In 2009, we talked about the project of this multifunctional complex. Now it is built, you can catch a glimpse of it, flying along Leningradka. Or even look out of the window, standing up to the traditional Moscow traffic jam. I must say that the site on which the complex is located is atypical and even rare for the city. Most often, in our city, the characteristics of the location are unambiguous: a busy street, a quiet center, or a moderately calm inner quarter. But in this case, characteristics of the opposite property are applicable to the environment: it faces the noisy Leningradsky Prospekt, but is located in a green zone, plus an incredibly rare for Moscow view of the big water - the river.
In these circumstances, the authors of the project, architects Andrei Romanov and Yekaterina Kuznetsova, made a natural decision to isolate themselves from the avenue as much as possible and open the space of the complex towards the park and the pier as fully as possible, especially since a very diverse set of objects allowed this to be done. The complex consists of two hotel buildings, one office and one residential building. Since the new hotel building will be occupied by the Hilton international chain brand, strict requirements and standards were imposed on its buildings from the very beginning. In particular, the building should be simple in shape with straight corridors inside. As a result, the main hotel building was located along the red line of the avenue, defining the border of the quarter and thereby isolating it from the city noise, thanks to which a cozy quiet space, a world of its own, appeared inside. The fact that the main facade of the hotel faces the city highway is also fully justified from the point of view of the correct functioning of the hotel - it "signals" its location and it is easy for guests to find it.
Fencing the plot with a rather "rigid" frontal volume, the architects tried to save it from monotony, adding variety in details and proportions. Several risalits of different widths, not subject to strict rhythmic alternation, add up to an abstract composition, a kind of picture on the facade. The risalits not only protrude from the wall, they also protrude slightly above the upper mark of the building, which makes the facade look like a city street: as if a row of houses of a smaller scale are strung on the light ones on the line of "force fields" of a certain similarity to a fleeting means of revitalizing the composition and crushing the mass. The protrusions alternate: projections lined with ivory ceramic panels are interspersed with ceramic moldings covered with brown-yellow horizontal shading, - thin gaps between the stripes make the surface permeable and light, as opposed to the neutrality of a dense light background. However, the fawn part of the facades (under the windows and near the stairwells) is also cut with stripes - "gills". The picture is rather graphic, as if drawn with a pen and colored ink.
Nevertheless, the frontal character of the corner case was important for the authors, and they tried to preserve it: in particular, the entrance vestibule protruding far forward is made entirely of glass, transparent and almost does not violate the straightness of the block.
If the border of the quarter is outlined by rectangular volumes, then the smooth curvature of two buildings with oval plans prevails inside: this is the second hotel building and a residential building for four apartments. Their volumes, placed at right angles to each other, are contrastingly juxtaposed: one of them is flat, the other is vertical, but the main technique for solving the facade of the two oval buildings is common: this is the beat down rhythm of window openings. They then thicken, then become sparse, then line up in zigzags, then change their width - they imitate the movement picked up by the ledges of transparent balconies. However, diversity is invariably subordinate to logic and rhythm: the openings are strictly inscribed in horizontal ribbons, if the width of the windows alternates, then one vertical line is strictly adhered to, - each time a reference point is found that encompasses the freedom of the holland wall, multiplied by the changeable curvature of an oval shape, into rational framework. Only the high windows of the first floors growing out of the ground allow themselves to change the height, but also step by step.
Another feature of the oval buildings is their somewhat greater picturesqueness: the windows' gravitation towards free asymmetry is picked up by the rich spectrum of limestone shades with which the facades are decorated. In contrast to the flat fawn surface of the ceramics, with which the facades of the corner case are decorated, here the stone slabs of deliberately different shades, from light beige to almost brown, resemble flat brush strokes; their irregular "pixel" alternation is consonant with the dance of windows, but grows in the opposite direction, from the ground. In addition, the architects endowed the pavement of the courtyard with almost the same stone pattern, which makes the park buildings seem to almost literally grow out of the ground, belonging to it in texture and natural, conditionally "not made by hand" material. This is how it was conceived: the perimeter buildings are "urban", the oval ones are park buildings. In the play of freedom and logic, nature and geometry, volume and picturesqueness present here, one could catch hints of the manor pavilions of romanticism, or even recall the stone Romanesque towers that grew out of the same stone pavement. However, these associations, far from the hotel business, are quickly dispelled by the humid wind from the river and the usual noise of Moscow avenue.
The inner courtyard of the complex is intended, among other things, for open-air events - buffets and parties. In his landscape project, which was also carried out by the architects of ADM (the architects of the bureau are very attentive to landscaping in many of their projects), the theme of combining straight and rounded lines and surfaces again arises. The green mound is cut by flat planes, between which there is a path to the entrance, and the planes are covered with boardwalk; it can be used as a podium and amphitheater - to sit or even lie down. The courtyard lighting is also unusual: there are no usual lanterns, instead of them there are lamps built into the paving and outlining routes for movement around the courtyard. The architects believe that this light will be quite enough with constantly lit hotel lobbies, from where the light will enter the courtyard through the stained-glass windows.
In addition to the image built on light counterpoint and well-thought-out improvement, the quality of understanding and implementation of various architectural details is pleasantly surprising here: well-thought-out nodes, joints, ends, adjoining stone window sills to the wall, edging of glass railing with wooden railings and a wooden lining of the lower part of the consoles with built-in lighting lamps - everything that exists in the practice of expensive European architecture in the form of an inevitable background, the sum of necessary, not discussed, but only perfected techniques and skills, similar to the straight line of an expensive jacket. It is possible that it is precisely because of this artisan perfectionism - the word should not offend anyone, because without understanding the fact that architecture is a craft that requires effort, it remains too papery - so it is possible that because of this thoroughness and cleanliness, the very feeling of a high-quality and expensive space arises, which becomes complete when we get into the courtyard - a feeling so opposite to the eternal Moscow sloppiness that it is simply amazing.
