As part of the first stage of ZilArt, Sergei Skuratov got the most important section - in the northeastern corner of the territory, opposite Novodanilovsky passage: many cars turning from Varshavskoye highway to the embankment, as well as everyone who travels along the embankment from the center, will see in the future first of all Skuratov's houses. So in a sense, they are the facade of the project, or at least one of its important points. No wonder he is called the first: lot number 1.
However, this was not always the case. At first, the head of LSR, Andrei Molchanov, planned to entrust the first lot to some well-known Dutch bureau, and the second, adjacent along the embankment, to Sergei Skuratov. Assessing the terrain and the significance of both "title" sites, Skuratov decided that a Russian architect, immersed in the problems of the city, should work for such an important urban development. And he invited Andrey Molchanov to draw something expressive and interesting for the first section. In what the architect was supported by the author of the design code ZilArt, winner of the competition for the concept of transforming the territory of ZIL Yuri Grigoryan. The customer liked the resulting concept - and Sergey Skuratov received two neighboring lots at his disposal and subordinated their projects to one subject.
By the way, the buildings on the two sites are already almost built in concrete, so you can assess the town-planning significance even now: the houses are really noticeable, you go and it is clear: oh, this is a new ZIL being built.
In the architectural solution of the only house in the first lot, Sergei Skuratov used, by his own admission, a constructivist technique. The house plate is elongated from east to west, towards the Moscow River and is circularly rounded at the river end. This is, indeed, the favorite technique of avant-garde architects, and in this case it works primarily contextually: one glance at the plan of the ZIL Vesnin Palace of Culture is enough to discover the contours of Skuratov's house in its dance hall. Outside, the buildings are completely different, in the Vesnins rotunda there is breadth and lightness, but there is no directional flight, so the similarity of plans remains a speculative rebus, and the shape of the building appeals to other examples of "aerodynamic" projects of avant-garde architecture.
Skuratov's plan:
Examples of avant-garde architecture:
Sergey Skuratov likened the house to a comet, emphasizing his idea with a number of nuances. The rounded end is almost entirely glass, the vertical lintels here seem to have been blown off by the wind onto the longitudinal walls. The white horizontal edges of the balconies, on the other hand, move forward with each tier, emphasizing the forward movement with a beveled stem, and connecting the ribbon rhythm of the lines with allusions to the avant-garde.
The side fronts are smoothly included in the game. The overhang of the vertical edges deepens, revealing bright white slope planes designed for optical play. It is picked up by the alternation of French balconies with loggias: the glass of the first is transparent, the second is slightly mirrored. The color from west to east darkens gradiently: the house seems to be charred, - says Sergey Skuratov. It is not surprising that in the eastern part, through the brick lattice, as if from the depths, the corten steel surfaces "grow" - they denote the "burning tail" of the comet. I must say right away that corten steel here is conceived not brutally rusty, dark brown, but orange, fiery, and its plot, according to the architect, is precisely fire, therefore a special composition will be used to rust the steel.
The "bolide" of the house from the side of its imaginary nucleus shines with glass and whiteness, the molten metal of the cometary nucleus, then begins to smoke with gray ash, which gradually darkens to a coal scale, and finally erupts in fire. But this is not enough. If we look at the plan of lot No. 1, then its eastern end, as opposed to the round western one, is solved by an asymmetric zigzag - the sign "tail" of the comet is obtained on the plan. Externally, the "fire tail" is completely corten and no longer contains any hints of fire. Another architect, having invented a comet-house, would have painted its tail in a light, but Sergey Skuratov is not like that: he stops at the threshold of the visual, squeezes out of the idea all the texture, color and emotional potential, but does not go over the edge of literalism. Home remains home.
Therefore, the comet is not the only comparison that can come to mind. The automobile building ZIL was, among other things, a steel-making enterprise, so the “comet” can be understood as the last spark of metal from a stopped blast furnace. And corten, as a material from which, in addition to the tail of the "comet", all stylobates are also made here, serves as a kind of historical basis - as if the houses had grown on the rusty remains of old factory metal.
