The Chekhov club house is located in the very center of Moscow, along Malaya Dmitrovka. From the east, it borders on the Hermitage garden, which provides for an exit directly from the courtyard of the house. The tight area in the building ring, many urban planning restrictions in the conditions of construction in the historical center and the proximity to the park determined the scale and nature of the architecture of the club house.
The authors of the project were Tsimailo, Lyashenko and Partners bureau. Their main task was to locate the building in an extremely confined area so as not to compete with the natural environment, but to provide future residents with a view of the Hermitage garden. At the same time, the architects should have remembered that the Hermitage is a rather lively place where various city activities regularly take place. Creating a quiet living space in such an environment is not an easy task, but a solution has been found.
The four-storey clubhouse accommodates only ten apartments ranging from 79 to 292 m² and one penthouse with access to a terrace on the building's exploited roof. The house has a simple rectangular shape in plan. It is also laconic in volume, except for small niches in the level of the first floor, indicating the entrance to the lobby. The latter is slightly recessed, like the entire adjacent territory, thanks to which it was possible to increase the ceiling height in the apartments, and, in addition, to form a fairly private space around the house.
All the luxury of architecture is in the facades. The eastern façade, facing the park, is the most open. Large panoramic windows from Schuco are installed in all living areas for maximum visibility. And for protection from the sun and outside views, wide vertical lamellas, trimmed with copper, are provided. The ends facing the neighboring houses are practically deaf. They are cut only by thin vertical glazing strips.
The decoration uses exclusively natural materials such as stone, wood and copper. The choice of materials was especially important, since the authors of the project, despite the urbanized environment, tried to emphasize the connection between the building and nature. Light Jurassic marble from SSG was chosen as the main finishing material for the facades. Solnhofen Stone Group is one of the leaders in the extraction and processing of Jurassic marble and Ashnhofen limestone. The company owns four stone processing plants and numerous quarries in the Altmühl valley in Bavaria.
For the Chekhov club house, SSG supplied about 1,800 m² of beige Jurassic marble in corrugated processing. This is the first experience of using marble with such a surface in Russia. The relief on the stone revived the facades of the house and brought individuality to the project. Not only the façade is decorated with marble, but also the entrance lobby and the lobby, where natural stone is effectively combined with elements of precious wood.
