The new bridge will connect two central parks of Kiev - "Khreshchaty" and "Vladimirskaya Gorka". The fact is that, formally being the closest neighbors, these parks today practically do not interact with each other: "Vladimirskaya Gorka" is located on the upper and middle terraces of Mikhailovskaya Mountain, and "Khreshchaty" is broken up on the slopes of the Dnieper along the Vladimirsky descent, and there is no strong difference in the relief. allows you to make them part of a single walking route. Actually, the task of the competition was an engineering and architectural solution that would remove landscape barriers and allow walking people to move freely from one park to another. And since the bridge should be built in the very center of the Ukrainian capital, very serious requirements were imposed on its external appearance - it should be spectacular and worthy of proximity to the most significant sights of Kiev, the structure should also treat the natural complex with care. Asadov's Architectural Bureau, together with ISTOKstroy, is the only Russian participant in this competition, in developing its concept it was based on the need to minimize intrusion into the parks. Having proposed the most sparing, "angelic" method of building a new bridge, the authors and its architectural image were built on the resemblance to an angel.
The "Angel" touched the ground at three points - with the tips of its wings and an intermediate support that connected it to the center of the Khreshchaty Park. The support not only shortens the span and changes the direction of movement along the bridge, but also allows you to get from both parks as quickly as possible to the Parkovy bridge leading to the opposite bank of the Dnieper. And giving the projected structure the shape of a tick, in turn, allows you to directly connect the entrance areas of the two parks.
Angel Wings have a span of 89 and 111 meters, each of which consists of 2 trusses, bent vertically and horizontally to ensure spatial stability. A pedestrian route runs along the upper belt of the farms, which in the plan resemble strongly elongated Xs, and a more "extreme" route with a difference in elevation, designed for cyclists, roller skaters, skaters, etc., runs along the lower one, which forms smooth arcs. With such a solution, the architects kill two birds with one stone: on the one hand, the streams of townspeople and athletes are isolated from each other on most of the route, which guarantees their safety, and on the other, it made it possible to make the silhouette of the bridge more expressive and, due to the "sagging" of the lower part, to make the new construction with the Arch of Friendship of Peoples located very close.
Interpreting the intermediate support as the "body" of an angel, the authors use it to accommodate additional volume, which is intended to make the bridge even more attractive to citizens and tourists. This volume in the plan has the shape of a slightly elongated hexagon and serves as a kind of counterpoint, where human streams inevitably meet, following from both sides. On its upper level, the Angel's Point observation deck is created, opening onto one of the most beautiful panoramas of the city, and under it is the Angel ice cafe, where you can taste the “food of the gods”. However, the Asadovs' architectural and marketing ideas do not end there - the architects also propose to place Angel's Post on the new bridge. Here, according to the idea of the authors, it will be possible to buy a snow-white ribbon, make a wish and, as a sign of appeal to an angel, tie the ribbon to the fence of the bridge. “It seems to us that such a tradition will appeal to the townspeople and will quickly take root, and this, in turn, guarantees the bridge a constantly changing and supplemented image,” says one of the authors of the project, Andrei Asadov. The architect admits: such notions, in principle, were not provided for, but the task of the competition itself is to develop not so much a structural scheme of the bridge as a concept, if you will, ideology, of connecting two previously completely self-sufficient parks, pushed to the invention of non-standard scenarios that guarantee the attractiveness of the bridge for the townspeople and designed to emphasize its status as a new landmark in Kiev.
In an effort to minimize the use of cranes and heavy equipment, "Asadov Architectural Bureau" paid special attention in its project to the scenario of the construction of the bridge. First, a central support with a cafe platform and a staircase is installed, then temporary cable-stayed structures are thrown between it and the end platforms, on which the scaffolds are mounted for the installation of trusses. First of all, the lower truss belt is mounted according to the principle of a flexurally rigid thread, which can be assembled from both composite I-beams and reinforcing bars. Then the upper chord with braces is installed, as well as the cross beams between the trusses. The project envisages that the bridge will be finished with a deck board made of natural wood - after all, it connects the parks and should be in some kind of relationship with them - and its main structural elements are supposed to be painted white, which, according to the architects, will help the new structure as much as possible. fit organically into city panoramas.
For all its simplicity and rationality, the bridge invented by the Assadovs boasts an expressive appearance and an interesting architectural and planning scheme that promises to turn a trivial transition from one park to another into an interesting event.
