The possibility of demolition of the so-called "Buloshnikov's apartment building" on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, 17 building 1, coupled with the possibility of building a residential building up to 9 floors high, has become one of the noisiest scandals in Moscow at the beginning of this year. At the same time, the question arose: is the real house, which is protected by public figures? Or was it completely rebuilt in the 1990s? We met with the author of the reconstruction, architect Pavel Andreev, and asked him about the project. Spoiler - the house was preserved, although it was completed from the yard. So he's real.
In 1995, when you were working on the reconstruction of house 17k1 on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, what was the work? Was it restoration, reconstruction, or was the house completely destroyed and rebuilt?
The house has been completely preserved, both the capital structures and the decor of the facades. We conducted a lengthy survey - as far as I remember, we started working with him in 1992. The house was badly damaged, damaged by leaks, infected with a fungus, the basement was very damp, probably due to breakthroughs in communications. We deepened the basement by about a meter and strengthened it, cured the walls from the fungus. At the same time, a collector was being built on Bolshaya Nikitskaya, and underground work turned out to be quite difficult, primarily due to the decision to preserve the capital structures. The period of wall injection, penetration and so on was quite long. The walls of all three floors, both external load-bearing and internal transverse, and the entire volume remained original, which is clearly visible on the plans of the taxiway stage.
measurements before reconstruction:
project documentation:
There are six vaulted cells in the basement …
We cleaned out the vaults, sandblasted and opened their bricks. Taking into account the lowering of the basement floor, the height of the inner space became about 2.5 m. A beer restaurant worked there for some time - one of the investors was an Austrian, which determined the specifics. The customer bought a lot of photographs of old Moscow somewhere, hung them there, and it turned out quite atmospheric.
What have you added during the renovation?
There were three options in the draft design, one of which was a long extension into the depths of Maly Kislovsky Lane. Ultimately, the option with a longitudinal extension was chosen, which made the volume of the building "thicker", but made it possible to raise the height of the ridge of the roof without changing the traditional angle of its slope. We placed ventilation equipment there, completely hiding it under the roof. The attic is cold, the air intake is through the dormer windows, which are covered with bars. It is surprising that now many architects decorate the technical floor in the form of boxes, when it can be hidden like this.
From the side of the street, the cornice passes over a small attic ledge, from the side of the courtyard it is raised a little higher, and in the central part, under the attic, a fairly spacious attic floor has formed.
Who suggested the dome on the corner?
I suggested. There was a rounded corner without a door, we arranged an entrance in the corner, behind which the lobby of the bank was located inside. The entrance required an accent, it was a dome. I must say, it appeared in the latest versions, at first there was no such idea.
How authentic is the decor of the facades?
There is a lot of authenticity, we measured all the details and re-arranged the destroyed places - moreover, mind you, with plaster, and not with expanded polystyrene. I think our work with the facade can be defined as restoration, which is recorded in the album. We matched the color of the facades to the name - Green House, and it did not match the color concept that was being developed for Moscow at that time.
Then, in 1992-1995, was the house guarded?
No, I didn't.
The decision to preserve the house with all its capital structures as a valuable part of the environment was made collectively by experts from the Monument Protection Department, headed by Vladimir Ilyich Sokolovsky. Such a prominent expert as Viktor Ivanovich Sheredega, as well as Aleksey Mikhailovich Kurennoy, Vladimir Iosifovich Chernyshenko, took part in the discussion. Then everything was decided at the level of people interested in heritage protection: in the process of discussion, the principles of protection were developed, which became the basis for the TK and then, being clothed in the form of a project, were considered at the council at the Department of Monument Protection, after which they acquired the form of official approvals.
The fact of the matter is that when professionally competent people consider a question, they can consider unclassified things, in particular, those that do not have a certain status of a monument, and determine the principle of what is permissible in working with them. At that time there were fewer monuments than today; today there are about four thousand of them.
If you ask me which is more important, a monument or an environment, I will definitely answer that the environment is more important. You can demolish everything, and leave a few monuments - and lose the city completely, although there will be several insanely beautiful things in it. Such a city is Samarkand, there are several separate attractions, but there is no city. And in Bukhara and Khiva there is an environment. And if you lose Wednesday in Moscow, then individual monuments can be looked like, say, an inkwell on a green cloth on the table of V. I. Lenin, as a thing that can be rearranged anywhere.
The monument can be moved to any place and deprived of its surroundings, but its value will be lost - for me personally - by 99 percent. The atmosphere will go away. The objects in which we have been working for 20 years, exactly made up what is called Moscow - context, subtext, call it what you want. Because individual objects - even if there are masterpieces among them - will not create a city.
Who was the customer of the reconstruction 1992-1995?
Valery Fedorovich Baranov, director of the Greenhouse company, which owned a vegetable shop in this house. The reconstruction was made for a supermarket, a cookery and a restaurant, there was a fairly large trading floor - the shop windows located closer to the center occupied the store. Hence the name - "Green House". Later, the bank located on the corner replaced the store.
I must say that this is another important aspect - the preservation of not only the building, but also the familiar, reference, in some way cult, if you will, function - a landmark in the context of the city. The vegetable store was quite famous in Moscow, now it is gone. At the end of Herzen Street there was a famous Fish store - this place will be the Bulgari Hotel; or there was a no less famous Sweets store on the Nikitsky Gate, now Villroy & Boch is in its place … There are, of course, things that can be changed in the city, but think about it: if you remove the Fauchon confectionery from Madeleine Square, Paris will no longer be the same.
Do you think it is now possible to convert the house into housing?
After all, it was built as a residential - a profitable building. At first it was two-story, then, at the end of the 19th century, the third floor was set up. Of course, you can adapt it - we are now talking about preserving the appearance for the sake of preserving the environment, and not about the function. Perhaps it would be possible to build on one or two floors with an indent in depth … But, I think, nothing more.
