A representative building with a main building and two symmetrical wings arose in the southeastern part of the Obukhov plant as part of the plant complex. The laconic U-shaped volume is revealed on the Neva; among the many industrial buildings, it stands out for the distinct desire of the authors to bring together utilitarian buildings and give it some kind of representativeness. The main façade is accented with a granite porch with a heavily extended canopy.
The main front of the building is lined with vertical vertical lines, resembling a giant portico in the spirit of Noah Trotsky. The overall classical composition with plinth, main body and attic also refers to the monumental style of the 1930s. True, unlike its prototypes, the new VNIIRA building is faced with bright porcelain stoneware. Instead of columns-pylons-blades - a flat color drawing. The patriotic blue-red-white color - the corporate identity of the customer, the concern "Almaz-Antey" - at his request, was applied to the entire factory building.
And yet, an exception was made for the main porch: dark brown porcelain stoneware and noble natural stone were used here. The pride of the architect is high-tech structural glazing without rough bindings, with a mirror coating that reflects the water and the distant shore. The same panoramic view opens from inside the high spacious hall.
The building included the institute's laboratories and administration. On the ground floor there are: a lobby group, an elevator hall, a security service, a control room, service and engineering premises, as well as laboratories and a canteen. The fifth - seventh floors are occupied by laboratories. Above are the office and administrative premises. Behind the building, close to it, a production and warehouse building was attached.
The austere, moderately representative appearance of the new building, on the one hand, corresponds to the genre of an administrative factory building, and on the other, it is quite typical for the style of its author. Architects, who were formed on the strict principles of monumental Soviet functionalism, often emphasize their continuity in relation to teachers. The straightforward avarice of the severe style of the seventies today already seems to be noble simplicity, and its urban planning sense makes one feel nostalgic for the strong Soviet school.
The large scale of the façade facing the Neva is designed for complete perception from the opposite Oktyabrskaya embankment and from the Bolshoi Obukhovsky bridge. Attention is drawn to the careful improvement of the once depressed zone. Of course, such a bright color in the panorama of the Neva does not look "Petersburg-style" at all. However, this is due not only to the patriotic message of this customer, but rather is a common misfortune of our new buildings, whose authors seek to compensate for the pallor of the northern climate with a variegated color. And yet the territory of the Nevskaya embankment is not a sleeping area. We can only hope for the veto of the new color standards of St. Petersburg, which we expect with the completion in December of the youth architectural and urban planning competition for the development of a concept for the development of new residential areas
"Petersburg style of the XXI century".
