The building of the kitchen factory in Samara was built in 1930–1932 by the Moscow architect Ekaterina Maksimova; in plan it has the shape of a hammer and sickle.
Vitaly Stadnikov, an architect and deputy dean of the Higher School of Urbanism at the Higher School of Economics, took up the task of saving this avant-garde monument when it was threatened with demolition, and is now part of the team of authors for the project of its restoration and adaptation for the branch of the NCCA.
The misfortunes of the building of the kitchen factory began when it ceased to be used for its intended purpose. When did it happen?
- It was used until the end of the 1990s as a food processing plant, where cookery and the Sever restaurant worked. It belonged to a defense plant, which is located on the border of the central part of Samara. This is an old enterprise that made the filling of cartridges, and at the same time - the Pobeda watch. Later, a semi-criminal office called "Juice" bought this enterprise out of state ownership, sawing it into pieces, and then the kitchen factory was also removed from the state balance sheet. It functioned as a collection of nightclubs and rental properties until 2008. Moreover, in 1998-1999 its next reconstruction took place.
That is distortion?
- In fact, it was distorted almost from the very beginning. Initially, this building was constructivist, with many characteristic elements - huge stained glass windows, stairwells that hung from amazing, well-timed graceful concrete structures. And then all this was laid with bricks, plastered, rusty and cornice attached. It was wartime, 1944, and it was impossible to heat all this. This reconstruction was very funny: after it, forced post-constructivism was not recognized in the building, as was usually the case when decorations were suddenly applied to a functional, ascetic constructivist building. There is a lot of such post-constructivism throughout the country, when it is clear that the building was conceived to be dynamic, sharp, but it was decorated … And this building has been converted into such a classic, where avant-garde genetics and the spirit have gone cold. Moreover, in fact it was a rather intelligent, restrained classic, but the building itself was approached as if it were not a pretentious compositional trick - a sickle and a hammer in the plan, but just a box, classically finished with a parallelepiped. But, here's the bad luck, it is rolled up in a circular manner, like a manor stable yard.
And in this state, the kitchen factory survived until the end of the 1990s without changing its functions. Then it turned into a typical Babylon of that time, where everything was happening. In the basement there was a sauna, upstairs they sold all-terrain vehicles, Italian furniture, there was a cult club "Skvoznyak" and a folk disco-karaoke "Sever", an office center. All of this was characteristically decorated with plasterboard over wooden lathing, a very rudimentary handcrafted technique that was much more archaic than the one that was used to build the building in 1932. The paradox is in this. When they began to prepare it for restoration now and these layers began to be dismantled, then all this material culture of the 90s was revealed. It was very interesting to observe, because at the end of the 90s I had just graduated from the institute and myself participated in many similar projects of "collective farm" interior work. I remember how and who made these interiors, and now they have already begun to be destroyed, like a peeling layer, a barbaric growth.
The kitchen factory was then distorted quite strongly, the ceilings were broken through. Rather, in the 1940s, the ceilings were removed in one sector to make a two-story sports hall, where the ball was supposed to fly in a radius. But, since there is a fairly large radius, the hall functioned. And then it was again divided into two tiers in the late 1990s, with this self-made reconstruction. The whole building was sheathed with white siding, the roof was made very blue-blue. Everything became "neat".
Until 2008, the building stood like that, and then the owners decided to sell it, and the new owner was the Clover Group company, a division of Rosgosstrakh Nedvizhimost. She wanted to build a 30-storey building on the site of the kitchen factory. Although it was presented as an identified monument, according to the documents, it was not a monument. this status was not confirmed by resolutions. But the local Ministry of Culture did not want to miss the chance to provide services to the owners, so they imposed security obligations on developers, which actually allowed demolition, provided that the facades were “recreated”. That is, at the bottom there should have been a stylobate part in the form of a hammer and sickle, and a 30-storey tower would rise behind it. All this became known to me from the developers of the draft design, a highly respected Moscow company. And we invited those involved in the preservation of the heritage of the British - the Moscow correspondent of The Times and the co-founder of MAPS Clementine Cecil, then the chairman of SAVE Britain's Heritage Marcus Binney. And thanks to them there was a very serious ringing. We then held massive actions - not at all costly, but extremely successful. Gathered a press conference, held an architectural cycling day, which was attended by many people, including a lot of journalists.
This turned out to be an excellent news lead, and on the same day the owners of the building approached us, began to negotiate: they offered to publish a book about constructivism, about Samara, and to demolish the "bathhouse". They could not understand that they had contacted the enthusiasts. Moreover, these "clover-groupers" turned out to be quite civilized developers, they tried to solve everything amicably. But after they talked with Natalya Dushkina, they realized that they would not be able to agree. And then I tried to work out a constructive position: make your 30-storey house on this site, but in such a way that the building of the kitchen factory will be repaired and adapted for commercial functions - a food court or something else. At that moment I was sure that I was right, but now I understand that I was wrong - like any architect sick with architecture-centrism. Who dreams of a golden compromise when he observes both ethical and commercial issues. It didn't work out that way.
