see the text about the 2013 museum project
In fact, City-Arch's task was even more non-trivial: the site allocated for the construction of the museum is not only just 300 meters away from the architectural monument of federal significance - the complex of buildings of the New Jerusalem Monastery, as well as its other border crosses the hilly shores of Istra. The threat of flooding had to be taken into account and a 4-meter high dam was built inside the embankment. As well as submitting to many other restrictions, first of all, strict height restrictions based on the results of visual landscape analysis. On four hectares, it was required to accommodate 28,000 m2 museum area, so it was decided to place part of the exhibition area below ground level.
So it happened that, on the one hand, the building is located above groundwater and the possible level of a river wave, and on the other hand, it is inscribed in the landscape, turned into an artificial hill 12 meters high. The buildings of the museum, which make up a significant part of the hill, are literally spread out along its perimeter. And inside the open trapezoid is inscribed the semantic center of the composition - a bowl with exhibition galleries along the walls and a large round square in the middle. The bowl of the courtyard seems to be a figurative and semantic pair of a giant tent over the kuvukliya, the main symbol of Patriarch Nikon's New Jerusalem near Moscow - the cone of the museum square repeats it “on the contrary”: emptiness instead of volume, a ledge instead of a ledge, but the same circle-ring of circumambulation and the same type of composition stretched from east to west.
Opening most fully from Buzharovskoe highway, with its aged red wine color, in contrast to the gray-green range of the main buildings, the bowl of the courtyard also reminds of the Holy Grail.
Museum funds are indeed full of precious relics. The collection of the New Jerusalem Museum of Art and History, which began to form almost a hundred years ago, in 1920, today numbers about 180 thousand units and is considered the largest in the entire Moscow region. Within the walls of the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery, she could count on a maximum of 9,000 m2 exhibition space. At the same time, it was not easy for the exhibits to coexist with large-scale works to restore the monastery buildings. In 2008, by the decision of the Russian authorities, the museum and the monastery were divided, simultaneously launching the restoration and construction of a new museum building with a total area of 28,000 m22.
The town-planning museum is subordinated to the monastery ensemble: the southern wing of the museum inside the hill is located parallel to the monastery wall. Physically, the territories of the complexes are connected by a pedestrian bridge: the path across the bridge from the monastery is interspersed with tree plantations, the museum building constantly appears and disappears from sight.
Another way to come to the museum is from the parking lot in front of the highway, tourist buses drive up here, the main entrance with a wide arch cut in the burgundy side of the bowl of the round courtyard - the inner square, where the museum holds holidays, concerts and exhibitions of art objects, and in the summer unfolds Cafe. On the spiral walk galleries, reminiscent of the main prototype of museums of the 20th century - Wright's New York Guggenheim, you can climb out of the courtyard and listen, for example, to concerts from an atypical "elevated" point of view.
The red wall of the bowl "seeps" into the interior of the museum, providing interpenetration of the external and internal, and emphasizing that the building, like a large-scale puzzle, consists of elements of different nature docked together. It's quite exciting: being inside, discovering parts of what you have already seen outside.
In addition, panoramic windows overlooking the monastery complex are found in the interior exhibition spaces. Particularly good is the perspective that opens from the eastern atrium in the exposition northern wing of the building: here, looking through the glass wall, you can see the skete of Patriarch Nikon in a "frame" formed by a mini-courtyard cut - definitely for the sake of this panorama - in the southern fund building museum. The courtyard, which was not in the original project, was apparently the result of the architects' observation of nature - the skete in this frame, illuminated from above, seems to be shining - almost like round temples on the vedutes of the Renaissance masters.
The spatial picture is included in the museum's exposition, becomes its permanent part, "enters" from outside to inside - definitely a successful architectural and urban planning idea, it reminds and emphasizes: here it is, a monastery, next to it.
Inside the museum is arranged so that you can walk in it for a long time and with interest, without even going to the exposition. In the exhibition wing, in addition to the lobby and galleries, illuminated by natural light from panoramic windows along the perimeter of the courtyard, there are two atriums: a western one, reserved for a cafe, and an eastern one with a wide three-flight staircase and a spacious multifunctional hall. All these public spaces are filled with exhibits and differ from the exhibition halls only in their saturation: the feeling of being in a museum space is complete - as, for example, in the Roman baths of Diocletian: wherever you go, you will see something.
The "archaeological" note of perception is formed and supported by the "excavation wall", turned into a cut of materials and artifacts associated with the monastery - from white stone borrowed from restoration sites on the territory of the monastery, to specially designed by architects - and at all, we emphasize, not borrowed from the funds of the museum (!), although it may seem so - five-color tiles. It is very fortunate that this ornamental-archaeological set is present both outside and inside: it is he who maintains the feeling of an excavation hill, a museum in an archaeological space. To be honest, he, of course, imitates it: this is not a real excavation; but quite skillfully - together with the panorama of a real monastery, the image turns out to be quite convincing.
No less responsibly, the authors of the project approached the functional program of the museum: in fact, only the total area appeared in the primary terms of reference, and 20 of 28 thousand square meters were given for the exposition. This is more than 2 times more than the museum had before, so in the new the building has not only an exhibition and exposition area (it was mainly occupied by the Rarity team from St. Petersburg), but also a cultural and educational area: in addition to the two-story cafe space, there is a children's club and a conference hall equipped with the latest technology on two levels (both - with large skylights), a scientific library. And next to the cafe there are restoration workshops with the function of a hotel, where artists can come to work and live.
The project provided for windows in restoration workshops facing the halls - through which visitors could observe the work of specialists. However, in the course of implementation, this idea had to be abandoned.
And, unfortunately, this is not the only thing that was not implemented about the project of the architects. Instead of burgundy composite sheets, the museum bowl was covered with a red banner fabric. The observation deck overlooking the monastery on the gallery, spiraling upward inside the bowl, also remained on paper, as well as the exploited roof of the hill, along which, as the architects planned, could be walked around, examining the surroundings. The path from the monastery to the museum hill, then up and down the spiral ramps, was a spatial leitmotif, a coherent link with its ups and downs of tone - and it must be admitted that having lost this expressive means, the museum lost a lot.
Engineering systems and technological solutions, for the use of which the City-Arch team received many awards in the project, remained unrealized. Meanwhile, the project paid much attention to energy saving and "passive house" technology (if the insulation was done as planned, there would be practically no need to heat the museum - and for a building located far from central communications, this is extremely important). Due to the contractor's negligence, the constructed dam and the envisaged waterproofing were erected with significant violations, due to which the storage facilities are regularly flooded.
A complex and interesting project, which could have become exemplary in many ways, continues to be in an "unfinished" state.
It's no secret that the low quality of construction is a scourge of Russian architecture in general. However, now the building lives a rather rich life and is developing, it is possible that someday some of the performance flaws can be corrected. One way or another, the museum fits into the newest trend of Russian architecture, into the typology of the museum-hill, which probably starts from the project-idea of the Strelna museum, which won the 2007 alternative competition; it is also developed in the Kulikovo Pole Museum, which was realized almost in the same years as the New Jerusalem, and in the recently opened Zaryadye pavilions, of course, too. The essence of these projects is similar: the museum is deepened into the ground, turning it into an artificial hill and, at the same time, into an observation deck; the viewer's perception of space becomes multidimensional, there is equally wide view and the opportunity to find oneself deep inside, underground, in a “cave”. The range of sensations is very wide, the museum exists on the borderline between the current reality of panoramic views, space and light - and the historical reality of the monuments exhibited and stored in it. And this, one must think, is the most correct place for a museum.
