Central Tourist House
Architects: V. Kuzmin, E. Gorkin, N. Nilova, E. Zorina, V. Kolesnik, A. Kolchin, A. Tyablin
Engineers: V. Gofman, Yu. Kopylev, V. Muratova, A. Postnova, I. Khomyakov, L. Chertkov
Moscow, Leninsky prospect, 146
Construction: 1972-1980
Oskar Mamleev, architect, professor at MARCHI and MARCH, director of the Russian regional branch of ARCHIPRIX:
“In the year the Central Tourist House was built on Leninsky Prospekt (1980), we were young architects who had recently graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute. At this time, the architecture of postmodernism was popular, the passion for Robert Venturi, Charles Jenks, Japanese metabolism. And the appearance of simple modernist objects did not make a vivid impression, recalling the annoying "Khrushchev architecture". But I drew attention to this building when my friend Nikolai Gorkin, with whom we worked at the Student Architectural and Design Bureau of Moscow Architectural Institute, said that it was the building of his father, the architect Yevgeny Gorkin.
Now, observing the rapid filling of the city with pseudo-buildings, rather reminiscent of an intricate, caricatured heap of details of almost all styles of previous centuries, you get aesthetic pleasure from the simple elegance of the object, the pure composition of the horizontal and two vertical dominants. The low quality and limited possibilities of typical construction provoked architects to search for individual techniques that enhance the effect of perception. This is how the beveled tops appeared, giving the silhouette a sharpness.
Unfortunately, Nikolai Gorkin is no longer alive, but every time, passing by the Central House of Theaters, I draw attention to how this complex "holds" the corner of the intersection of Leninsky Prospect and 26 Baku Commissars Street, and I remember Nikolai and the wonderful days of our youth."