The owners saw a way out for the building to collapse on its own. To speed up the process, they tore off the roof so that water would flow inside, and without heating it stood for five years, from 2008 to 2013. It did not collapse, because it is reinforced concrete. With the help of the prosecutor's office, we forced the local Ministry of Culture to write a restoration task, all sorts of instructions that the Ministry of Culture was supposed to hand over to the owners, but did not. Then we ourselves did a historical and cultural examination according to all the rules. For a long time, the Ministry of Culture of the Samara region did not accept it, for obvious reasons. And then the provincial government changed, and I got the position of the chief architect of the city. And it so happened that the new governor was not so interested in the kitchen factory, or rather, the land under it, for this facility he had no obligations. And then Alexander Khinshtein joined the story as a State Duma deputy from Samara. He took up a comprehensive program for the restoration of the city, when an architectural monument is taken after an architectural monument. And he especially liked the story of the kitchen factory, because it is the largest facility for which he was able to get funding from the authorities. It is unique that he was able to come to an agreement with everyone, acted as an ingenious mediator, because the building was not in municipal or regional ownership - it was owned by a commercial structure, and therefore it was practically not protected legally in any way, there were no levers of pressure on the owners. But with all this, it was possible to agree with the owners, who did not know where to put this asset, on the exchange of this asset for another, not needed area - some kind of unfinished. As a result, everyone was satisfied. And the region simply transferred the factory-kitchen into federal ownership - directly to the State Center for Contemporary Art as a user. At the same time, with the help of our colleagues, we tried to come up with a new function for it, which could approach the World Cup, for example, the center of the Russian avant-garde. But, as I understand it, it was decided to give it to the only possible powerful user - the NCCA and, accordingly, it was decided to create another branch of the NCCA - in Samara.
That is, the branch was created only after receiving the building?
- The branch was created for the building. The NCCA has a Volga branch in Nizhny Novgorod, and there was a representative office of the Volga branch in Samara without premises. But it was decided to create the Middle Volga branch in Samara. And the building of the kitchen factory is larger than the Nizhny Novgorod Arsenal: Arsenal - 6,770 m2, and this is 8278 m2… Vladimir Medinsky assisted as Minister of Culture. First of all, thanks to his support, everything happened, because he perceived it as an image project and made statements in Samara, together with the Governor of the Samara Region, to allocate funds for the restoration and adaptation of the building of the kitchen factory for a branch of the NCCA. A project has already been developed under this program.
Who is the author of this project, besides you and the director of the NCCA Mikhail Mindlin?
- The competition was won by the Central Scientific and Restoration Design Workshops of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the chief architect of the restoration project is Irina Kalugina with a very worthy team, and they have already found it possible to involve a number of Samara activists in the development of the project. Within the framework of this project, we made a section of the adaptation project, just like Evgeny Ass's bureau did the adaptation project for Arsenal.
To what extent is the building of the kitchen factory not authentic now? How much is lost there?
- This is a question of restoration ethics, and it is rather complicated in relation to buildings with layers, which themselves may be the subject of protection. In this situation, the restoration object of protection initially described the value characteristics of the original building - with a constructivist appearance, the one that appeared in 1932 according to the project of the architect Ekaterina Maksimova and existed until 1944. Due to the fact that the expert Boris Evgenievich Pasternak correctly described the object of protection - load-bearing structures, preserved stained-glass windows, constructivist appearance in general - this made it possible to follow the softest path, through repair, restoration and adaptation, and not reconstruction, which is not applicable to a cultural heritage object, but is very common. Nevertheless, from the very beginning, many were tempted to reconstruct - especially from the administration, but not from the customer, not from the NCCA, because the NCCA is a very civilized organization, one can only dream of such a customer. It turns out that all the layers of the 1940s-90s go away, and the restoration project is sharpened to clear a part of 1932, to excavate later brick fillings, open openings, reinforce concrete structures, which to some extent have lost their bearing capacity, but not to replace them, namely for reinforcement with modern methods - reinforced pasting, and so on.
Is the building, in fact, completely preserved? Are there no completely lost sectors, later overlaps?
- There is a sector, which I have already mentioned: where the ceilings for the device of the second light were demolished, and in the late 1990s they were rebuilt. There, the floors will be restored according to the original project. On the whole, despite the very serious external changes to the building, its structural basis has remained quite integral. This shows an extremely high-quality technological scheme, which was originally adopted by the architect Maksimova. The more I got to know this building, worked with it, participated in the design process, the more I realized that the application of the term "masterpiece" to it was justified. This is despite the fact that at the very beginning, talk about a masterpiece was our unconditional speculation for the sake of saving the kitchen factory - to instill a subjective vision of this monument in the minds of the population. But, as a result, I was completely convinced that this is true. Our team and I did not experience any difficulty in adapting this structure to new functions - exhibition and not only. It will be a cultural complex with a library, hotel and workshops for artists, a media library, several multimedia rooms, cinemas, a center for children's creativity, a large restaurant and several cafes. All this, without any particular problems, miraculously fit into this structure without any expansion.
