Part Of The Urban Kaleidoscope

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

The Holiday Inn Express hotel building was opened on Dubininskaya Street in Moscow in the fall of 2017. The three-star hotel belongs to the budget line of a well-known brand, offering "a limited number of services for a reasonable fee." Such a hotel can be opened in the depths of one of the sections of the Paveletskaya industrial zone, the reconstruction of which has been going on for many years. The hotel is located on the border of the former territory of Moskhladokombinat No. 3, hiding behind the 20-storey tower of the Rosneft office, which divided a 12-storey residential panel building and a pair of two-storey former tenement houses from the breed of Moscow old-timers. The surroundings are variegated, the territory has not yet been fully developed, old warehouses alternate with voids, obviously intended for “development”. Meanwhile, to the Paveletsky railway station and the metro, which means to the Garden Ring - 10 minutes on foot, and you can reach it in five, which makes the place convenient.

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Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street Photo © Yu. Tarabarina, Archi.ru
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Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street Photo © Ginsburg Architects

One of the main differences between an architectural project in this case, as part of a motley and still emerging environment, is its invisibility. Let me explain. Architects often draw glass masses on visualizations, supposedly "dissolved" in the sky, and then, being realized, they do not dissolve anywhere, which has long been noticed by city defenders. Here, on Dubininskaya in front of us - the very case: the hotel barely gleams against the background of the sky. It is dissolved in context. It is not difficult to find it - for example, for a tired guest, which is also an essential quality for a hotel. But for passers-by who are not interested in bed & breakfast, the building is not at all an eyesore. Absolutely. In Moscow, this is rare and not even accepted, such an approach is more dreamed of, but here it was possible. What exactly? - Observe a measure of urban delicacy in a motley environment.

For the sake of fairness, we admit that the proximity to the Rosneft office made the task easier: its noble brown "closet" attracts attention, distracting from the rest. However, the new hotel also built a dialogue with this neighbor - not just "hiding behind his back", but lining up behind him the rudiment of a new street. However, why is there a rudimentary street, it will be developed a little more in depth and it will be quite an urban space. One small step has been taken. The hotel also reacts to its neighbor: the nearest facade, close to the wall of the office building, is reserved for stairs and common balconies, whose appearance is due to fire safety regulations, but on the other hand, you can go out on them to smoke.

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1/3 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street Photo © Yu. Tarabarina, Archi.ru
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2/3 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street Photo © Yu. Tarabarina, Archi.ru
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3/3 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street © Ginsburg Architects Photo © Ginsburg Architects

By the way, there are two staircases, the second is located in a poorly lit corner of an L-shaped building in the plan and is combined with the lift block; another freight elevator adjoins the outer corner, it is convenient for loading and unloading for the technical needs of the hotel.

The main floors of the hotel are standard, 3 meters each. The lower floor of the lobby is 5 meters high. Below it there are two more almost equally high tiers, one is a semi-underground commercial, on the second there is Pakrovka. The underground floors continue to the east, into the depths of the site, forming an asphalted stylobate courtyard.

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1/6 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street © Ginsburg Architects
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2/6 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street © Ginsburg Architects
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3/6 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street © Ginsburg Architects
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4/6 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street © Ginsburg Architects
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5/6 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street © Ginsburg Architects
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6/6 Holiday Inn Express Hotel on Dubininskaya Street © Ginsburg Architects

One of the most interesting project solutions is a semi-underground floor. Natural light enters here through a deep pit on the street side. A two-flight staircase parallel to the façade (19 steps) leads down, the metal semi-columns of the first floor are continued here: the space in front of the main façade acquires intrigue and multidimensionality. He is revived by naive graffiti on the wall and life-affirming inscriptions on the steps; this kind of decoration can be treated in different ways, but it is obvious that city life has already settled here.

On the flat glass façade, the windows are surrounded by panels of autumn colors: a light tone of faded sky, orange, terracotta and dark gray stripes. He uses the theme of the mosaic screen, which was introduced into Moscow practice by the architects of Ostozhenka fifteen years ago. A convenient way to turn the problem of a flat facade, with a budgetary impossibility to show the depths of window slopes, into a shimmering drawing that responds to the environment, but endowed with its own color and character. Here, however, the composition is simpler according to the task and modern tendencies of strict facade grids. Colored stripes unite two floors, their width and color alternate. In addition, the windows in pairs of floors are shifted by one iteration, and if you look closely, it seems that the facade is slightly swaying left and right. The plane is enlivened by the opening transom windows of hotel windows, similar to the keys of a musical instrument pressed in random order. One of the tasks of the composition of colored and transparent spots on the facade - to mask the square proportions of the windows and the large width of the walls between them - has been completed; it is not so noticeable where the windows are, and where the walls are, everything merges into the crosshairs of lines and dim spots of color.

The building does not belong to the number of spectacular gestures, which, however, was not expected by the construction budget and the class of the hotel. Meanwhile, the quality of some restrained, decent modesty is definitely inherent in him. What is important, since everyone strives to make vivid statements, and to adequately assess the task and conditions and build a simple building that can become a background is a rather thankless job, but necessary and a lot of it is needed. At the same time, being next to us, we feel ourselves in a mastered and meaningful space. I would like to dismantle the black fence along the Rosneft - then a real street will appear here, people will not have to huddle up against the wall or, more often, walk along the roadway. One must think that sooner or later this will happen, and a small embryo of urban space, laid here by the workshop of Alexei Ginzburg, will grow and develop. After all, everything is conceived like that.