The most ambitious of all Moscow projects for the reconstruction of industrial zones - the integrated development of the territory of the Likhachev Plant - is gradually gaining momentum. It is, of course, not easy to shake such a colossus: the building area is huge, the plans are the most ambitious, the functional range is from preserving automobile production to, for example, opening a branch of the Hermitage. Nevertheless, the outlines of the initial stage of the redevelopment - the sports and entertainment quarter "Park of Legends" - have already taken shape, and its first and main facility has been commissioned and is actively functioning.
Back in April, the first matches of the Legends Cup tournament were held at the VTB Ice Palace multifunctional sports complex, and next year it is preparing to host the Ice Hockey World Championship. This sport is a basic one for the Ice Palace, it will become the home arena of Moscow Dynamo, but, of course, its three ice rinks are perfect for figure skating, and thanks to rapid transformation technologies, both main arenas (for 12,000 and 3,500 seats) can be converted for competitions in other sports, as well as shows and concert programs.
The authorship of the general concept of the building belongs to the SPEECH bureau. There were no ice arenas in the workshop's portfolio before, although this is far from their first sports facility: everyone is hearing about the Aquatics Palace in Kazan; a complex reconstruction of the Dynamo stadium (VTB Arena Park) is underway. In this case, Sergei Tchoban developed the technology and the main parameters of the palace, after which they only dealt with the design of the main facade.
The building consists of two uneven-high parallelepipeds united by a common facade - one containing the main arena, the second small and training arena. A rather laconic form was chosen not only for practical reasons - although both the budget and the unprecedentedly tight deadline for construction appealed to pragmatism. Much more important is the fact that the palace was conceived as the first and key element of the architectural complex of the central square of the "Park of Legends", which, upon completion of construction, will connect the exit to the Third Ring with the middle part of the reconstructed territory. Along the long side of this elongated rectangular space, opposite the ice arena, a Water Sports Complex will rise, on the right, the square is adorned with the AMO plant management building, built by Konstantin Melnikov before the revolution, in 1916-1917, in the neoampire style (now it is being restored to house the Hockey Museum, and earlier, at the time of the plant, there was a ZiL museum); the pyramid of the museum of the Russian Olympic Committee should appear on the south side of the square. And if we can only guess about how the frontal confrontation between the palace and the water stadium under construction will develop, then the relationship between the ice arena and the historical building of the future Museum of Hockey has already become clear. The location of the objects is such that from the side of the square the main facade of the palace interacts with the museum, and from the side of the Third Ring - the side, with a huge LED media screen, in front of which there is a fan zone. “In many ways, for these reasons, preference was given to the rectangular shape of the Ice Palace,” comments Sergei Tchoban. “We wanted to oppose the characteristic plasticity of the historical volume with the elongated horizontal surface of the main facade, which is clearly laconic in its form and geometry”. Colors and textures interact no less dramatically - the dense red color of the facades of the former factory management and the crystal blue of the polished glass of the ice arena. A curious and somewhat very Moscow combination.
Against the background of architectural restraint, the façade assumes the main figurative load. It is tempting to trace the continuity between the ice arena and the Kazan Water Sports Palace, built a few years ago - where the building's appearance no less clearly communicated its functional purpose. Now the water has changed its state of aggregation: it froze as an ice block, circles and highlights on the surface of the water surface froze in a bluish-gray gradient of the skating rink aligned for the competition.
SPEECH is true to itself - both in the meticulous work with the surface, and in the meticulous attention to detail, and in the love of glass, a unique material that is modern, economical and has considerable decorative possibilities. The method of multi-plane printing on the "ice" of the facade in a chaotic manner is applied with white strokes, as if left by the skates of athletes; however, against the background of the Moscow sky reflected in the glass, these strokes also resemble contrails of an airplane in flight (the artistic concept of the facade design was developed in cooperation with the Berlin office of the German bureau nps tchoban voss). The theme is picked up by the railing of the marching stairs, each of which leads to one of the entrance zones - the same dashed motif is applied to them by the method of perforation, and the dynamic marches themselves evoke associations with the blades of skates. By the way, the facade of the future water complex, according to its published visualizations, will be covered with a pattern that resembles ripples on the water. All three buildings on the still incompletely decorated square turn out to be, each in their own way, "speaking" and symbolic: on one side there is water, on the other - ice, and a neoampiric building, paradoxically built according to an early project of the future great avagardist, but against the background of glass giants - emphatically classic, now embodies the theme of museum history.
On the territory of "Peninsula ZIL" there will be many more different wonders - both technological, cultural, and others. There will also be a lot of good modern architecture here. The more honorable and responsible is the mission to be the first that fell to the lot of the Ice Palace.
