The Alliance-1892 company is a recognized leader of the domestic cognac market. Its headquarters are located in the city of Chernyakhovsk, Kaliningrad region, where a wine and brandy factory has been operating for over 40 years. The enterprise carries out a full cycle of cognac production, but its own museum, despite the popularity of the products, still does not exist. Thinking about the construction of a new building for the museum, the management of the plant decided to combine it with the storage of cognac barrels, which, undoubtedly, in itself can become a very interesting and sought-after object of display. In addition, the TOTEMENT / PAPER architectural studio commissioned a project for a new factory entrance.
The architects began their work on the architectural image of the future complex with a study of all components of the project and those symbols that are directly related to the production of cognac. “We proceeded from the fact that the material that this industry deals with is a vine (the image in Christian symbolism, to be sure, is extremely mystical, combining a lot of signs: from the designation of the Tree of Life to the image of Communion and Paradise (Heavenly fire), - say the architects Levon Airapetov and Valeria Preobrazhenskaya. - And gradually they came to the decision about the need to subordinate the form to some literary symbols that will create images of the harmonious interaction of various signs, sometimes seemingly opposite and antagonistic, but forming solid pairs that give birth in space a new symbol among themselves.”Perhaps this is the basis of the unusual creative manner of“TOTEMENT / PAPER”: any, even the most utilitarian task, leads these architects to create ensembles literally woven from symbols and memorable dynamic forms. were no exception.
In the plan, the complex is a pentagon composed of two figures, whose broken outlines resemble origami. However, this association remains only as long as you study the drawings of the object - its volumetric solution is much more complicated. And, most importantly, it is unpredictable.
The architects propose to place both buildings on one platform, visually connected with the main building of the plant. The storehouse for cognac and wine barrels is a low wooden structure that seems to grow out of the ground. It really has several underground levels, because cellars have been used to mature and store spirits from time immemorial (for example, the oldest cognacs are stored in a dark deep basement, which is called the "Paradise Room").
A museum building is, on the contrary, a volume that develops in height. It is lined with metal and resembles a bell made of a sheet of iron, the ends of which do not fit snugly together. As conceived by the architects, this gap symbolizes the vine - at night it is illuminated from the inside, thanks to which the plant has a kind of beacon, a convenient and memorable landmark.
The lower part of the museum building turns into a staircase that cuts in a triangle into the horizontal storage volume. The functional purpose of such an expansion is obvious: it will allow visitors to see the device of the latter without entering it - in fact, the real process of aging cognacs of different varieties is included in the exposition dedicated to the production of this drink. However, "TOTEMENT / PAPER" would not have been themselves if they had not somehow balanced this interaction of volumes in the overall composition of the complex. Therefore, the end of the wooden block is decided as a "beak" facing the steel neighbor, and its "tail" from the reverse side also invades a high-volume body in a triangle. In this plexus, a space with a very complex and dynamic geometry is born, symbolizing at the same time the long process of cognac production, all stages of which are strictly regulated, and the art of winemakers necessary for this.
“The storage is based on the image of the“giving birth”Earth, the image of a woman keeping and bearing, - the architects explain. - That is why it is so tightly connected to the ground, has grown into it. This is the yin sign. A high volume created of metal and stretching towards the sky, in turn, is associated with light, reason, external, masculine principle, this is the yang sign. Therefore, he is mobile and open, it seems outwardly slightly unsettled. In the combination of materials, you can also see a hint of two main types of vessels involved in the creation of an aristocratic drink: in oak barrels, cognac alcohol is aged, gradually losing part of its strength, and then placed in glass bottles, in which it can be for many years without further development. By the way, a high-rise volume clad with metal, gradually tapering upward, and outwardly somewhat similar to a vessel.
The third object, the checkpoint, has similar broken outlines. True, it is faced with mirrored glass, so its complex shape seems to dissolve in the surrounding space. And this is also no coincidence: the checkpoint was conceived as a kind of gateway to the landscape park, which in the future will unite all the buildings of the cognac empire.
