Tower In The City

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

The Edisson house club house, built by the architects of Alexei Bavykin's studio in Elektricheskiy pereulok, is distinguished by its compactness, a complex plan that takes into account the restrictions of the site, and a relatively laconic decor, where, unlike Moscow houses of this kind, there is no order decoration and gilding, but there is a proprietary “the trick "of the bureau is a plot" sewn "into the architecture, making the house completely non-standard. For some reason, a tower has grown in the middle of Moscow, which never existed here.

The house deviates from the red line, it is low, no higher than the neighboring houses, and does everything to match the tone of the neighboring buildings of the 19th century - although they are painted, their beige color is unstable - and at the same time looks completely different among them: small, even fragile, slender, crystalline. And he also has a rather long story of how the idea was put together, during which the plot changed and the main emphasis became different.

Background

The project of Alexey Bavykin's house in Elektricheskiy lane has gone through several alterations. In 2010, it resembled a house in Bryusov Lane - a slightly more geometrical version of the "wild order" of tree trunks open to the sky. The house in Elektricheskiy - the same scale, the position in the historical center, although farther from the Kremlin, and the same club-class housing, inherited and developed the theme. At that time it seemed that several “forest” houses in Moscow could appear. But the house in Bryusovoy was left alone, since the project for Elektrichesky Lane began to be remodeled.

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1/5 House in Elektricheskiy lane, 2010. View from the Elektricheskiy lane © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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2/5 House in Elektricheskiy lane, 2010. Western facade (main) © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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3/5 House in Elektricheskiy lane, 2010. Eastern facade © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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4/5 House in Bryusov Lane. Facade along Bryusov lane. 2003-2006 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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5/5 Project of a country house in the Moscow region, 1994 © Alexey Bavykin and partners

By 2013, on the right corner of the facade, closer to Malaya Gruzinskaya, a tower began to sprout, at first still looking like a half-felled tree. A little later, the house was pulled together and became more compact: pronounced horizontals of interfloor rods and a glass "accordion" of the penthouse appeared. The main street facade receded a little into the courtyard, the tower stepped forward, grew and stopped branching, also acquiring a more laconic outline, although a hint of an open toothed top remained.

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1/4 Hotel with apartments and underground parking in Elektricheskiy lane. Project, 2014 © Workshop of architect Bavykin
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2/4 Hotel with apartments and underground parking in Elektricheskiy lane. Project, 2014 © Workshop of architect Bavykin
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3/4 Hotel with apartments and underground parking. View from Elektricheskiy lane. Project, 2013 © Workshop of architect Bavykin
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4/4 Hotel with apartments and underground parking. View from Elektricheskiy lane. Project, 2013 © Workshop of architect Bavykin

Ultimately, from a "forest", or, perhaps, "poplar" house turned into a stone, more urban. The emphasis, when compared with the first project, has shifted from the left corner to the right.

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1/6 Edison House. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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2/6 Edison House. Project 2018 © Rostislav Nikolaev Archirost
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3/6 Edison House. Project 2018 © Rostislav Nikolaev Archirost
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4/6 Edison House. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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5/6 Edison House. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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6/6 Edison House. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners

In the corner tower, which has now become a key "speaking" element, a completely different prototype is read - the towers of the noble families of medieval cities in the Mediterranean. They are known in many places, but in Florence by the XIV century such towers were dismantled, and in San Gimignano, for example, a lot of them survived. It is interesting when the towers stand on the square like pillars, but more often houses were attached to them, as, for example, a Renaissance house was attached on the piazza d'Erbe in Mantua. To some extent, the house in Elektricheskiy Pereulok has become similar to such an ensemble of a tower of an urban noble family and their later house.

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1/4 House of a merchant, Mantua Photo: Yulia Tarabarina, Archi.ru
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2/4 House of a merchant, Mantua Photo: Yulia Tarabarina, Archi.ru
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3/4 Archive and library building, Mantua Photo: Yulia Tarabarina, Archi.ru
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4/4 Towers of Noble Families, Pavia Photo: Julia Tarabarina, Archi.ru

Of course, it is not a copy of any Renaissance landmark, the city towers are more of an analogy and a starting point for inspiration. In addition, remember that the house is a club house, an example of expensive housing in the center of the city, there are only twelve by six floors in it - such housing is the house of a noble city dweller, adjusted for modern multi-apartment buildings, so sleep, as they say, in hand.

On the ground floor there is a cafe and a recreation area, under the tower there is an entrance to an automated two-level parking lot: the house is small, and in this case, there will probably be more cars than one per family. Apartments from the second to the fifth floor boast floor-to-ceiling windows with French balconies in front of them - that is, those that can formally go out, but fit about half a foot. One of the apartments on the fifth floor, placed in the volume that turns into the courtyard, is a bunk one, this was the decision of the marketer.

