Museum "Presnya"
(branch of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia)
"Mosproject-2"
Moscow, Bolshoy Predtechensky lane, 4
1971–1975
Denis Romodin, architecture historian:
Historical and Memorial Museum "Presnya" was opened on November 8, 1924 in a one-story wooden dwelling house built in the 1860s; Until 1918, this house was profitable, and in February 1917, the Presnensky District Committee of the RSDLP (b) was located in three of its rooms. By the beginning of the events of October 1917, military-revolutionary committees were formed in all districts of Moscow, and part of the empty premises of the house was occupied by the Military Revolutionary Committee.
In the 1920s, according to Lenin's plan for the monumental propaganda of the ideas of the revolution, the process of museification of places associated with the revolutionary events of the first decades of the 20th century and the perpetuation of the memory of the leaders and heroes of revolutions was launched. So, in November 1924, on the initiative of the veterans of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the memorial historical and revolutionary museum "Krasnaya Presnya" was opened in this house, which in 1940 became a branch of the State Museum of the Revolution. At that time, part of the house was still residential and was occupied by communal apartments. Their tenants were evicted only by decision of 1948.
The gradually expanding exposition became crowded in the eight halls of the wooden house. In May 1967, the Krasnopresnensky regional executive committee decided to "restore a wooden structure - a memorial monument of 1917 and build a new museum building next to it." At the same time, the settlement of a neighboring wooden house from the first third of the 19th century began to accommodate a part of the museum's new exposition.
In connection with the adoption of the General Plan for the Development and Reconstruction of Moscow in 1971, the reconstruction of the Presnya district began, but long before the adoption of this document, a massive demolition of wooden and brick low-rise buildings of the 19th - early 20th centuries began there. In the funds of the State Museum of Architecture named after A. V. Shchusev preserved an official letter from the director of the Museum of the Revolution A. Tolstikhina to the director of the Mosproekt-3 institute A. Arefyev and the first deputy chairman of the Executive Committee of the Krasnopresnensky District Council P. Tsitsin with the justification of the project to create the reserve. In this letter, it was proposed to organize a conservation area at the beginning of Bolshevistskaya Street (this was the name of Bolshoy Predtechensky Lane from 1924 to 1994) with the restoration of the pavement with cobblestones, the recreation of small architectural forms and elements of the urban environment at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries. The surviving and resettled wooden houses were supposed to be given for the placement of thematic expositions of the Krasnaya Presnya Museum.
However, this proposal did not find support: it was decided only to build a new building in the newly created security zone between the restored wooden house No. 2 and the original building of the museum. This space was occupied by household yards, which it was decided to turn into a courtyard. Since the buildings of this quarter were low-rise and until the 1970s the beginning of the former lane was an integral ensemble of civil buildings of the XIX - early XX centuries with a dominant in the form of the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist, built in stages in the XVIII – XIX centuries, the Mosproekt-2 team headed by the architect V. Antonov decided to move the new projected building of the museum inland from the red line of the street, so as not to disrupt the historical perspective. When planning the site for the new building, three elms planted in the 19th century were also preserved. Because of this, the configuration of the building got a break near Kapranov Lane (now - Maly Predtechensky Lane). The same trees with spreading crowns masked the new building and made it "invisible" from the perspective of Bolshevik Street. Thus, the new building was correctly inscribed in the free space of the site, adjoining closely to the wooden house of the museum: thus, the transition between expositions inside these two buildings was ensured. The construction of the new building of the museum began in 1971, the grand opening took place on December 24, 1975.
The authors of the project solved an interesting, but difficult problem of compositional solution of facades, dividing it into two parts - upper and lower. The continuous glazing of the lower part, as it were, dissolves the historical buildings and the greenery of the courdoner in reflection, making the first floor lighter and more transparent. Through it you can see the exposition and the hall of the museum with a stained-glass tape made according to the sketches of the artist E. Golovinskaya. The stained glass wall also has a practical function - it closes the foyer of the museum from the utility yard at the neighboring telephone exchange. The ceilings of the public premises on the first floor were cut through by transverse light guides, which went through the glass window and went out into the street into the canopy of the overhanging part of the second floor. This solution, borrowed from the Termini train station in Rome, looked especially impressive in the evening. Now solid light guides have been replaced by spotlights, which disrupted the perception of the building in the evening.
The upper part of the facade is an almost blank wall, lined with dolomite, which was mined in the Estonian SSR on the island of Saaremaa. The authors of the project decided to diversify the massive facade of the second floor with niches and a vertical window with a protruding volume-visor, which imitates the podium and at the same time accentuates the entrance to the building. In 1982, the inscription "Museum Krasnaya Presnya" of bronze letters appeared on the visor.
No less spectacular are the side facades from the side of Maly Predtechensky lane and the intra-quarter passage. The first seems to hang over the sidewalk and is decorated with loggias-niches, and the second forms the background for the wooden house-museum with its rounded volumes with large corner glazing.
The authors of the project were based on similar memorial complexes characteristic of that time. They did not provide for a number of rooms that were to be located in adaptable buildings in the neighborhood. This created a number of imperfections in the interior layout. The central part of the building is occupied by a staircase with a round window in the basement, which connects the cloakroom with the museum halls, located on three floors. Initially, premises for a buffet and a kitchen were designed in the right wing of the first floor, since the museum was designed for visiting the exposition by large organized groups of tourists who come from other cities on sightseeing thematic excursions. But since the architects did not envisage administrative premises in the project, as well as rooms for researchers and guides, this space was rebuilt in 2015-2016 for the needs of the museum.
The hall on the first floor originally had sections of suspended glass showcases, which made the interior lighter and combined with the solid glazing of the outer wall. This made it possible to see from there the facade of the wooden memorial house, where a passage was organized from the interfloor area of the second staircase, connecting the cloakroom in the basement with the exhibition halls of the second floor. Now the former wardrobe space has been rebuilt into an exhibition hall, and the wardrobe is located in the basement of the main staircase.
Despite the transformation of the original exposition, as well as some changes in the planning solution, the decoration of the halls on the second floor has been almost completely preserved. The interiors of two halls, which are illuminated by a shed roof, have been most effectively solved. The height of the windows and the slope of the roof sections are designed in such a way that sunlight does not directly penetrate the exposure level in the halls, but at the same time ensures uniform illumination of the premises. The third hall is separated from the other two by a sloping ramp and glass doors, which makes it possible to arrange independent lectures and exhibitions in it. The interior of the hall is decorated with dolomite and an abstract stained-glass line, which reveals revolutionary themes: bayonets, sickle and hammer.
According to the initial project, the fourth hall was supposed to be a cinema-concert hall, but in the late 1970s the idea of a large diorama “Heroic Presnya. 1905 , which was executed under the direction of the monumental artist E. Deshalyt and opened in 1982. The canvas itself and the mock-up part of the diorama were equipped with a light and sound score, which has now been restored. The diorama hall was redesigned in 1982 in a new style: the walls were finished with red panels, and the railing, plinth and suspended ceiling - with aluminum slats, anodized to the old bronze.
Despite the flaws in the planning and internal restructuring of 2010–2015, the building remains an iconic object of 1970s architecture and an example of "environmental brutalism" delicately inscribed in the historical buildings. The new museum building is an example of how contemporary architecture can be expressive and monumental, while still respecting its surroundings.
