The building of the future Tatlin apartements, presented on the project's real estate website as "apartments for extraordinary people", should be the result of the reconstruction of the Telegraph, built in 1927-1928 according to the project of engineer V. V. Patek on Bakuninskaya street, not far from the Baumanskaya metro station. This area is closer to the Third Transport Ring than to Sadovoye, but the metro is nearby, the MSTU is also very close. The buildings are very variegated, of different times: from miniature but lush mansions of the mid-19th century to Brezhnev's "elites" of pink brick. However, a four-minute walk from the future apartments are the Shcherbakov chambers, successfully protected by the public in 1987 from the construction of the Third Ring highway and now functioning it is not clear how, but "made" for the 18th century with a high checkered roof … They look a bit like a remake, although all the walls have been preserved, but from time to time it comes to mind - and then why did they try? And they desperately defended, gave interviews, sat in the house under bulldozers, however, we, the children, were not allowed to sit, but were only allowed to remove the snow around.
In short, a motley and uneven environment. On the left is the ATC tower of the 1960s, for which everyone is also planning reconstruction (in particular, see here), and still nothing. So far, only revetted.
The building of the Telegraph of the 1920s occupies a chronologically middle position here, being a comparatively rare example of constructivist architecture for these places, and, as Sergei Tchoban noted at the Arch Council in August 2016, there is St. Petersburg-style constructivism, of which there is not much in Moscow. "T" -shaped in plan, on the red line on the sides of the four-storey building extending into the depths of the two two-storey wings. Historically, the main facade would have been decorated with a recognizable triad: the monumental inscriptions "Post", "Telephone", "Telegraph". In Moscow, there are two more almost the same Patek buildings - on Ordynka and Arbat, these were one of the first telephone exchanges in the city.
The building does not have a conservation status, but the Architects of Invention project from the very beginning was supposed to preserve the street facade, restoring the historical window frames and red-gray painting according to archival data; the preserved historical part of the building along the street was supposed to accommodate shops-cafes and a double-height atrium of the lobby. The long volume in the depths of the site was supposed to be replaced by a semblance, placing a 3-star hotel inside. Above the conventionally “old” volume of the hotel, the architects placed a laconic and elegant parallelepiped of “long-term residences”: a lattice of large “caisson” windows, a sharp bevel from the side of Bakuninskaya, fiber cement panels, colored glass. Since the courtyard building stood at an angle to the street, the superstructure received an additional dynamic boost.
Between the "old" and the new volumes there is a layer of glass floor that hides V-shaped supports - there is a winter garden, a children's and sports grounds, a coworking space and a library, from the Bakuninskaya side there is an open terrace with a panoramic view. The interlayer creates the effect of a soaring, horizontal skyscraper, the bevel adds dynamics in the spirit of Rodchenko, and the name Tatlin apartements is probably initiated by the T-shaped plan and the back-T-shaped facade. Eleven floors, 45 m high, underground parking for 65 cars, 130 apartments.
Everything is quite beautiful and sharp: the fresh glass-ribbed, flying volume of the superstructure, picking up the avant-garde ideas of the ATS building, the street part of which, either just the facade, or the entire block along the red line, the authors and developers planned to preserve voluntarily, without legislative coercion, but only on recommendation.
Reconstruction of this type Daria Paramonova
calls "metabolic": "when a historical building is completed by adding large, dominant volumes, made in a modernist style, overhanging, devouring the original building." Increasing the area of the object, these extensions "thereby transform it under the main requirement - to be financially justified and, therefore, to get the right to a second life in a new society …".
The style of the house definitely inherits the charm of the "avant-garde in general" or more broadly modernism, starting from the name Tatlin. In fact, the modernist block is built on top of the constructivist building. Inside, the theme is supported by laconicism, whiteness, a spiral staircase in the hall.
Then the story continued in this way. The project was brought to
the above-mentioned arch council, and there was pretty much criticized, although someone supported the noble intention to preserve the constructivist building without status, if not entirely, but partially. Sergei Tchoban was especially categorical, seeing in the building of the ATC of the 1920s “a combination of new materials with the traditional monumental neoclassical structure and composition, which is typical for the St. Petersburg school. For such a building, pressure, if not rape, with an overhanging volume is absolutely contraindicated. Choban proposed to preserve the building as a whole, arrange a loft apartment in the former automatic telephone exchange, and add meters by building a tower in the depths of the site.
The project was sent back for revision, recommending to consider all possibilities for preserving the building as a whole and then approved in November 2016 - within the framework of the proposed initial concept with a superstructure-beam, but with the condition of preserving the entire building of the constructivist ATS. Yes.
Well, in July of this year, the presentation of the project for journalists was first canceled, and then it became known that the entire courtyard building was demolished. It’s not a secret, it’s
clearly visible on the real estate website of the apartments, where the monitoring of the construction process for buyers. ***
There are two truths in this story. The first is the truth of the customer and partly the architect, if not to say the designer: the British were invited, they designed, they did not violate the laws, even of their own free will they offered to keep part of the unguarded, they were inspired by the avant-garde in an actual way, they called Tatlin - the coordinating body invaded, took the taste, yes, yes, namely taste, because there is no protection status, the decision ordered to preserve the building as a whole. We agreed, redesigned the project, and then did everything as planned from the very beginning.
The second is the truth of the public, part of which is the Arch Council and the famous architects in it. The building of the late 1920s, a rare for Moscow variety of constructivism of the "St. Petersburg spill", if you agree with Sergei Tchoban - and if you disagree, then maybe this is already post-constructivism, the forerunner of the 1930s? - But one way or another, the building is worthy of protection. We tried to preserve it in its entirety, we agreed on the project with preservation, and after all, they did not ask to redo it completely, as Sergei Tchoban suggested.
Then we got a retaliatory move. Now the courtyard building won't be real in any way, let's go back to the beginning. The public is outraged and completely powerless. Is it fair to do this? And honestly at the council to ask the project to redo? Should the Arch Council want more, if the plot is still overgrown with "many sorrows"? Would you agree so, and so it was in its own way noble? How important is the authenticity of the courtyard building of the PBX? There is something for extraordinary people to puzzle over. There are in this story and rolls with the history of Shcherbakov's chambers, although they, of course, are completely different, rather both sound on a sort of sad string of broken hopes. But to say that Tatlin is turning over in his grave is probably impossible - in the 1920s and 1930s, the practice of adding 2-3 floors, as a rule, over apartment buildings, was completely common, although Tatlin was not involved in it.
In general, everyone who is not concerned with the financial component of the project and the cost of building an underground parking on a spot occupied by the construction of the late 1920s with all its features will agree with truth number two. But, on the other hand, no one tried to buy the site in order to save the constructivist building. By the way, it seems that there were no single pickets at the construction site either. Everything goes on as usual, the non-monument building is slowly metabolically digested, absorbing the theme of constructivism with gastric juices; that is, you know, life.