The penthouse occupies the upper, sixth, floor, its area is 257 m², it is, in essence, an urban villa built into the composition of the house, in this case classically, in the upper part. The glass "accordion" recedes from the line of the facade, leaving room for an open gallery and giving maximum light to the 6.7 m high living room. Another penthouse terrace, almost square and large, about 7x7 m, with a medium-sized room, is located to the north on the roof of the volume, which has been pushed back due to the complex configuration of the site. To the right of it is the wall of the fifth-floor bunk apartment, so that in response to the complex contour of the building spot, the house becomes spatially complex. But the main thing is that from the height of the fifth floor, and here it is 20 meters, you can look at a quiet side street; must be a curious experience.

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1/13 Edison House. Situational plan. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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2/13 Edison House. Plan of the 1st floor. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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3/13 Edison House. Parking level -1 plan. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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4/13 Edison House: lobby interior design. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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5/13 Edison House. Plan of 2-3 floors. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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6/13 Edison House. Plan is the plan of the 5th floor. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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7/13 Edison House. Photo 2019 © Ilya Ivanov
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8/13 Edison House. North Facade. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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9/13 Edison House. East Facade. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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10/13 Edison House. South Facade. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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11/13 Edison House. Sweep along Electric Lane. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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12/13 Edison House. Section 1-1. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners
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13/13 Edison House. Section 2-2. Project 2018 © Alexey Bavykin and partners

In the tower, on the floor of the penthouse, there is a bathroom with a bathtub - the architects explain that this is also a decision of marketers. Further inside the bedroom. In apartments of 2-5 floors, there is a laundry room at the wall of the tower facing the street, and in the main volume, looking at the end of the neighboring house, there is a kitchen. In other words, planning its volumes have a completely everyday purpose, not only in the sense that there is no sentinel of the Tarli clan, but also because the views, even from above, are not really used.

Meanwhile, figuratively and decoratively, the tower is, of course, the main one. In addition to the fact that it basically “holds” the corner, makes the house more slender and attracts maximum attention - the tower is decorated according to the principle of “brick Gothic”, with different types of textured masonry. By the way, the idea was present in the project initially, but it was expressed in a striped surface imitating a wall prepared for cladding, for example, with marble. Now the invoice has acquired a different solution.

The tower is divided into three tiers according to the principle of superposition of three orders. Anyone who understands at least a little in the theory of the order knows that if the columns are removed, the proportions remain, and if they remain, the building does not cease to be an order. So in this case, the theme is expressed by the density of brick chiaroscuro. In the lower tier, let's call it conditionally Doric, it is by definition the heaviest, if there were rustication here, it would be deeply protruding and rough - so, in the lower tier, masonry is used at an angle forward, characteristic of the tents of Italian bell towers. It would seem a paradox: the tent of the bell tower is at the top, and here is the lower tier. But, perhaps, this nit-picking will be unnecessary. In fact, of course, these densely planted corners are entertainment for the eye, which is why they are placed below as the most decorative part. Chiaroscuro falls on them, and indeed, wonderful. It must be admitted that this is a fairly widespread and favorite technique of modern brick architecture; in Moscow, in particular, it is used in the "Literator" residential complex of the SKiP bureau.

The middle tier is decorated with end projections in a checkerboard pattern, at the top the same projections are scattered three times less often, the facade is lighter and flatter. In principle, the most correct analogue is Palazzo Medici Ricardi, it is there that the stretch from the "rocks" in the lower tier to the almost completely flat upper tier is so clearly expressed. Only in this case the idea is solved in brick. And it is also important to note that in recent years the daughter of Alexei Bavykin Natalya, the head of the house in Elektricheskiy lane, was engaged in the project and its implementation.

Other facades are less saturated semantically and rather appeal to the actual typology of the club house, or perhaps to the Ottoman Paris: a light, although not gray, tone is also suitable, and balconies, which, by the way, like the lattice from the side of the street, inherit the idea of tree branches, which first appeared in Bryusov Lane - but only make it more generalized. The form, by the way, "went to the people" - now it is found in the projects of various Moscow architects.

The house, which is iconic in its own way, passed almost imperceptibly - except that it was awarded a diploma at the "Golden Section". Meanwhile, it is interesting: both the thoroughness of the work (I think many have seen reports on the long and difficult implementation process on facebook), and the new plot, and the typology of a low house in the city center itself. Perhaps - this will now be a personal value judgment, it is not customary for us to say that, and yet - it looks better than its neighbors, decorated, but ordinary houses of the eclectic period. And in fact, I would like such projects to appear not only in the elite segment, where the hair on the head moves from prices, but that there are a few more of them and they are more affordable, well, at least I will not tell people that the average, but moderate income. Then maybe the city will become prettier.