerequisite for the international architectural competition, in which this work won first place. The administrative and business complex, intended to accommodate the entire executive power of St. Petersburg, is an object so responsible that the organizers of the competition decided in advance to protect themselves from the overly "free" design ideas of Western stars. As a result, each of the European architects participating in the competition was obliged to have a partner from among the famous Petersburg architects.
The site allocated for the creation of a new administrative quarter is limited by Degtyarny lane, Moiseenko and Novgorodskaya streets. This is really the very center of the city: in the direct visibility zone - Smolny, next to the largest highways - Suvorovsky prospect and Sinopskaya embankment, as well as metro stations "Ploschad Vosstaniya" and "Chernyshevskaya". Generally speaking, it is even strange that in the immediate vicinity of the Administration of St. Petersburg you can still find an impressive territory occupied by non-working enterprises and not used in any way. One way or another, now the buildings of the tram fleet them. Smirnova and the workshop of the Northern Vinegar plant will be demolished, and a complex of nine buildings with a total area of 400 thousand square meters will grow in their place. According to the terms of reference, about 100 thousand of them will be transferred to Smolny - partly free of charge, partly at the cost price - and the rest of the area will be occupied by commercial structures (offices, shops, fitness centers, a hotel with 180 beds). There will also be an underground parking for 3,000 cars, and all the life support facilities of the new business quarter will be autonomous.
"Nevskaya Town Hall" was conceived not only as a new administrative complex, which will finally allow to gather under one roof numerous committees and administrations, but also as a symbol of the democratic nature of the St. Petersburg authorities. That is why the city brought this object to an international architectural competition, because it wants to make the decision-making process simple and clear, and turn the bureaucratic mechanism into a spectacular attraction. In a nutshell, the idea is very simple: officials are working, polemic passions are boiling at meetings, and ordinary citizens can come to the new building at any time and observe each of these processes with their own eyes.
It was these considerations that dictated the architectural solution of the administrative building: the offices of officials are located along the perimeter of the trapezoidal volume, and a cylinder of the conference hall crowned with a lenticular translucent dome is suspended in the center of the multi-lumen atrium through four bridges. The dome will house a museum of general plans of St. Petersburg and an observation deck - the so-called "Sky Bar", which can be accessed by one of the panoramic elevators passing through the volume of the conference hall, and from there (as well as along the road) you can see in detail how the meetings of the city meeting are held. In addition, the main atrium is part of the new public area, and through the Administration building everyone will be able to walk from Novgorodskaya Street to the pedestrian square formed by the buildings of the complex. In the event that you get tired of watching the people's choices, you can go shopping, have a snack in one of the many cafes, or even visit a fitness club without leaving the penates of the executive branch.
Of course, the commercial component was introduced into the project, primarily in order to reduce the city's costs for the construction of the complex, but it is difficult to disagree with the fact that such an alliance is much more familiar to social infrastructure facilities or newly created cultural institutions. As for Russian officials, entertainment and trade, available to any passer-by, perhaps never got so close.
The lens dome became the main stumbling block when discussing the Gerasimov-Choban project, first by the jury, and then by the City Planning Council of St. Petersburg. The fact is that the high-rise regulation of the front buildings in this area of the city is 33 meters, the intra-quarter ones - 42, while the project provides that the dome will rise as much as 55 meters. A specially performed urban planning analysis, however, showed that the glass lens is almost unreadable against the background of historical buildings and will be visible only from the Sverdlovskaya embankment and from the Alexander Nevsky bridge. However, in favor of the violation of the high-altitude regulations (and the members of the City Council ultimately voted for this unanimously), not even the results of the examination played, but considerations of a purely ideological sense. Let's just say: Smolny-2 is somehow embarrassed to get lost against the background of ordinary buildings. The city has to carry its symbol of democracy proudly. Although the use of a large amount of glazing makes an impressive building democratic, including in relation to the existing historical development, and this is extremely captivating in the project of Evgeny Gerasimov.
The buildings of business centers and hotels are located along the long sides of the site and form spectacular rays radiating from the Administration. Unlike the Town Hall itself, they are made in a neoclassical "stone" manner, and their height corresponds to the 33 meters prescribed by the regulations. And here Yevgeny Gerasimov used one of his favorite techniques: while maintaining the general architectural style, each building will be solved differently thanks to the decoration and color. The forms of the atriums that are in each of the buildings also differ: somewhere they are square in plan, and somewhere they are diamond-shaped and even semi-oval. But it will be possible to get into them only from the inner-quarter pedestrian square, part of which is protected from precipitation with the help of translucent structures and is being improved as a pedestrian gallery. One of the design elements of this space will be the preserved outer contour of the walls of the tram park building and the reconstructed boiler-house chimney. The latter will serve as a panoramic elevator shaft leading to the level of the restaurant and the helipad of the so-called building G. This is a secondary dominant of the complex - a business center, made in the form of a 13-storey fully glazed ellipse. Its rounded outlines and general transparency of the volume perfectly resonate with the dome of the administration building, but only those who are not too lazy to go inside the complex will be able to witness a fascinating architectural dialogue.