If corten is the past, then brick is the future. Now it is a popular material for residential construction, and in this case, not only the favorite material of Sergei Skuratov, but also a tribute to the developer: Zilart is being built by LSR, a large brick manufacturer. LSR factories specially for the project produced seven shades of bricks, from white to almost black. The bricks on all facades are planned to be laid out not only with a complex pattern-gradient, but also in relief: some of the bricks will be extended by 1-2 cm and will complement the plane with a play of light and shade.
The comet house is the main shaped knot; the rest of the corpuses develop the theme. Lot # 2 is closer to the block layout, although it is designed to easily let the wind from the river pass through. In any case, into the yard. Four 14-storey towers are lined up along the western river façade.
They are not the same, but they are very similar and may resemble some metal slabs lined up in a row, which also refers to the history of the plant. On the longitudinal facades, which are quite closely adjacent, brick planes predominate; the northern walls are almost blank. The western facades of the four buildings, on the other hand, are almost entirely glass, but the facades are enlivened by inserts of loggias. Moreover, each one is made up of three triangular bay windows "with a secret": a plane facing north-west, glass (through this glass, the last rays of a summer sunset will fall inside), and the neighboring plane, looking to the south-west, from where the sunset rays come still hot, - covered with white brick. And since the glass is mirrored, the brick is reflected and from the outside it will seem that the spot of the loggia is embossed, but dull. This is how a light shining accordion appears on the facade, similar to a scrap-cut of a metal ingot.
Moreover, the stylobate is built diagonally, along the border of the plot, and the houses are placed at an angle to its volume, so that their corners overhang with large triangular consoles - exactly like blocks of metal on a pallet.
Behind the spectacular glass facades - the best apartments, five-room; the apartments are even more luxurious - only in the rounding of the "comet house", there are also 5 rooms (4 plus a living room), but there is also an arc-shaped stained-glass window with a panorama of the river and a small triangle of an embedded loggia. The rest of the apartment is quite varied, up to two rooms. The architects managed to increase the area of apartments specified in the TK by 1-2 meters at the expense of loggias, which, it seems, everyone has here.
In the eastern part of lot No. 2 there are two more houses - the facades of one of them, almost parallel to the “comet house”, are entirely corten-like and are solved in the same ways as the “tail” of the comet house. The zigzag shape of its northern one helps to catch more sun by opening the windows diagonally: each living room receives 2 such windows, one to the northwest, the other to the northeast. Apartments are end-to-end, the second wall is south.
The house serves as a vibrant color and sculptural accent. On the opposite side of the courtyard, it is lined with a grid of channels, and the red zigzag is reflected in the windows of the "comet", color calls and even emotional tension arise between them, helping to unite both lots.
If the corten house is somewhat provocative, then the architecture of the building next to it, stretched along the eastern border of lot No. 2, is noticeably conciliatory. There are two colors here: light brick and corten inserts; the alternation of loggias and balconies becomes picturesque-chess, but the facades are rather ornamental. Here a kindergarten is built into the stylobate.
Otherwise, both quarters are arranged according to the modern rules of a comfortable city. Both stylobates are located in two-level underground parking lots, and in the underground floors of lot No. 1 there was even a place for a supermarket with aboveground and underground parking for outside customers, illuminated through a skylight in the stylobate. Residents, returning home, will be able to drive directly into their parking space, then go for groceries and take the elevator without leaving the street. In the first floors of the extended facades of lot No. 1, galleries are arranged, both from the outside and from the inside, from the side of the courtyard: from them it will be possible to get into the lobbies of the sections, as well as to cafes and shops. In the stylobate of lot No. 2 facing the embankment, shops and cafes alternate, which work on the space of the outer promenade. On the roofs of stylobates, private courtyards for residents with geoplastics and large trees are planned.
But all these things are obligatory, a gentleman's set. It is more important that the city in the project is comprehended from very different angles, micro and macro, passed through different points of view, starting with those people who will live there and look from the window, neighbors who will enter the store and ending with those who pass by along the embankment on the other side of the river. But this is not just good, carefully crafted architecture, it is also architecture saturated with motivated imagery. The mere fact that the comet house in its flight is not only charred, but also rusts, that is, it is rooted in the past of the plant and at the same time flies into the future - a strong image. Sergei Skuratov once again showed himself to be an architect not only thoughtful, attentive to the context, but also a very poetic architect-artist, able to make his home the quintessence of place and a “nodal point” of urban space.
See more drawings on the object page.
