In a little more than ten years of its existence, the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, has managed to become famous all over the world. For a truly gigantic scale of construction and passion for modern architecture, the new capital was even nicknamed "Steppe Babylon". The first who took part in the creation of Astana was the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, who developed the general plan of the city with a spectacular central axis on which the Presidential Palace and the symbol of Kazakhstan's independence - the Baiterek Tower are located. Now this axis is closed on both sides by Norman Foster's pyramids - the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation and the Khan Shatyry shopping and entertainment center. Other "high-profile" projects are also being implemented - for example, the Opera House designed by the Italian architect Manfredi Nicoletti and the Presidential Library of the Danish bureau BIG. One gets the impression that the world economic crisis has bypassed Astana: this year alone, seven international architectural competitions have already been held in the capital of Kazakhstan. One of them - for the project of the Palace of Schoolchildren's Creativity - and attracted the Moscow architectural studio of A. Asadov to the city.
The plot allocated for the construction of the Palace is located in one of the new districts of Astana, which is far enough from the center and, by and large, is just beginning to be built up. Thanks to this, the architects found themselves in a situation of almost complete creative freedom: when working on a project, they were not dominated by either the building density standards or the already established appearance of the environment. It simply does not exist, that is, the environment, and, perhaps, now what it will become will be directly influenced by the future Palace of Creativity.
The architects made the layout of the Palace as free and dynamic as possible. The building consists of six buildings fanned out around a small pedestrian square. In plan, the complex resembles a sun drawn by a child, however, the architects themselves called their project "Palette", comparing the multi-colored buildings with the arrangement of paints on the artist's palette.
The Palace of Creativity is divided into six separate volumes for a reason. The terms of reference ordered to design a truly multifunctional complex for children, which would include a sports center, creative studios, scientific laboratories, and architects fulfilled this requirement. However, the last thing they wanted was to "fill" with all the functions one large complex volume, rightly believing that in this case it would hardly be possible to create an understandable layout of the internal premises immediately readable by a child. The construction of six low buildings made it possible to turn the palace of creativity into a whole children's town with its own central square and inner streets.
White dominates in the decoration of the facades of all buildings, and the interior space of each of them is decorated with one of the six colors of the rainbow (the seventh was used in the design of the observatory tower's interiors). Bright colors necessarily "break through" on the facades, so that the blocks differ from each other not only in shape, but also in color, together forming a very variegated, but easy to remember and orientate map.
Thus, the theatrical block - the furthest to the right of the entrance - is painted red, which "opens" onto the facade through tall windows that cut the block vertically. It is followed by the orange art corpus, which houses the children's art studios. The central block is dedicated to science and is marked in yellow. It houses offices for scientific circles and laboratories. The next two buildings are reserved for physical education and water sports and are marked respectively in green and blue. The green block, which contains several gyms, also has an exit to the backyard, where the outdoor sports stadium is located. The last building is intended for the administration of the Palace of Schoolchildren's Creativity and is marked in dark blue, which is also fragmentarily "splashed out" on the facade.
The small area in front of the entrance lobby is partly designed as an open amphitheater for children to socialize and play, and partly as a covered pedestrian gallery. The fact is that Astana has a rather harsh climate: in summer the temperature rises to +40 degrees, in winter it can easily drop to -40. To protect the little visitors to the Palace of Creativity, the architects designed a canopy over the amphitheater, consisting of broken multi-colored planes resembling stained glass. For walks in the spring and autumn, small parks are laid out between the buildings, differing from each other in plan and landscape pattern. The roofs of the buildings are also being landscaped and turned into walking areas, and on the roof of the theater block there is another small amphitheater for open-air chamber performances. The vertical dominant feature of this upper level is the observatory's round-domed tower located next to the administrative block.
The Palace of Schoolchildren's Creativity is a typology that is well known to every citizen of the former Soviet Union. And although today many efforts to educate and educate creative youth cause only a skeptical smile, the idea of creating regional centers for additional education cannot but be recognized as correct and necessary. Special praise deserves the fact that such a center will be created according to a project that will be selected as a result of an international architectural competition. The bright and dynamic solution of the complex, proposed by Asadov's workshop, can make the process of aesthetic education of the younger generation not only very comfortable and interesting, but also visual.
