In the Novoslobodskaya metro area, near Palikha Street, the transformation of two small factories of the early 20th century - the Salyut weaving factory and the Reklamfilm association - into a modern Atmosphere business quarter, designed by the ADM architectural bureau, has been completed.
We wrote about the project of the business quarter two years ago, now it has been implemented. In the summer, tenants appeared here, and delicious smells came from the cafe in front of the entrance, the quarter came to life. “It's nice to see people coming out into the courtyards, sitting, chatting, drinking coffee. It is a very harmonious environment, it is quiet, there are no cars, cars are parked separately. A very comfortable environment has been created. The atmosphere of a European city, which we conceived and declared, has completely turned out here,”admits Andrei Romanov, head of the ADM architectural bureau. The architects opened their office here, in the best traditions, in a space created with their own hands, and continue to observe how life is improving in a small but cozy business quarter that they have created.
Let us remind you that the authors of the reconstruction have preserved, having cleared of small extensions, almost all the main buildings of the quarter, most of which were inexpensive factory buildings a century ago. The buildings were thoroughly cleaned and covered with light gray plaster, highlighting the details of the modest facade decor in white. The Soviet building of the 1970s and several small volumes inside the quarter were "changed", covered with striped ceramic panels, also in the general tone, light gray. The thick windows of the Soviet building were stretched vertically, separated by a thin lintel, and a striped glass plate was added in the lower part, which hides part of the wall behind it; the floors were divided by dark metal I-beams in the spirit of ADM. All this: striped glass, a little metal, light shading of ceramics - makes the modern part of the complex light to imperceptibility - like the tints of the lost paint layer that restorers make on icons: new facades only splices the space, without pretending to be more, forming a background.
Strictly speaking, all the other historical facades of the beginning of the 20th century leave the same impression of the background: they were and still are inconspicuous "ordinary buildings", the main task of which is to contain the function, and not draw attention to themselves. The main violin here is not the facades, but the very atmosphere in honor of which the business quarter is named.
When I asked Andrey Romanov where the speaking name came from, he joked: “We have told the customer so many times about the European atmosphere that we want to create here, which may have somehow influenced the name as well”. Every joke contains a grain of truth, and here it is quite significant: it was the atmosphere of the three courtyards that became the main concern of the architects, all artistic techniques and plastic searches were concentrated in it - extremely delicate, unobtrusive, but marked by attention to detail and quality of execution.
Three small pedestrian courtyards form an irregular chain that stretches from the old Moscow Palikhi Street parallel to Suschevskaya Street to an unnamed passage. It will be possible to walk through the courtyards, although the main entrance from the side of the passage through the reception with a turnstile looks conditionally open - nevertheless, those who know can enter and see what happened.
However, the atmosphere begins just before the entrance. Turning off Suschevskaya Street, we find ourselves in a lane a little cleaner, more spacious and bright than we are used to. Most of the cafes and restaurants are concentrated here, which work, in this way, both for office workers and for the townspeople. On the left is the greatly changed Soviet building, on the right is the most magnificent of the facades of the local factory historicism. The windows of its first floor were buried in the ground, during the reconstruction they dug them out and made a rather deep "pit", letting in more daylight into the basement rooms; the premises were given to restaurants.
We go inside between the buildings - on the right and on the left there are offices and security, but through the turnstile you can go into the courtyard. It, like the next two, is paved with small textured stone, crossed by flat diagonals of dark gray granite, separating round flower beds, which, however, somehow even the tongue does not dare to call this boring word. They are more like art objects: islands of greenery in a stone, emphatically urban space. Among them there are literally islands: hemispheres covered with grass, on which somewhere one, somewhere several pines of the Bonsian rock breed grows. Such pines do not grow large, but over time they turn into dense bushes - say the architects.
Other islets are planted with tall panicles of flowers and surrounded by ripped rings of Belgian agglomerated white concrete benches. The benches are very high quality, they were made in Belgium and brought here. In some places, the surface of the benches is left concrete, but more often, for warmth, it is covered with a lattice made of reddish kumaru wood. The broken circles of the benches, similar to the icons from the ophthalmologist's table, are very roomy due to their shape. The short, thick "legs" of the benches rest against a layer of sea pebbles, which probably brings the most positive vacation impressions to office workers resting here from the stress of office workers.
The courtyards are cozy during the day, but especially good in the evening: the architects paid a lot of attention to the lighting and made it exactly according to the project. Thin strokes of lamps are embedded in the smooth stripes of the pavement along the buildings, illuminating the facades from below and illuminating the lower, human part of the courtyard space with reflected light. The pebbles under the benches are shining brightly - together with the illumination of the walls, this creates a feeling of the glow of the earth or even a slight "floating" of the benches - they seem to lean on rings of light. Spotlights in the grass of the hill by the pine trees complete the picture.
The only blotches in the historical facades that the architects allowed themselves - bright spots of color silk-screen printing with large numbers - the numbers of the buildings - on the glass of the entrance doors. Color and number are unique combinations that make it easier to navigate in a series of entrances, and at the same time add emotions and light, relaxed modernity to the restrained urban atmosphere of the quarter.
The resulting space must be recognized as exemplary, and quite expensive, interspersed with the modern urban environment. To some extent, this is a very neat, discreet imitation of Europe, installed almost imperceptibly in the mess of cold Moscow lanes. For ADM architects, this reconstruction was the first in a series of other such projects, which they took on a little later, and was the first completed work in this genre. The successful transition to the topic of reconstruction was not easy, a lot had to be corrected. “Despite all the difficulties, we have gained invaluable experience,” admits Andrei Romanov.
Indeed, working with historical buildings is a matter fraught with many small, unforeseen difficulties of a purely practical, engineering nature. In addition, despite the growing and already universal love for the topic of improvement, it is easy to notice that somewhere they are talking about, but here everything has already been done, we have a living example; you can come, see, sit. It’s scary to think how much effort and time is needed for this kind of jewelry environment to prevail, at least in the city center. But they say that water wears away a stone - careful work with stone, light, piece pines - all this is just the beginning, the sprout of a trend that over time may give its more tangible fruits. You just have to work hard.
