Theater Et Cetera on Turgenevskaya Square: version 2
The theater of Alexander Kalyagin was built ten years ago by the architects of Mosproekt-4 (many of the vicissitudes of construction are described here by the efforts of Nikolai Malinin): Kalyagin himself actively participated in the design and the result turned out, to put it mildly, controversial, kichev, although not devoid of a certain charm and certainly - originality. But in 2005, the theater was not completed until the end: since here, at the corner of Myasnitskaya, the construction of the Sretensky Bulvar metro station of the Lyublinskaya line began, and the theater had to be built in two years, then part of the Et Cetera building - about a third, was called the second stage and postponed indefinitely. In this postponed part, the main entrance was planned, facing the Myasnitskaya, the Post Office and Yushkov's house, to Turgenevskaya Square, formed in 1935 after the demolition of the Church of Flora and Lavra. At the same time, in 2005, plans were announced for the restoration of the church according to the project of N. D. Nedovich (the story is described in detail by Konstantin Mikhailov on the Heritage Keepers website); plans were abandoned. Due to the many underground communications belonging to the metro, the theater also lost its previously planned underground parking - now it is assumed that visitors can use the parking, the entrance to which is located on the other side of the boulevard.
Now, in 2015, the company "SatCo-Alliance" is working on the project of the second stage of the theater. In April, her project was criticized by the Arch Council and
sent for improvement with a lot of wishes. The project, shown to the arch council now, remained generally similar, but the authors proposed many options: six basic, and about eight more intermediate sketches, clearly demonstrating the diligence of the work done and suggesting that all possible versions have already been proposed, it remains only to choose. All versions, however, are noticeably similar: in terms of plan, the extension is a segment, the arc of the facade continues the line defined by the old building. The authors tried to fulfill the remarks of the Arch Council: they left only one ventilation kiosk of the metro on the square, the second was included in the stylobate of the building, which they tried to reduce as much as possible. The details of the facade of the first stage, which were abundantly repeated earlier, are now rare and, according to the architect, this was Kalyagin's personal wish. The options for the facades and pavement of the square, whose improvement is part of the project, differ slightly.
The experts meticulously examined the project for a long time. They asked: do we need trees on the square, why the internal premises are arranged this way, and especially - why do we need greened ramps, proposed in one of the versions, if it will not be possible for the townspeople to walk along them. “Talk about the lack of a budget, but build“tails”(ramps) that do not bring joy to anyone,” said Sergei Kuznetsov. A spokesman for the street network management said that the grill built into the building would not be enough to ventilate the subway.
Evgeny Ass began his speech with the words: I am afraid that I will be harsh. This whole project caused me and now causes bewilderment, I did not see a single picture that would convincingly show me how this thing lives on Turgenevskaya Square, in my opinion this whole wasteland (in front of the theater - ed.) Is not linked to the building square The Kalyaginsky theater was odious, but it went out into the alley, now it all spilled over into the city. In Moscow, there is such a square only in front of the Bolshoi Theater, but if you compare it with the Bolshoi Theater, then I have no words, all this absurdity with ramps, a senseless landscape solution with an abstract picture of spots … the feeling of being shot past in all positions.
Many council members were in solidarity that the façade should be “calmed down, abandoned tinsel” - “there is no reason to create such a neurotic composition here” (Eugene Ass). “The project seems to be very weak. The facade could be calmer, be the result of a volumetric-spatial composition. The decision should be less eccentric, as well grounded as possible. There is absolutely not enough height and there are errors with the scale”(Andrey Gnezdilov). “I wouldn’t cling to the word rectangular - we need a calm, rational facade. For some reason, you begin to injure the urban space, blow it up deconstructivist” (Sergei Kuznetsov)..
The position of Alexander Kudryavtsev did not quite coincide with the opinion expressed by his colleagues about the need to “calm down the façade”: according to the president of the RAASN, “if it were possible to turn to the square,” radically reworking the decision, then “in terms of urban planning this is a chance. Then the reception of ramps might make sense. " For example, one is an entrance ramp, the other is an evacuation ramp. “Do not miss the opportunity to organize streams,” however, now it is “an impossible task, difficult, but interesting for the competition,” the academician summed up, thus raising two sensitive topics at once: the likelihood of a competition (apparently tending to zero) and the question of where, after all, the theater has the main facade - in 2005 it was planned to overlook the square, which is why, that is, from the need to accentuate the main entrance, apparently all the "neurotic compositions" take place; but now everything is going to the point that if the facade is "calmed down", the main entrance will remain from the alley.
