Of course, this does not mean that there are no large exhibition complexes in St. Petersburg at all. There is a "classic of the genre" - the Central Exhibition Hall "Manezh", there is the Soviet "Lenexpo", but their limited capacity, multiplied by their location in the city center (read: inaccessibility by car), pose many obstacles to the development of the exhibition business. The St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which attracts more and more participants every year, is having a particularly hard time. And since this event is considered by the city authorities to be the locomotive of their economy and image in the world, in 2007 a decision was made to build a new exhibition and congress center.
The total area allocated for the creation of ExpoForum is 56.4 hectares. The site is located near Shushary, a village that in recent years has been referred to in the press as "Russian Detroit", since it is there that all the country's largest factories for the collection of foreign cars are concentrated. The site is bounded by the Petersburg highway from the north-eastern side and the Pulkovskoye reservoir from the north-western side, and by its northern side it adjoins a deep ravine with the Pulkovka river. Thus, the complex is being built between the city and its main airport, on one of the most active highways, which, in terms of exhibition logistics, cannot but be recognized as a very important advantage. But from the point of view of landscape and history, the site is very difficult to call ideal. In its northern part, for example, there is an inactive cemetery, which will be relocated, and there are several sanitary zones that cannot be built up. And also a high-voltage transmission line runs through the territory, and the total height difference is about 10 meters. In general, there is a lush bouquet of encumbrances, but the architects perceived them as a creative challenge and were able to successfully respond to this challenge in their project.
The exhibition complex is located on a two-storey stylobate, which, due to the difference in relief from three sides, sinks into the ground completely, and from the west - only partially. "Emerging" from the ground in front of the very surface of the reservoir, it turns into a base for an open arena, designed for 5 thousand people and intended for large cultural and entertainment events. In the stylobate itself, it is proposed to place numerous parking lots, traditional for such an object, both automobile and bus. The first underground floor also houses retail and technical premises, workshops at the exhibition complex and a multifunctional foyer that helps visitors who have left their cars in the parking lot find their way around the complex and walk to the entrance area. No special revelations await us on the overlap of the stylobate from the point of view of the functional program. There is an open exhibition space with an area of 65,000 sq. m. (a kind of reserve for the future - later it can be used for the further development of the complex and partly as open parking lots), a shopping and entertainment complex and a recreational area, which is an impressive axis with cascades of pools and fountains, flanks of green spaces and driveways for taxis …And so that a leisurely promenade through the exhibition town can be carried out at any time of the year, this part of the complex is covered with a glass vault, from a distance similar to a casually thrown transparent blanket. Its "folds" are formed by a grid of diamond-shaped steel profiles, into which insulating glass is inserted. This design generally allows you to form the roof arbitrarily, and the architects made the most of this property - the transparent vault now and then smoothly transitions to the cup-shaped supports. The radius of these bowls varies: the smallest are used as additional landmarks for walking, and the largest serve as light shafts for underground parking.
However, the main hallmark of ExpoForum will be not even these glass hills and hollows, clearly reminiscent of Massimiliano Fuksas' Fiera Milano, but an arch building that forms the main entrance to the center from the Petersburg highway. Fully clad in the brightest shades of glass and shaped like a racing car, it stretches along the highway and in a dynamic curve thrown across the main entrance area. The resulting giant arch looks more like a funnel, which is difficult to pass by - it seems to draw into itself the space of the outside world, as well as all potential visitors into a kind of imaginary "magnetic field".
And yet, any exhibition is not only a bright show, but also painstaking organizational work that does not tolerate fuss or unnecessary pathos. Therefore, the representative and functional groups of buildings in the project are clearly separated. To hold the actual exhibition events, the architects build five most simple and laconic pavilions around the perimeter of the stylobate. Their strict square volumes not only provide the exhibitions with maximum freedom in organizing the exhibition space, but also hide the ExpoForum public area from the former cemetery and sanitary zones of the site. However, even in these simple "boxes" Evgeny Gerasimov and Sergei Tchoban remained true to themselves: the facades are trimmed with native St. Petersburg material - natural stone, and the roof is made in the form of a mesh, transparent "cells" of which provide additional lighting to the exhibition areas.
