Project PTAM Vissarionov at the exhibition of investment programs in Kaluga
Museum of the History of Cosmonautics (MIC) named after K. E. Tsiolkovsky in Kaluga was built in 1963-1967. designed by famous Soviet architects - B. G. Barkhina, V. A. Strogi, N. G. Orlova, K. D. Fomin, who won the All-Union competition and was awarded the State Prize of the RSFSR. By the way, for our country it was the first building designed and built specifically for a technical museum. The complex is located on the outskirts of the city, and the surrounding park effectively emphasizes the dynamic composition of concrete, aluminum and glass, crowned with a planetarium dome. The building was erected on the high bank of the Yachenskoye reservoir and opened onto it with a glazed end, which is bordered by concrete "gates". Models of rockets are installed on the upper terrace in front of the museum, and several more terraces and footpaths descend to the embankment, but today these areas are in a rather neglected state. Having long dreamed of expanding the museum space, the MIC management chose this steep upper slope of the coastal slope and the adjacent terrace for the construction of a new building. The place, to be sure, is spectacular: one panoramic view of the water area is worth a lot, and on the opposite bank there is also the most picturesque Kaluga forest.
However, the architects working on the proposal for the second stage of the museum can hardly be envied: a strong drop in relief is in itself a difficult design condition, it is even more difficult to conduct a dialogue on equal terms with the existing building dominating over the coast, which, without exaggeration, is a monument of its era … The terms of reference, which ordered the design of new exhibition halls, a storage facility, a conference hall for 250 seats, a 3D cinema and a so-called interactive zone, which will include a simulator room for astronauts, a space modeling room and a small solar observatory, were also not distinguished by simplicity.
Working on its proposal, the team of PTAM Vissarionov immediately decided that it would not compete with the architecture of the main building. Instead of entering into a dialogue with the 1960s modernist work, the architects allowed it to maintain its exclusive dominant position on the high bank, and the second-order objects, whose area, by the way, significantly exceeds the existing buildings, "hid" in the landscape. The strong difference in the relief existing on the building site was perfect for solving this problem. The architects buried the new building directly into the slope of the coast, and the green roof platform became a kind of continuation of the mountain. The actual museum spaces under it are practically invisible, and most of all this technique, perhaps, reminds of the Moscow Museum of Cosmonautics, all of whose expositions are also hidden in the base of the hill. The new building of the museum is facing the embankment with a long glazed facade and in this it echoes the main building of the complex, however, it is located perpendicular to it and does not slow down the "hover" of the modernist building, but on the contrary, as it were, prolongs its "runway".
The strong platform of the roof of the new building from above resembles a multi-colored applique made up of quotes from the existing building and the surrounding park. So, on the artificial plateau, there is also an amphitheater of its own, similar to the one in which the Vostok rocket is installed, and new rockets, and sloping domes of light lanterns, reminiscent of the completion of a planetarium. In addition to these elements and large-scale landscaping, the visual unity of the two buildings is emphasized by the arrangement of the main entrances to the new museum from above, from the platform. Without leaving the field of influence of the old building, visitors can either stroll through the landscaped area overlooking the river, or go down to the continuation of the exposition. The second entrance group is located on the side of the reservoir and is framed by a canopy on thin supports.
In fact, the presence of a second building at the museum can be found only from the side of the embankment, which faces both the windows of the exhibition halls, the volume of the conference hall, outwardly similar to the planet or the globe for the architects, and the red parallelepiped of the storage facility. The last volume is inscribed in a parabola-ramp designed to move visitors and special equipment and mirroring the arc of the amphitheater at the top.
The proposal developed by PTAM Vissarionov for the second stage of the Museum of the History of Cosmonautics took part in an exhibition of investment programs held in the Kaluga Regional Administration in autumn 2009. And although according to the results of the tender for the right to conclude a state contract, the workshop did not receive the possibility of further design, the concept of the museum development proposed by it cannot but be considered very expedient. Paying tribute to the work of Soviet architects, the architects form a single architectural and landscape complex of modern space technologies with an extensive recreational and park zone.
