The new Saratov airport should be built in the area of the village of Saburovka, which is 20 km from the city. It should completely replace the existing Saratov-Tsentralny airport, located within the city limits and capable of receiving only small planes. In other words, today Saratov is connected by air only with the nearest cities of Russia, which makes it impossible for its residents to have convenient direct flights to Europe and sea resorts. The need to build new "air gates" has been discussed for the last twenty years, but only in 2008 was the site on which this could be done was finally determined, in 2011 the purchase of land plots was completed, in 2013 the creation of the runway was started and a competition was held for the architectural design of the airport building itself. The competition itself was of a closed nature - in the second round, the customer invited several bureaus that had large-scale urban planning and public projects and aerial complexes in their portfolio. For the Asadov Architectural Bureau, which is very familiar with the topic of transport infrastructure in general, this work almost coincided with the development of the concept of another airport - Yuzhny in Rostov-on-Don. And if the Moscow architects eventually ceded the right to design the "air gate" to the south of Russia to the British, then Saratov remained with them.
“As the initial data, the participants of the competition were given a clear functional diagram of the airport, which needed to be given a memorable appearance - both external and internal, therefore our main efforts were directed precisely at the architectural solution of the complex,” says Andrey Asadov. “At the same time, unlike Rostov-on-Don, here the competition task did not include either the area in front of the building, nor its connection with the parking lot and the airport terminal - their development is planned at the next stage of the project's development”. On the one hand, the architects found themselves in a situation of some isolation - they had to design a volume, conventionally cut off from the context, but on the other hand, this helped to find an image that was both self-sufficient and hospitably open to its immediate surroundings.
In the new "Central" there will be a place for an international departure hall with all related services, and for a developed "hub" of domestic airlines, however, taking into account the scale of Saratov, it is planned to place them rather compactly. In terms of the future airport has an almost square shape, which from the side of the airfield is complemented by only two stationary telescopic ladders. It can be said that the participants of the competition were given "black boxes", which each of them had to refine externally, giving a more memorable appearance than just a chest in the middle of the airfield.
“Having started working with this conventional box, we first of all determined which elements of the facade would most actively influence the design concept,” says Andrey Asadov. “In addition to the entrance area, there were, of course, service and technical entrances, as well as stained-glass windows of those areas where passengers spend most of their time.” In order to avoid the appearance of numerous "patches" from windows and doors on the side facades, the architects decided to combine all openings into one shape. In fact, they cut out a large semi-arch in the side facade, which then goes to the boarding bridge. The space under it is covered with pylons, and the wall itself is also given a not very strong, but noticeable slope. In the same way, it is proposed to tilt the bases of the bridges, thereby giving the "profile" of the building an obvious resemblance to the fuselage of an aircraft.
The main facades are also experiencing serious tectonic changes. Their architects also noticeably press into the building, and from the side of the airfield, the "face" of the airport is indicated with the help of a developed canopy, and from the opposite side, the expression of the "concave lens" is emphasized by a light canopy of the same shape.
The design of the roof logically complements the chosen style of smooth curved shapes. The architects in the plan give its central part a resemblance to an hourglass, "filled" with skylights of the same ellipse-like shape, the length of which decreases as it approaches the center of the building. These "lenses to the sky" highlight the area of movement of the main passenger flows in the airport structure and, naturally, help to make it as bright as possible.
The architects themselves admit that the design of the roof has absorbed several associations at once - these are the rifts of river waves, and the smooth silhouettes of the bridge over the Volga, and even the famous Saratov accordion. But the main thing that the authors of the project were striving for was to create a kind of portal that would seem to draw in passengers. And since the portal is by definition a significant and massive element, the inevitable monumentality of the building must be compensated for with stained glass glazing, elegant cable guides and thin oblique ribs supporting consoles on the side facades. In the opinion of the jury, Asadov's Architectural Bureau coped with the task perfectly, offering Saratov a building that is memorable and at the same time realizable.
