The building of the theater complex of Alexander Vilkin "Cherry Orchard", combined with a business center, is located on the inner part of the Garden Ring near Sukharevskaya Square. It is quite noticeable: a strict stone lattice with glass plates fixed on top in a diagonal rhythm of flight attracts attention in a series of local mixed, on the one hand "Luzhkovskaya", and on the other - bourgeois XIX century, building of Sadovoye. The building, built jointly by the Teatrproekt company and the workshop of Dmitry Solopov, was awarded the “golden sign” at Zodchestvo -2015.
It is built according to a scheme that has been extremely popular over the past 20, if not more, years: a significant part is occupied by the so-called "investment construction", in this case the eponymous business center, which became financial support for the construction of the theater, which, in turn, justified the appearance of office space in the center of Moscow “ideologically” for the coordinating authorities. That led to the inevitable growth of volumes up and down: snobs will say that the theater is "shrouded" in office space on three sides - 15 meters deep from the Sadovoe side, about 10 meters from the courtyard side, 3 floors above, 4 tiers of parking underground. This kind of symbiosis, explained at least by the fact that the design took 8 years from 2005 to 2013, did not prevent the theater from occupying a significant area in the central part of the volume, since - as the authors rightly explain - it does not need daylight. But the theater, for example, occupies the third floor completely.
The three upper office floors are designed in the form of glass steps with rounded corners, a corner tower, and in some places with a wavy surface - their investment purpose betrays a lot. The five lower floors, which form the street façade along Sadovoye (Malaya Sukharevskaya Square), on the contrary, are designed in the form of a stone lattice, which “collects” and disciplines the glass mass. The lattice is embossed, protrudes deeply and is drawn rather thinly. Stripes of interfloor contour lines are crossed by verticals in a double rhythm, forming pairs of large "windows" that recall the search for modernism of the 1980s, crossed with the imagery of Chicago Art Deco.
Glass plates with images of trees, transverse to the facade, are attached to the metal frames of the windows - they are best seen in the evening illumination - the symbols of the "Cherry Orchard".
Other glass plates, fixed at different angles, form, according to the architects, the contours of an imaginary “theater curtain”, accentuating the entrance to the theater on the left. Most of all they look like falling leaflets-posters-proclamations, which, however, is also not devoid of theatrical allusions. Thus, the left side of the building, where the entrance to the theater is located, turns out to be more mobile and draws more attention to itself. Movable and “crystalline” fixed interact in this building: as a stone lattice “holds” the glass mass, but in the upper part it surrenders, unevenly breaking off, so the glass fixed in the right part strictly in a checkerboard pattern above the entrance freezes in a cascade of flying around.
The courtyard facades are quieter: here the volumes are faced with carefully cut horizontal strips of stone with thin grooves. The protruding glass volume is slightly inclined forward and is enlivened by a mosaic of glass of different transparency.
A pedestrian gallery is arranged behind the pylons of the first floor along the Garden Ring. It continues: to the right of the building - a passage for cars into the courtyard, and to the left, next to the theatrical entrance - a technical passage to the service entrance and an emergency exit. Here, between the wall of the theater and the neighboring building of the 1990s, a curious space, almost "Roman", arose, especially because of the round side of the staircase tower. It seems that it could be suitable for buffets with a cozy evening light, but no, the appointment is exclusively official.
The theatrical interiors were completed a couple of years after the building was completed, and even a year after it received the “golden sign” of Architecture - in 2016. The theater hall occupies four floors: from the second to the fifth; the first floor and one underground tier are given over to the technical premises of the theater. In addition, there are two rehearsal rooms that can also be used for training.
The main hall is austere and black: the black ceiling, stage box and armchairs work to focus the viewer. The balconies are clad in tinted maple veneer wood panels, arched and slightly beveled, their whirling emphasized by lines of thin grooves. In the parterre and mezzanine, supporting columns built in a semicircle are clearly visible - also of a copper-wooden color. The grisaille curtain of Maria Solopova-Polyakova combines both tones, tends to black, but seems brownish. His drawing, consisting of branches, stairs, windows and planes deployed at different angles, conventionally crushing the plane, unexpectedly, or, conversely, expectedly, echoes the theater facade.
If there is relatively little wood in the hall, it only passes - as the architects clarify - to the ceiling in the third tier, then the sideboard space is entirely wooden, it is shrouded in a wooden lattice of an angular asymmetrical pattern, suggesting acoustic panels, but apparently all the same decorative, only supporting the theatrical theme. The light stone of the floor and the bar counter echoes the stone of the facades. Approaching the interior “totally”, the architects could not resist the notorious hanger - they drew a sharp, laconic form for it.
This is not to say that merging a theater with a business center seems like a good decision; rather inevitable. In this case, however, both parts are built and are operating, with the Satyricon theater, for example, a similar scheme did not work out well: the Raikin Plaza shopping and entertainment center has been open for a long time, and what is happening with the theater building is unclear. At the same time, it must be admitted that the architects managed to achieve a harmonious neighborhood of the theater and offices - they do not interfere with each other, they exist in parallel and autonomously behind the common screen of the city grid. Even if the presence of the theater is not clearly manifested, so you will not immediately guess, but it delicately offers its own version of framing and manifestation of reality, which, perhaps, even turned out “in Chekhov's way”.