Sergei Kuznetsov drew attention to the plans of the building, immediately discovering in them a lot of irrationally organized rooms, unmotivated sharp corners ("why such a room? Put the worst actor in the corner?") And trapezoids. The complication of the plan is an obvious consequence of the fact that the facade is subordinated to the arc: “… I understand your desire, but believe me, you will not be given any awards for this“find”,” the chief architect commented on this plastic gesture. On the other hand, according to Sergei Kuznetsov, he “is not even against the elements of the old building,” in the situation of a plastic explosion, the architraves embarrassed the chief architect least of all.
One of the topical issues of discussion was the improvement of the square, which, following Yevgeny Ass, assessed by many experts as a rare phenomenon for Moscow, and on the Boulevard Ring - almost the only square of this kind. According to Evgeny Ass, the square should belong to the city: “this is a corner that could be developed, be urban”. To which the technical director of the theater objected that the square, as recently confirmed by the new head of the Department of Culture, Alexander Kibovsky, already belongs to the city, and belongs to the theater technically, in terms of connectivity and technology, etc., and it will be intended for holding city holidays. And the decision to consider the building and the area together was made at a meeting with Khusnullin.
Meanwhile, Yuri Grigoryan proposed to resolve the issue with the area “organizationally”, dividing the building and landscaping projects, and maybe even hold a competition for the space of the square (in this he was supported by Sergei Kuznetsov, having addressed representatives of the Construction Department with the idea that “… who Someone who has already worked with landscaping in Moscow ).
As for the rest, Yuri Grigoryan's assessment turned out to be one of the most benevolent, although the architect “subscribed” to all the previous statements, he noted that “in general, the project has advanced much, but there is still work to be done. The authors were asked to work for two weeks and then show the project to the Arch Council again.
Technopark is a multifunctional research and production complex
The site is located at 36 Varshavskoe shosse, next to the Nagatinskaya metro station. Now it is occupied by an industrial zone and the technopark, which, according to the author of the project, consists of modules with administrative and production functions, should in some way continue the theme characteristic of the place. The complex consists of four buildings: three of them are four-storey, the fourth is a twenty-storey tower with a zigzag plan. The buildings are located at the corners of a rectangular area, forming a relatively free layout in zigzag paths and a number of landscaping lawns. Located closer to the highway, two four-storey volumes protrude onto its red line and in the first version have relatively calm checkered facades, and in the second, following the tastes of the customer, they are oriented towards the classics with deeply extended cornices, projections and impressive rustication.
The discussion of the project revolved, among other things, around the function of the planned buildings: the head of the Office of the Architectural Council Yevgenia Murinets reminded her colleagues that it was decided to remove the “hotel function” in the tower, but its layouts still resemble residential ones. Yuri Grigoryan also noted that the placement of communications in a high-rise building on the north side is more typical for housing, while in offices it is customary to place communications from the south, and the classic facades of small buildings are also more like residential buildings than a technopark. However, the authors of the project assured the audience that they were not talking about apartments, since modern high-tech engineering does not require specific layouts, and the placement of communications from the south was explained by the rationalization of lighting.
Evgeny Ass, agreeing with the plan and composition of the complex, said about its architecture: “somehow nothing is close to me here”, expressing doubt that the words “aesthetics” and “sophistication” used by the authors in relation to the project are also not very consistent with the function of a technopark. He proposed to "calm down the architecture somewhat" by making the plans less whimsical, the facades simpler and more delicate, and making the overly bulky tower lighter. Andrei Gnezdilov also called the tower's solution strange, “because according to the plan it seems that there are two towers here. And their conjugation by some kind of diagonal connection seems even harmful for the whole volume. " Gnezdilov suggested considering the solution in the form of two separate towers.
Alexander Kudryavtsev, on the contrary, agreed with the whimsical solutions of volumes, noting only that it is worth abandoning the variegation and working out all the buildings in a single material: "then the complex will differ from its neighbors not so much in functional features, but in technological, high-quality solutions of parts." In addition, the representative of the district prefecture suggested that the designers coordinate their project with the concept of a single improvement of the district, the competition for which is now being held: "so that it does not happen that your project will not dock with the complex improvement along the Varshavskoe highway, which is being done this year."
Summing up, Sergey Kuznetsov noted that the opinions of the council members turned out to be similar, therefore, the commission is ready to agree with the general plan of the project, but the authors will still have to work on the solutions of volumes and stylistic details. It was decided to finalize the project in the working order, not submitting more for consideration by the Arch Council.
