The mentioned projects are linked not only by a star name. State educational institution "Academy of Dance under the leadership of Boris Eifman" should be located in the reconstructed building of the former cinema "Assembly" on Liza Chaikina Street, which now occupies the rehearsal base of the Eifman Theater. It is clear that the theater cannot lose this base overnight, so the construction of the school will be carried out in several stages. First, an educational and residential building will be erected (the governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matvienko promised to build it personally to Boris Eifman by 2011), and then, after the theater moved to a new building (i.e. in 2014-2016), the existing rehearsal base will be reconstructed.
The competition for choosing the general designer of the Dance Academy took place about one and a half years ago, and the architectural studio of Nikita Yavein won in it. Architects believe that they owe much of their success in this competition to their chosen heritage management strategy. In addition to the already mentioned building "Assembly" on the site is the mansion of Yu. K. Dobert - I. B. Shteykman (B. Pushkarskaya st., 14A) - the rarest example of a wooden mansion in St. Petersburg, which miraculously survived in the midst of stone apartment buildings. It was built in 1896 by the architect A. Ya. Reinberg, and its historic interiors and facades are well preserved. Some time ago, the city bought the mansion and handed it over to the Academy of Dance for unlimited use. True, both the house and the "Assembly" were removed from state protection - apparently, to simplify the act of donation - but this fact did not change the reverent attitude of "Studio 44" to the former monuments. The wooden mansion was completely included in the educational complex, and at the "Assembly", which was radically reconstructed in 1958 during a major overhaul (with the replacement of all structures and floors), it is planned to restore the facade part. Moreover, in the latter case, the architects are guided by the author's idea of 1911 and are restoring the entrance niche-exedra with a coffered half-dome. After restoration, the wooden mansion will house the Academy's media library and museum, and the surrounding garden will be landscaped and turned into an open promenade for students.
In addition, two new buildings will appear in the academic quarter. In the southern one, overlooking Pushkarskaya Street, there will be living quarters of a boarding school for 135 people and a medical center (in total, the school is designed for 228 students, and, according to Boris Eifman, more than half of them will be gifted orphans and children from low-income families). The northern building, which is closer to Bolshoy Avenue, will house a well-equipped sports complex (the teaching method at the Academy places particular emphasis on enhanced physical and sports training), classrooms, two ballet halls and the administrative premises of the Academy. In order to emphasize the charm of the neoclassical facade of the former "Assembly", the new buildings are solved extremely laconically: the snow-white geometric volumes are tactfully moved a little further into the quarter and seem to part. And if the southern building is girdled from above with a tape of panoramic windows, then the northern one, from behind the historical facade, looks at Liza Chaikina Street with a dull surface, so that nothing distracts the eye from the main architectural accent - the entrance niche-exedra.
The space between the residential and academic buildings has been turned into a glazed atrium. It houses a recreation and twelve ballet halls, the largest of which is designed for staging educational performances - these rooms alternate with each other and are interconnected by intricate staircases and passages. According to Nikita Yavein, such an internal atrium-play space goes back to the archetype of a schoolyard of a closed educational institution. The overlap of the atrium is designed in the form of a ridge of low gable roofs: such an "accordion" not only allows the most optimal organization of the natural ventilation system, but also creates an interesting play of light and shadow between the buildings.
The need to make the academy's classrooms as light as possible has become the cornerstone of this project. Since the complex is being built on a small intra-quarter area and has a complex functional program, the architects were forced to compact its layout as much as possible. To solve the problem of lighting in this situation, it was possible only with the help of transparent walls - they were received by all recreation and ballet halls. And in order not to turn the side facades of the Academy into banal glazed surfaces, the architects came up with a very interesting move. The ballet floors will be finished with Harlequin stage linoleum, painted in a variety of pastel colors. Shining through the translucent walls, delicate shades will give the Academy visual lightness, airiness and charm, which, in the opinion of both the architects and their eminent customer, is the best fit for the spirit of dance art.