- It is clear that industrial buildings are easily adapted for artistic, exhibition purposes, this has long been a common place. But more often than not, this is a completely different industry, these are workshops
- In this case, it's not prom. Although it is a factory, it is a kitchen factory, something specific.
- That's what I want to say, with the shop - it's easier, it seems to me
- This is not a workshop, which is just a frame box …
… show what you want. And here is such a complex plan, there are many windows that it can be harmful for the fine arts. The overhead light, preferred for showrooms, is not provided here. Still, was it easy to adapt?
- I and the customers did not care that there is no overhead light, this is compensated for with the help of artificial lighting. Natural light from the windows will be obscured from the inside by screens.
And these "circumferences", rounded shapes? Or is it because it is such a spacious building that the curved lines of the plan no longer affect anything?
“We will not have very large auditoriums, for 100-200 people, and they fit well into a 14-meter-wide building. Due to the complex composition of the building, there is a circular courtyard, which is excellent for holding various outdoor events in the warm season. There you can make projections on the facades, and organize discussions - this will be such a forum. And there is also a utility yard - a large multifunctional space, and in front of the facades - a whole square. The building stands in a free environment, it can be observed as an art object from all sides. Although from the height of human growth you will never understand that this is the same hammer and sickle, and this was the main complaint of skeptics, dislikes of the Russian avant-garde. Because from the very beginning people had questions - why is this building so protected, are there few other problems in the city? Maybe it's better for old people to raise their pensions or fill up holes on the roads? But we just need to remember the words of Marcus Binney, the creator of the heritage conservation organizations SAVE Britain's Heritage and SAVE Europe's Heritage: if someone needs to save a building, it will be saved.
He has been to Russia a little
- I myself was not at all sure in 2012 that the kitchen factory had at least some chance of salvation. Because five years of cold use, targeted destruction should have caused it to fall apart.
And what kind of structure is there? After all, this is such an acute topic that the Russian avant-garde is built of poor materials and therefore is not very "maintainable". And here, if I understood correctly, the building was built with a very high quality
- No, you can't say that it is very high quality. It can be seen from the building that it was made from what was, and by just anyone. Only the first of the three sectors of the circular part at the sickle, which was erected in 1930, was built strictly according to the project, with large spans, almost 11-meter crossbars. And the subsequent parts received an additional step of very thick brick supports. All this was done from scrap materials. The reinforced concrete of the first part, as far as I understand, was made technologically more correctly. And then it was typed somehow. For example, the floors between the basement and the first floor in the entrance sector are made of some kind of T-beams, rails, that is, the parts there are not reinforced concrete at all. In some places, the columns of the second floor do not fall into the projection of the lower ones! A lot of bricks from the dismantled monastery were used. They say that from the dismantled cathedral - too, but there is no confirmation of this. In addition, silicate bricks were used in abundance - everything was mixed there. But, since the structure is predominantly reinforced concrete, and there are no wooden floors, there are only wooden roofs, thanks to this, the building survived. Likewise, the People's Commissariat of Finance has not fallen yet, because it is made of reinforced concrete. Despite the fact that the technical examination of the kitchen factory, commissioned by the first private owners, showed almost 98% of the structure's wear, a new examination was carried out within the framework of the restoration project - now not for demolition, but for restoration. And she showed that the building is in a satisfactory condition, suitable for soft methods of restoring the bearing capacity. The moment of goal-setting is key in relation to the monument.
When I came to the head of the company that was doing an examination "for demolition" for the former owners, Genrikh Iosifovich Weingarten, known for many "tolerable" examinations in Samara, he said bluntly, feeling the possibility of the second series of works, that nothing is impossible, if there is a task to preserve, methods will be suggested.
This is what Igor Demkin, the head of the design work of the restoration project from ISIT, who also worked with the Pravda plant, said: “No,” he says, “nothing is impossible for a person with higher education.” If there is a goal to preserve it, this can always be done, there is only a question of desire. You can make pasting reinforcement, concrete injections, and God knows what else. Moreover, no one has calculated the real cost ratio between demolition and new construction, on the one hand, and this kind of soft work to preserve the authentic foundation of the structure, on the other. That is, it is not necessary that these expensive restoration technologies are more expensive than the demolition and imitation of a monument from scratch. I am sure no one assessed this professionally and methodically impartially. Moreover, what comparison can there be between the original and the fake?
- But they talk about it so often
- I have full confidence that they say so, only knowing the "necessary" answer. This has always been the case in my practice. The idea of what to demolish and build is cheaper than repairing and refurbishing, it's just a stereotype and needs to be changed with practice. I hope the kitchen factory will become such a precedent.
It turns out that the approximate budget has already been determined?
- The budget is not a secret. From the very beginning, it was announced that they should allocate about 400 million rubles from the federal budget for all work. To restore the "box" this is enough, but for a museum with equipment, alas, not.
The project is done, and when will the work begin?
- I think they will start this year. A contractor organization has already been selected. Let's see what kind of organization it is. I'm sure it won't be easy.
