The thirteenth group of student specialists of the Department of "Reconstruction and Restoration in Architecture" of the Moscow Architectural Institute, as a diploma project, was engaged in the restoration of objects in the city of Kasimov and changing their functions. The group was led by Alexey and Natalya Bavykin and Anastasia Ter-Saakova.
Alexey Bavykin
head of the workshop "Alexey Bavykin and Partners", teacher at Moscow Architectural Institute:
“Kasimov recently acquired the status of a historical settlement. This event coincided in time with the work carried out by a group of students from the Moscow Architectural Institute of the Department of Restoration and Reconstruction under our leadership.
Why Kasimov? What is the meaning of the work done?
Unfortunately, there are few small historical cities left on the territory of our country that were not completely disfigured in the 20th century and abandoned in the 21st century. Kasimov is one of them. The unique natural relief, characteristic planning structure - all this allows us to speak about the possibility of preserving the genetic code of the city and the formation of the regulations of urban planning regulation. In addition, Kasimov is a city of two cultures - Russian and Tatar, which can still be seen in the architecture and structure of urban life.
The main task in the work of students, divided into two stages, was to comply with the principle “do no harm”. The first stage was performed at the end of the fifth year and had a general planning, conceptual character. The second was in the sixth year. It included the development of specific proposals for the key areas of the city. Actually, this became the thesis, and, in my opinion, the students managed to observe this sequence.
I would like to wish all former students, and today certified architects who participated in this work, to further develop the experience of collective project activities. Everyone, remaining an individual, constantly looks at what their comrades are doing, and most importantly, everyone is constantly discussing the subject of study, expressing different points of view on it, which, as a result, allows us to develop tactful and balanced design solutions."
Natalia Bavykina
teacher at MARCHI:
“The choice of the topic of the diploma for each of the students was not entirely free. From the very beginning, we set ourselves the task of giving answers to the real needs of the city in our graduation projects. After negotiations with the chief architect Kasimov and other interested persons, the sites were selected, the reconstruction of which is needed by the city in the first place. These lost or forgotten centers of activity are the key to rebuilding entire neighborhoods and neighborhoods, and together they line up a new urban route. Restoring the architectural and urban planning integrity of the city, we complement its functional saturation. Such urban dentistry - prosthetics and filling of urban tissue, building bridges."
Anastasia Ter-Saakova
teacher at MARCHI:
“The guys faced a very, very difficult task. There were too many critics for each. They were mercilessly criticized by us, the city administration, the Moscow Architectural Institute department, a potential investor, city residents, friends and comrades, who have very specific views on the present and the scope of the diploma project, and in the last days before the defense, we were also a reviewer. Each of the projects is an attempt to find a universal answer to the question of what is good and what is bad. The conclusion is disappointing and old as the world: it is impossible to please everyone. But the very attempt to step aside from our ambitions and listen to the opinions of people who are not part of the architectural community seems to us the only sure way to "fix the city".
Pushkin Square: city gates
Polina Shtanko
Pushkin Square is the beginning of the walking route through the historical part of Kasimov, a kind of "gateway" to the city. Today the square is a transit space, uncomfortable and little involved in the public life of the city. The project presupposes the “activation” of this space, although it is based on the principles of continuity: the city parade square, which has been forming for centuries, expands its entrance function to the central transport station. The main building of the square is also included in the public urban life, and the space formed by the square connects the scattered recreational zones of the adjacent square and the nearby ravine, where the shopping center is being built.
Tatarskaya Sloboda: reconstruction of quarters
Anastasia Lobova, Tatiana Chernomashentseva
Another important city square of Kasimov, in addition to the main Cathedral Square and Pushkin Square, is Victory Square in Tatarskaya Gorka. This is a historically significant place for the city, which for more than two hundred years was the center of the Kasimov Khanate. In one part of the square there is a mosque with a 15th century minaret and tekie - the tomb of Shah Ali Khan of the 16th century, in the other - a square with a memorial to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War. The buildings around the square are mostly formed by residential buildings, among which there are two estates - the Kastrovs and the Shakulovs - designed by the architect Ivan Gagin in the 19th century. Diploma projects for the reconstruction of neighborhoods around estates are addressed to the development of internal emptiness, but filling the "gaps" in the urban environment in both cases is solved in different ways. The buildings of the Kastrovs' estate are being adapted into a hotel with a restaurant and a shop, and the inner space is being transformed into a new residential street. The quarter of the Shakulovs' estate, on the other hand, is being entirely adapted into a multifunctional cultural ethnic complex with a spacious courtyard. The new buildings form the boundaries of the quarter, in the image of which elements of the historical architecture of Kasimov can be read.
Kastrov's estate: hotel complex
Ksenia Bylinina
The project continues the theme of adapting an urban estate to modern life. The Kastrovs' manor is typologically unique: it connected a tannery with a residential estate. The estate turns into a hotel with shops, which is convenient due to the proximity of the Oka river bank. The main house and the outbuildings of the historical manor remain the compositional center, the author considers the new buildings of the hotel as a background.
Net knitting factory: city sanatorium
Mikhail Khvalebnov, Yana Morozova
Another important industrial facility of Kasimov, which has lost its function, is the Net knitting factory, located upstream of the Oka River on the outskirts of the city. The factory was founded in the middle of the 19th century, actively developed and functioned in the 20th, and in the 20s Moscow architects Ivan Nikolaev and Anatoly Fisenko managed to work here, according to whose design a net knitting shop with a water tower was built. The project for the renovation of this territory involves the arrangement of an urban sanatorium, in a wide range of functions of which the emphasis is placed on the development of sports and bath complexes. The functions are dictated by the spatial morphology of each corpus.
Factory "Runo": a new residential area
Maria Serova
In the southeastern part of the city, also on the Oka embankment, there is a sheepskin and fur factory "Runo". The territory has become a platform for understanding the methods of creating an integral urban fabric. Maria Serova proposes to "glue" the urban fabric with private residential buildings, following the morphology of historical land surveying. The preserved industrial buildings become public buildings. The former dressing shop, stripped down to a reinforced concrete skeleton, becomes a greenhouse with vertical greening cells and symbolizes the beginning of a new life with the memory of the old place.
City embankment: multifunctional digging Andrey Stenyushkin
The history of Kasimov has always been associated with the river, because of the “river lobby” at the end of the 19th century, a railway was not built into the city, which is why, in particular, its historical buildings retained their integrity. The main task of the thesis project was to transform the coastal zone from a wasteland into a place of active social attraction; there are several architectural monuments on Naberezhnaya Street, among which Barkov's house stands out. In solving this problem, it was especially important to preserve the view from the river to the building. Therefore, the new functions necessary for the city are housed in one-story structures built into a steep slope that descends to the river. The roofs of new buildings become part of a terraced walking area, which solves the problem of a view from the water: the projected structures did not overshadow the historical buildings.
