At the end of the 19th century, the dyeing and bleaching factory, owned by the Ryabushinsky family, was one of the leading in the country, and in many respects it was to her that Vyshny Volochek owes the title of the center of the textile industry in Russia. After the revolution of 1917, the enterprise was renamed into Vyshnevolotsk cotton mill, and continues to operate under this name to this day. And although most of the buildings built by Fyodor Ryabushinsky are no longer used today, they, fortunately, are very well preserved and still amaze with their scale and harsh industrial beauty. “By“well preserved,”I mean that all the ceilings and windows are in place, which means that reconstruction with subsequent re-profiling is quite a challenge,” explains Vladimir Plotkin. "This, I confess, immediately inspired us a lot."
The main building of the factory is the best preserved - a 260-meter four-storey volume of red brick - and its internal structure and, in particular, the step of the load-bearing walls, ideally corresponded to modern requirements for the layout of hotels and lofts, so the architects did not hesitate for a long time about the new function of this building … The bleaching shop has survived much worse - it is in an almost ruined state, but the authors decided not to demolish it, but, on the contrary, to make the dialogue between the two historical buildings the central coordinate system around which the entire project develops. After the restoration of the lost external facades, the dyeing and bleaching building itself will turn into a 3-star hotel with an integrated museum of the Ryabushinsky dynasty and the history of textiles. The main building, which will house a 4-star hotel and a boutique hotel, will be connected on the second floor level by a pedestrian gallery. It is interesting that the theme of suspended paths set by the chord of this gallery is actively developing in the project - almost all pedestrian routes on the territory of the complex are organized according to the same principle (an exception was made only for the main circular route). The released soil is used quite unexpectedly, at least in the opinion of a capital resident: flowers, vegetables and fruit and berry crops are planted on it.
“When I came to Vyshny Volochok for the first time, I was amazed at the number of garden partnerships and vegetable gardens set up right around the factory,” recalls Vladimir Plotkin. - I realized that it is with the help of the beds that the residents of the city feed their families, and I wanted to somehow support these hardworking people, to emphasize the importance of their efforts. So the plantings introduced into our project symbolize the present of Vyshny Volochek. In addition, they help to visually integrate the new complex into the fabric of the city. " By the way, the comparison with the fabric in this case is more than appropriate - the flower beds and beds planted in a certain order form a characteristic "textile" pattern.
On the territory of the factory, the buildings of warehouses, fire stations and offices are also preserved - their architects propose to use them as workshops for traditional crafts. As for the textile production itself, today it is concentrated in the farthest building of the factory - a building from the beginning of the 20th century with a unique shed finish. The architects themselves consider such an alignment to be a huge success - they do not have to either liquidate production, or even relocate it. In a fragmentary way, on the contrary, it will be included in the general excursion route, since it ideally corresponds to the theme of the complex being created by TPO "Reserve" - the Museum of the Knowledge of the World.
In general, it was the specificity of the museum that largely predetermined the layout of the entire complex and the architectural solution of the new exhibition building. As it is not difficult to guess, the main objects of display in it should be the technical inventions of mankind, and they - especially if presented in retrospect - do not differ in their modest dimensions. In other words, the architects were faced with the task of designing exhibition spaces that would be able to demonstrate even the most impressive achievements of engineering. For ground vehicles, such a space has become a square, for water - a demonstration reservoir, next to which is the amphitheater of the children's center. And so that this reservoir is not perceived as a banal pool, the authors connected it with the nearby Tsnoi River using a new canal - at the same time the former Ryabushinskys factory was “connected” to the Vyshny Volochok water system.
The exhibition building is designed as a long hollow tube with a section of 20x30 meters. Raised above the square with samples of technology on special supports, this elongated volume visually balances the 260-meter historical building with its length, but deliberately contrasts with it with its modern style. The architects themselves call it a "pipe", and the modernist parallelepiped, on the facades of which deaf and transparent panels alternate, really looks most of all like an unfolded telescope, whose eye closely observes technical progress.
