The shopping center is located near the Vykhino metro station. In the 1960s, its environs were completely built up with long, cheap nine-story buildings, of which there are many in Moscow; then the space between them was overgrown with trees and the area turned into spacious and very green, which is especially pleasant in summer. And already in our time, Vykhino has become a transfer point for many people who come to Moscow to work. This is not rich, like the entire Moscow east, and at rush hours it is also terribly tense place known for constant crowds, the pressure of a tired stream of people. In such a place where a terrifying number of people live and constantly move, shopping centers are needed, which, as you know, in Moscow have become the main means of cultural leisure and stress relief. However, there are not so many of them here: there are stalls near the metro and a box of Rusmarket a little further away, on a round square, once named after the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Guinea-Bissau at the whim of the Soviet leadership. The shopping center, built by Yuri Vissarionov's bureau, is located just between this square and the new residential tower that covers it from the metro side. From the metro to the new shopping center 10 minutes walk.
The architects designed the shopping center 8 years ago and only built it now. The customer built it for seven years, consistently solving organizational and financial issues. This is important because it explains not too large dimensions - the total area of the building is slightly less than 9000 sq. meters, and not too flashy, but upon closer examination, there is a noticeable connection between the architectural project and neo-constructivism, which was popular in the early 2000s.
Many features of this building point to the memory of the avant-garde ancestors. Ribbon windows, sometimes long, sometimes interrupted by a dotted line; point supports of the first floor, two rectangular stair towers with vertical stained-glass windows, cutting through an extended volume from the side of Veshnyakovskaya Street; round aluminum pillars supporting right angles, and finally one of the most readable motifs, a round window above one of these pillars, to the left of McDonald's. I must say that the general massiveness of the volumes - the materiality of the wall is felt in this building - allows in some places to make its plastic sculpturally active.
The most flexible accent is the three-level tower at the entrance, on the corner from the metro side. This is the main entrance, and the cascade of round terraces attracts the attention of passers-by (and those passing along the street). In addition, the rounded pyramid "corresponds" to the neighboring round tower-house, and together they form a kind of propylaea at the entrance to the quarter. Inside, the stepped tower has no ceilings - it is a double-height pyramidal space of the entrance atrium; and in the uppermost cylinder it is planned to place an exhibition hall, round and bright because of the glass walls. From there it will be possible to go to the roof - there are planned café verandas and even sports grounds. There, on the roof, visitors will find another rounded volume, a large glass oval illuminated by ribbon windows from all sides - by the way, also hinting at the prototypes of the classic avant-garde.
The triangular bay window on the rear (from the side of the square) facade is responsible for the modernity of the project, while the triangular lanterns on the roof, and, perhaps, the walls of the first floor, curved in waves on the main facade (they add unexpected playfulness to the strict, in essence, building) and on the balcony of the second floor before McDonald's. It should be noted that on the layout the building looks more constructivist than it turned out in reality - mainly due to economical glazing and simple cladding with square tiles. For a building that took seven years to build and finally built, this is a small sacrifice, although, of course, for the embodiment of an architectural concept - in something historicized, in something modern - now you can choose a more suitable material. However, it has come to pass: among the crowd of railway stations and old panels, from under the sign of McDonald's, from under the inevitable husk of life, the beloved, priceless, although half-forgotten by citizens, the great Russian avant-garde optimistically and confidently peeps out. It takes root, adapts - from industrialization, heavy industry, institutions and clubs to shopping centers, it lives and grows in a cultural context.