Residential complex on Serebryanicheskaya embankment
The residential complex is planned to be built at 7-11 Serebryanichesky Lane, in one of the most pleasant places in Moscow, between the Trinity Church in Serebryaniki and Sergey Skuratov's Art House. The authors of the project are the Antica Plus company from Kazan, which has specialized in designing in historical styles since the nineties. In her portoflio -
lush, detailed neohistoricism.
The architects proposed a plan in the form of two U-shaped buildings, deployed at an angle of 180 degrees to each other. The height of the volumes is carefully graduated based on the viewpoints: the part facing the Yauzskiye Vorota square has become three-story, high, nine-story volumes are removed from the river and approach Serebryanichesky lane. The buildings recede from the embankment, and the resulting space retains the existing landscaping and is “given over to the city”; the territory is also planned to be permeable. The authors proposed two variants with similar plans, facades of varying degrees of moderate traditionalism, with glass lintels, visually dividing the volumes, imitating a more fractional building than in reality. In the first, quieter version, the upper floors are all-glass penthouses.
It is planned to build on two plots in the courtyard between the line of two-story houses on Yauzskaya Street and the former tenement building, and now the building of the Moscow Art Institute, pretty plastered in the nineties. In the 2000s, a cultural center was planned here on the site of a parking lot. Before the demolitions of the 1960s - 1970s, this territory was finely cut into rectangular sections and filled with various, no higher than two floors, buildings, which are now called contextual - the most perfect "Pokrovsky Gate", and the corresponding place, the beginning of Pokrovsky Boulevard. Several two-story wooden houses looked out onto the embankment, which did not look so bad in the late fifties, but, apparently, were the first to be demolished. However, the authors of all this did not know what caused the remark of Alexander Kudryavtsev, who suggested that they thoroughly study not only the base plan and modern protective zones, but also the history of the site. The context, according to Alexander Kudryavtsev, can suggest both the scale and composition of the complex.
The most harsh was Andrei Gnezdilov, whose remark also touched on the insufficient exploration of the territory - according to him, the authors did not pay attention to the ownership of neighboring plots, in particular, they occupy "someone else's" passage and affect the interests of neighboring buildings. “I believe that the project cannot be considered in this form at all, we have no real basis, we do not even know what kind of land we are going to use,” summed up Andrey Gnezdilov. Many experts agreed that until the site received a GPZU (and it did not receive it), it is too early to talk about architecture.
The height of the buildings became a separate issue. According to the head of the Center for Visual Landscape Analysis Marina Pluzhnikova, the project uses the maximum permissible elevations allowed for this section of the VLA - 29 meters, and it would be nice to reduce them to the recommended ones - 22 m (seven-story building), so as not to block the view of the Trinity Church in Serebryaniki. Further in the discussion, other meanings were sounded: it became known that before the recommended mark was 17 meters, the customer "went out" with 37 meters. As it turned out later, the GZK has already been passed, and although the GZK gives the maximum parameters, the customers are striving to build all the permitted meters completely - therefore, as Yuri Grigoryan noted, although the height needs to be lowered, there is a danger that while maintaining the same usable area, the buildings will become overweight, will turn into "plump volumes".
Yuri Grigoryan's view of the architecture of the project turned out to be rather positive: “I can imagine a much worse building here,” the architect said, approving the decision “to go inside the block,” preserving the trees along the river and dividing the buildings into different-scale volumes. “This is architecture that knows that it is being introduced into historical buildings, and is inferior to it,” Grigoryan noted approvingly, and especially praised the unexpectedly bold red house in the second version. The architect, however, suggested removing the glass superstructures and lintels: "if it were necessary to solve now, I would say that the building can be built, only use less glass."
Sergey Kuznetsov drew attention to the fact that some of the shown visualizations differ from the plans, expressed doubts about the need for arches and glass superstructures. The direction of thought - the division of the complex into different-scale buildings - Sergei Kuznetsov called the correct one, but suggested thinking about what volume in this case “is a unit”. The building, according to the chief architect, “is huge for the center: dozens of architects would have worked here a hundred years ago” - therefore it would be possible “to strengthen the team like at the Rubber plant” (meaning the Garden Quarters project, on which several well-known Moscow Sergey Skuratov's design code bureau - editor's note) - and act in accordance with the "ideology of a large quarter, assembled from buildings of different architecture." The chief architect of the city suggested to the authors “to work more with the site”, both with the architecture and with the transport scheme and elevation marks.
