In The Shadow Of The Pope

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

This is a very rare typology for the center of Moscow. Chamber three-storey building of the art workshop (total area of about 300 m², height 12 m) was installed in the courtyard of the former city estate on Pyatnitskaya Street. The customer owns a small plot under the house, and the yard belongs to the city. The workshop opens in the gap between the houses on the side of Klimentovsky Lane with an expressive three-story stained glass window. The presence of a huge church of St. Petersburg quality, designed, according to some sources, by Trezzini himself, is very felt. The presence of the Pope in Moscow toponymy and church tradition is perceived unexpectedly and ambiguously, but symptomatic and reminds of the controversy of large figures. I don't know if Zurab Konstantinovich should be considered the Pope of Moscow sculpture, but why not. The workshop, though small, looks like a wooden box, an expensive toy, different from the surroundings in style, color and plastic. The walls are faced with a composite material imitating walnut wood, and the metal stained-glass windows are bronze colored.

On the site of the site there was once a wooden extension to a nondescript house, from which, at the time the architects began to work on the project, only the foundation remained. However, the theme of the tree became the starting point for the architects of the Mezonproject bureau in their search for an image. We settled on a variant of soft modernism, which delicately contrasts with the surrounding historical buildings around.

Мастерская З. К. Церетели Фотография: Архи.ру, 2019

Considering his work, one would naturally expect a more conservative image and style from Zurab Tsereteli in his own workshop. But in this case, according to Ilya Mashkov, partner of Mezonproekt, an agreement was reached on non-interference in the affairs of architects. The client did not influence the choice of style and easily coordinated the appearance of the building. However, for various reasons, the construction took five years.

The mansion is in the plan the letter "G", and in the volume - two connected parallelepipeds, larger and smaller. One housed the two-story workshop itself, which occupies the entire space of the second and third floors. The spacious hall is illuminated by a huge stained-glass window, as well as through an upper lantern. On the first floor, under it, a hall for master classes is arranged for 25 people (since the owner of the house is the president of the Russian Academy of Arts, the function of the building is not only creative work, but also training). In the rest there is a lobby, an elevator, stairs and bathrooms. The smaller parallelepiped is occupied by the escape staircase.

Фотография: Архи.ру, 2019 Фотография: Архи.ру, 2019

The entire main facade is a stained-glass window with an emphasized volumetric pattern of bindings. The main entrance is located in the corner part between the two volumes. This made it possible to free up space for the workshop and orient it towards the stained glass window. An additional entrance is located to the right of the main facade under a canopy. To counterbalance this element, a bay window protrudes on the main façade at the level of the second floor. The second volume with an emergency staircase looks into the courtyard also with a glass stained-glass window.

A workshop in a separate building is a rather unusual typology. Oddly enough, here I recall Melnikov's house in Krivoarbatsky lane. The courtyard arrangement, the emphasized contrast with the surrounding buildings, two vertical volumes merged with each other, a three-storey stained-glass window on the front, the second and third floors given over to a workshop - in general, there is a lot in common, although the architects did not mean anything like that. In general, the house of an architect (artist) is often not like his work: Melnikov's house is not like the rest of Melnikov's work, Shekhtel's house on Sadovaya does not look like Shekhtel's, Tsereteli's workshop is not like Tsereteli's. And all these buildings are like small boxes with a secret, contrasting with the surroundings. Perhaps the main thing in this rather local typology is large windows and double-height spaces.

The three-story stained-glass window of the Tsereteli workshop with a pronounced vertical pattern resembles the soundboard of a musical instrument or a church organ, and the wooden wall cladding completes the resemblance. The stained-glass window reproduces a certain storey structure with a different frequency of conditional "windows" and with a hint of a generalized cornice - a feature of Art Deco, which, however, crosses here with wooden modernism. The windows of the side facades are asymmetrically distributed over the surface, some of them are angular, which is a clear sign of the avant-garde, although the corners are internal.

zooming

1/3 Workshop of Z. K. Tsereteli Photo: Archi.ru, 2019
zooming

2/3 Workshop of Z. K. Tsereteli Photo: Archi.ru, 2019
zooming

3/3 Photo: Archi.ru, 2019 Photo: Archi.ru, 2019

Facing with panels imitating dark and light wood could have been just wood, because according to the norms, low wooden buildings are allowed. But in the city center there are still few of them, or rather, their use is limited to temporary park pavilions and art clusters. Wooden architecture in the city is a promising topic from an environmental point of view, and it will certainly appear. However, it must be admitted that panels imitating wood are in some sense easier to operate, more durable, and they create an image just as convincing as the real ones.

zooming

1/14 Workshop of Z. K. Tsereteli Photo: Archi.ru, 2019
zooming

3/14 Workshop of Z. K. Tsereteli. Development of the courtyard along Pyatnitskaya Street. Project, 2014 © Mezonproject