We have already talked, and in some detail, about the project of a multifunctional, mainly office, complex in Zyuzino on Odessa Street, near the Nakhimovsky Prospekt metro station and the Kotlovka River (project authors - Sergey Choban, Sergey Kuznetsov, Alexey Ilyin, SPEECH). By the end of 2014, it was embodied practically as it was conceived, received the name "Lotus", and managed to take part in reviews of many famous Russian architectural awards. In other words, the building is both famous and notable, and among other things, also because it is one of the projects invented right before the financial crisis of 2008, but successfully implemented after it. However, it is noticeable not only theoretically: the complex is visible from many sides, quite from afar, and of course it amazes the imagination of people passing along Nakhimovsky Prospekt, when among dusty open spaces, panel houses and five-story buildings, some kind of eternal road repairs and abundantly growing, but a few stunted trees - suddenly there is a large, but solid, shiny volume, arranged tightly-compactly, and at the same time, as if slightly rotating, a kind of glass tornado.
My first impression was the complete otherworldliness of this building. In a loose and monotonous "sleeping" environment, where five-storey buildings and panel microdistricts are interspersed with an industrial look with half-abandoned wastelands - its smooth, shiny, dark blue 85-meter-high body seems either to have grown, or rather even drilled out of the ground, if not fallen from the sky … This is the most perfect alien, and he himself feels it - he closes in his circle, though not timidly, but quite confidently. The Greeks had a fairy tale about dragon teeth that sprout in the field - it feels like this: we have a strong and self-sufficient structure in front of us. In the Moscow context, it emotionally echoes, probably, only with the City, there, too, the observer initially has a similar awe in front of the inhuman scale and quality of surfaces. As if a bush of skyscrapers closely planted there gave a vegetative outgrowth. Most of all, there are parallels, of course, with the Federation Tower, because it was built, with Peter Schweger, by Sergei Tchoban, but this similarity is not too important - rather, both the City and the Lotus belong to the same genre of an honest office community, not deliberately disguising itself, which implies both glass facades, and the scale, and the integrity of the stereometric technogenic form. Thirty years of postmodernism have shown that it “doesn’t work” to mimic such buildings, and it doesn’t work - honesty and directness in such a genre is more appropriate.
But for now, let's get back to the topic of "drilling" out of the ground. Firstly, the spiral plan consists of three hulls-blades, alluding to some kind of propeller, maybe a helicopter in the spirit of searching for the avant-garde, and maybe some other. Secondly, the cut of the two upper tiers resembles, especially when viewed from below, the jagged edge of a sharpened tool. It could, of course, be traced back to a classical attic with pylons alternating in a checkerboard pattern, but the image of the building, on the whole, rather technogenic, makes you think more about the mechanism than about the attic. And third: the glass facade rises directly from the ground, without any base, in places it only opens a niche-entrance. Which is why I would like to assume that a lot of the same matter remains underground.
Which is partly true: there are four floors of the parking lot downstairs. In its center there is an atrium, it is covered with a dome, inside, according to the project, it was planned to grow a tree - about this we
already told. At the same time, starting from the idea of a living tree planted in the center of the building-mechanism, a logical structure emerged: the building is glassy and skyscraper, but the tree managed to stir it up a little and revive it.
It's like that. When you look at it at first, of course, you are impressed by the colossal nature. But looking more closely, you notice quite a few signs of a subtle plastic game that unfolds within the framework of a superhuman scale, but this does not lose its intensity, but rather even acquires it.
First of all, the shape of each case - and they are generally very similar - combines a cylinder with a cone, playing out the tension that arises between these two related, but different forms. Each body can be thought of as a third of a cylinder, but it doesn't end there. If we look at their ends, we will see that they are trapezoidal, and if one narrows upward, then the other expands. A certain universal ripple passes through the volume, similar to the vibrations of light waves or electric fields - on the one hand. On the other hand, it is reminiscent of the curvatures of the classical column, translated into the post-Einstein language of modern architecture.
Due to the geometry, which forces the volumes of each building to make an uncommon transition from a regular trapezoid to an inverted one inside itself, the outer walls are everywhere not completely vertical. This can be clearly seen in the drawings and sections. And if you walk around, then the eye does not immediately catch the subtleties and it seems that the signal about the immanent complexity of this giant comes from the subconscious. Suddenly you realize that the building, which at first glance is large, strong and simple, has a soul, it does not just stand, but also sways, and not from the wind, but to the beat of an internal melody.
And that is not enough. All glass floors are combined in two, and the outer glass of the wide glass bands is tilted towards the sky; the lower edge protrudes as a console, forming a kind of visor that protects each next couple of floors from the sun, the architects emphasize. Sloped surfaces reflect the sky better, which is why the building looks so blue, the double rhythm popular nowadays helps to "eat" the scale. The black shadows of the consoles draw volumes with graphics, beautiful, brush-like, black ink. The contours of the "strokes" in the future smoothly change, thinner, sharpen, like a line skillfully drawn on Chinese silk (like silk - especially like a sunset), and a graphic that emphasizes its features appears in the volume. And the peculiarities are such, looking at the drawing of "strokes", you begin to doubt whether the consoles are evenly protruding or are also included in the game. But no, they appear evenly, only the graphics of the shadows deceive the eye, lead. The impression is similar to a watercolor drawn with a pen: along the facades, lined with a regular thin grid of joints, there are wide "strokes" of consoles, and somewhere circular, from curved surfaces meet straight, from flat ends - in such places the energetic plastic of volumes is especially felt. Anyone who has ever shaded a cylinder will understand me. The transparency of the corners seen in the light, as well as the fact that the bodies are reflected in each other, add complexity and picturesqueness, different intensities of spots of a cold palette crushing at the folds.
I must say that in addition to the aforementioned "drill" several times, the complex is similar to the mechanism of a collet pencil: there are pencils that hold the lead with three or four metal paws. So, if you remove the lead, press the button and open the mechanism - it opens with petals - it turns out very similar. Now let's remember that both Sergei Tchoban and Sergei Kuznetsov, who worked on this project while not yet the chief architect of Moscow, are keen draftsmen, the similarity does not seem so unlikely.
Glass - slightly tinted: allows 45% of visible light to pass through and only 30% of heat. It preserves transparency, allows you to see the light lines of fluorescent lamps on the ceiling of each floor: especially noticeable in the evening and on a cloudy day, they add up to a laconic pattern that enlivens the design of the stripes-consoles. At night, the building glows from the inside like an anthill of fireflies - which, by the way, is also very reminiscent of the City. The lines of light visible from the inside add openness: in life, for a person walking down the street in the evening, the ceilings of other people's apartments, visible in the light, illuminated by chandeliers, are important; Without peeping at someone else's life, we find ourselves a little involved in it and are not alone - the white strokes of light on the ceiling of the office complex play up this very emotion, which makes it, so huge and stereometric, much closer and more lively.
In our time and in our country (we will not take other countries), somehow very few people are ready to look at architecture. But most are ready to put stamps on it without looking. Office - bad, point, sealing - generally awful. "A building made of glass and concrete" and in general remains a widespread curse, having taken root in this capacity, probably since the eighties. In such an environment, both offices and towers inevitably become obscured, striving to hide, which, as we remember, is not to their face: they still cannot hide, and awkward attempts at camouflage only disfigure. Here is a completely different case: "Lotus" declares itself as a large, glass, office - this is obvious. But he reserves the right to worry, maybe even reflect on his own architectural genre, pouring thoughts, and maybe contradictions into not immediately noticeable subtleties of plastic solutions. The giant has a soul; as required. It has been proven many times that this is exactly how one should act in this genre.
