Recall that the modern Apraksin Dvor is a 14-hectare quarter in the very center of St. Petersburg, bounded by Sadovaya and Lomonosov streets, the Fontanka river embankment and Apraksin lane. By the beginning of the 20th century, it was one of the largest trade centers in Europe, but after the October Revolution, Apraksin Dvor gradually turned into a complex of dilapidated and mostly abandoned buildings. In terms of urban planning, Aprashka suffered the greatest damage in the 1960s, when the Lenizdat building was erected on the site of the church and four commercial buildings, and the so-called Big Line was also built up. After the restructuring of the 1980s, almost all the buildings of the complex were privatized and returned to trade, however, often with an openly criminal bias. In fact, in the very center of the city, a huge "antisocial" territory was formed, which one way or another would have to be reanimated, so that the comprehensive reconstruction of Apraksin Dvor was only a matter of time. And most of this time, by the way, ended up being spent on settling property issues and resettling residential buildings within the quarter.
It is no secret that several well-known Western bureaus participated in the competition for the project for the reconstruction of Apraksin Dvor, one of which - Wilkinson Eyre Architects - eventually won. The projects of foreigners represented a wide range of approaches to the reconstruction of a quarter in the very center of the historic city: some completely neglected the existing buildings, others turned them into decorations for objects of modern architecture. And only Studio 44, in its concept, relied on the existing planning structure of Apraksin Dvor - “a unique urban planning formation, a low-rise linear town that has survived to this day in the very center of the metropolis”.
In their work on the concept of reconstruction of Apraksin Dvor, the team led by Nikita Yavein proceeded not so much from the developer's wishes for the final "exit" of the area, but from the very history of the development of this quarter. The architects came to the conclusion that versatility was originally characteristic of Apraksin Dvor: at different stages of its development, new ones were constantly added to the dominant trading function - a hotel, educational and educational (once the Main Public School was located here) and a cult, business (in 1907 several exchanges and the Mutual Credit Society) and residential. In other words, the designers had only to restore the entire range of the previous functions, providing zones for trade, food, living and doing business, education and leisure in the reconstructed territory.
Reading the TEP of this concept, one is simply amazed at how many different functions Studio 44 has managed to incorporate into its project: here is the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Jazz Philharmonic, and the Cinema Museum with 5 cinemas, as well as a media library, a fitness center, dance clubs. to speak of supermarkets and boutiques, restaurants and cafes, congress centers and rental offices. Having studied this list at least "to the middle", you ask yourself one simple and logical question: how to place all this in the Apraksin Dvor without fundamentally changing its proportions? The answer to this question became the main urban planning know-how of Nikita Yavein's team.
First, all stereotypical ways of solving such an urban planning problem were considered, tried on and one by one rejected, such as, for example, the complete demolition of monuments and new construction, the creation of a hanging “city over the city” or extensive development of underground space. Recognizing that each of these scenarios has its own advantages, the architects at the same time understood that the implementation of any of them would lead to the complete destruction of the historical appearance of Apraksin Dvor. So the idea was born to both "build up" and deepen the existing quarter, and in either case, relying primarily on a sense of proportion and, as a result, the proportionality of the old and the new.
In fact, Apraksin Dvor was supposed to turn into a three-level "city within a city", and each level retains the linearity so traditional for St. Petersburg. True, in each of the cities - Lower, Middle and Upper - this quality receives a different spatial design - somewhere in the form of streets and alleys, somewhere - galleries and covered passages, long atriums. “Longitudinal” streets, which are long, are endowed with various functional specializations, while short “transverse” streets present visitors with a kind of cross-section of the entire floor. Another tribute to the St. Petersburg urban planning tradition is that direct perspectives are closed by iconic structures (Drama Theater, Jazz Philharmonic), which serve as a kind of landmarks.
The underground city is built at a depth of 4.5 meters in one level (only on 20% of the territory, deeper parking lots are made under objects that do not have the status of historically valuable). It houses institutions that don't need daylight - for example, supermarkets, cinemas, bowling alleys, etc. - but this does not mean that the Lower City is a gloomy dungeon flooded with dim artificial light. In its layout, there was a place for green alleys, and for squares, and for areas located below ground level, but under the open sky. The upper city, in turn, is created by completely or mainly transparent superstructures over historical buildings. It is also located on one level, containing hotel rooms, cultural institutions, artists' workshops, rented apartments (lofts) and offices. The principle of linearity also determines its structure - extended atrium spaces are created in two newly erected buildings - a business center on Grafsky Proezd and an art center along Chernyshevsky Proezd - and are connected with other superstructures through walkways, forming three Upper Passages - office, exhibition and hotel.
And although the Studio 44 project was not approved for implementation, it is a very compelling argument “for” in the dispute about whether it is possible to multiply the “business turnover” of the historic quarter without sacrificing its existing buildings without disrupting the scale of development commensurate with a person.
