Valery Lukomsky and the architects of his City-Arch workshop talk about the main ideas of their project for renovating the PK-7 building, now Meshcherin, of the Danilovskaya manufactory. A word to the architects:
“Several years ago, in 2008, our City-Arch workshop worked on the reconstruction of the buildings of the former Danilovskaya weaving manufactory on Novodanilovskaya embankment. The first weaving factory of the Danilovskaya Manufactory Partnership was founded in 1867 by the Moscow merchant of the first guild V. E. Meshcherin, but even in the first half of the 18th century, artisans worked here, in Danilovskaya Sloboda, and a small machine production appeared. Meshcherin created a full-cycle factory: here they spun, weaved, and dyed fabric, created prints. Comfortable premises for 250 people were set up and the factory quickly became a model for weaving.
Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the factory was run by Baron Ludwig von Knop, a foundry appeared here, which made it possible to independently produce weaving looms. By that time, the factory employed more than 1200 workers.
In Soviet times, the factory was taken over by the state, and by the end of the twentieth century it was abandoned. A clothing market is located in the building. No one was involved in the maintenance of structures and communications; beautiful red-brick walls were crumbling before our eyes. A new milestone in the history of the factory was the Moscow program for the reorganization of industrial territories: it was decided to reconstruct the buildings and create a loft quarter. By the beginning of construction, in 2006, there was little experience of this kind in Moscow, and the talented developer KR Properties was guided by the successfully reconstructed loft blocks of New York and London with an unusual atmosphere.
Various architectural workshops, including ours, "City-Arch", worked on the projects of the buildings; the result was successful - glass transition bodies, metal parts and massive steel structures appeared. All communications were replaced with new ones, but left open.
Large buildings were named after the founders of the factory - the Meshcherin building and the Knop building, the hero-pilot Gastello and the entrepreneur Soldatenkov. Small buildings are named - "Flannel", "Satin", "Calico" and "Batiste". The complex of buildings is a typical representative of the red-brick architecture of Moscow in the 19th century, which in itself determined the direction of the reconstruction.
In 2014, we continued to work with the complex, this time on the largest building of the Danilovskaya manufactory, building PK-7, using the same loft style. Subsequently, the building received the name "Mescherin", in honor of the founder of the manufactory. We were faced with a difficult task - preserving the historical image of the building, avoiding bulkiness, increasing the number of storeys of the building, expanding the sidewalk along the facade of the building from the side of Novodanilovskaya embankment. Functionally, it was required to divide the building into three zones: a catering facility for staff on the ground floor, a showroom zone and an office zone.
Additional introductory notes were: extremely dense building, the availability of ready-made sketches and layouts created by other workshops, in particular, ADM, and decisions previously made by the customer. The conditions were also dictated by the fire safety system, cramped conditions for the passage of fire trucks and reconstruction. The history of engineering communications of the PK-7 building is interesting. To divert water from the foundation during floods, a brick collector was used, which is now in a dilapidated and flooded state.
One of the important decisions of the project was the construction of an open gallery on the ground floor along the embankment to widen the sidewalk and improve the quality of the pedestrian environment. Showrooms with solid stained-glass glazing are turned into the gallery space; all together appeal to the typology of the ancient city street, but above all - the well-known Parisian rue de Rivoli. The arcade should become a cozy and lively urban space, a catalyst for social life and an important atmospheric accent of the complex.
The building itself is rectangular, it stretches along the embankment, and in the lower part it is divided into two almost equal parts by an arch connecting the sidewalk "Rue de Rivoli" with the courtyard. Each part of the building on the sides of the arch has its own lobby. The upper floors are divided into large office lots, each of which is connected to one of the two lobbies and is provided with an additional exit to the evacuation stairs. A two-storey building with an attic, adjacent to the building on the left, was divided between offices in the main part and a restaurant on the first and last floors, with a two-level terrace at the top, connected by an external metal staircase.
The walls have been restored and repaired with aged bricks. High vaulted ceilings, mezzanines, cast-iron and concrete columns have been preserved. Only the internal partitions and the roof were dismantled, which was replaced by a new attic floor. The operating fireplaces, large windows with arched lintels have been restored. Utilities have been completely renovated, but left open in the spirit of a loft. The texture of the buildings dictated the use of wood and ferrous metal. In our opinion, a successful solution to the problem of scale was the use of a material radically different in color from the historical walls of red brick, but harmoniously combined in it - dark gray metal sheets of RHEIZINK roofing material in the built-up floors and insulated seam roofing.® prePATINA schiefergrau. Due to the large slope of the gable roof of the attic, it is clearly visible from all sides and, with its noble appearance, gives the building additional aesthetics.
One of the important unifying elements of the project, its red thread is a massive steel I-beam, the basis of the supporting structure of the historic building. The I-beams in the interior were designed to remind of its belonging to industrial buildings. Ropes are used in the design of the lamps hanging from the ceiling, which reminds us of the weaving essence of the factory. The tile pattern, which repeats the pattern of the fabric produced at the factory at the end of the 19th century, also became a "window to the past".
At the moment, the renovation works of the Meshcherin building are nearing completion, and we hope that the developer will create a modern urban space, preserving the unique architectural spirit of the industrial revolution of the late 19th century, and the building will become an adornment of Novodanilovskaya embankment."
