The Museum of the October Railway has existed in St. Petersburg since 1978, it is located on the emb. Obvodny Canal, 114. After the closure of Varshavsky railway station in 2001, the largest exhibits - more than a hundred steam locomotives, locomotives and carriages from Shushary station (Pushkinsky district of St. Petersburg) were transported closer to the existing museum building, namely on the way of the former station. But the city had other plans for the territory they occupied. It is planned to build a residential neighborhood here, so a large family of steam locomotives needed a new house. To create his project, Studio 44 was invited.
Since the full-fledged existence of the collection of this museum, by definition, requires a railroad track, St. Petersburg did not have so many options for its new location. Several stations in the central part of the city were considered, but in the end the choice fell on the station again - this time Baltiysky. The advantages of such a solution are obvious: the location is more than convenient, the thematic correspondence is 100 percent, the availability of free space is abundant. We are talking about more than 5 hectares behind the Baltic railway station, where the former locomotive depot, transformer substation and a whole network of access and dead-end tracks are now located. The TP and the depot are planned to be reconstructed, and the existing canvas is to be "thinned out" a little, museumified and used again as an open-air "showcase". Also, the track facilities, as the railway workers themselves usually say, will later be used for the movement of retro trains. However, first things first.
As Nikita Yavein explains, the depot is not formally a monument, and the architects were not obliged to preserve it. But for the railway museum it is difficult to come up with a more authentic volume, so Studio 44 never for a minute had doubts that the depot needed to be preserved. Moreover, it was this building that predetermined the compositional solution of the entire complex: its classic horseshoe-shaped plan for such structures formed the basis for the new exhibition complex. In fact, the architects clone the existing volume, enlarge it by about 2.5 times and clothe it in an emphatically modern shell.
The new building consists of three parts - a central core with a radial planning structure and two side wings. The radial structure does not arise by chance - the core contains a turntable for demonstrating locomotives, and the side wings of the building are already attached to this "hinge". Interestingly, the latter are not parallel to each other, but set at an angle of about 5 degrees, which is why the semicircular roof over the central part of the building acquires an elegant roll - this is how a wide-brimmed hat on a sunny day is usually slightly pulled over the eyes. “The angle we choose is the same as the standard railroad switch angle,” says Yavein. “It will improve the view of large-scale exhibits, arrange objects at an angle to each other and thereby avoid the monotonous symmetry that tires the visitor.”
As already mentioned, resembling a historical depot in structure and form, the new museum building differs significantly from its predecessor in architecture. From the solid stone facing of the depot, only brutal stone pylons remain, the space between which is completely glazed. Through the giant stained-glass windows from the street, one can clearly see the turntable and a fan of paths with exhibits installed on them, as well as a developed system of metal trusses, unambiguously reminiscent of station landing stages. At the same time, the architects do not block the space between the two wings of the new building - here it was decided to arrange a model of the historic railway station.“It seems to us that a life-size station included in the museum is a very important component of the project,” says Nikita Yavein. “It pushes the boundaries of a traditional cultural institution, linking the stationary exposition part with the existing railway infrastructure.”
In total, it is planned to place about 62 exhibits of rolling stock in the new building and in the courtyard, while the restored depot will accommodate only 11 old wagons and locomotives from the museum's collection. The entrance to the museum will be carried out precisely through the historical building, therefore, the former depot will also have a lobby group, a cafe and a souvenir shop, as well as several exhibition halls that can operate independently of the main exhibition. The old and new buildings are supposed to be connected between themselves by passages on the first and second levels, which will give visitors the opportunity to get acquainted with the entire collection of the museum and its selected sections. So, from the second level of the depot, from one of its wings to the other, it will be possible to get through the suspension bridge, and to the new building go through the covered gallery. Another bypass gallery awaits visitors in the newest building - along its entire inner perimeter, the architects are laying the so-called. a viewing route, from where an impressive view of the large exhibits located at ground level will open.
The fact that the museum is being moved beyond the Baltic Station does not at all mean that it will once again exist on the outskirts of the city. On the contrary, this territory is dynamically developing today: several large industrial zones located here are going through a stage of complex renovation. So, developing the theme of continuity of historical methods of railway architecture and their modern interpretation, the ensemble of two museum buildings will not only preserve the spirit of the place, but will also become a new "cultural anchor" of the emerging public and business center of city-wide significance.
