Cosmic Wind

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-09 00:51

Airports, as well as train stations, provide architects with a wide range of interpretations and themes for plastic storytelling. There is a visual presentation of a city or region, the theme of speed and movement, a mandatory message about the triumph of technical thought - everyone is looking for a unique combination of symbols and meanings. The architect's talent and his main success is to find an image that carries many meanings, but does not shout about them, but only hints to the attentive viewer of their presence, allowing him to find emotional and artistic clues in the architecture of the building.

Clear field

Modern airports are rarely built from scratch. There are only two of them in Russia: Platov in Rostov-on-Don and Gagarin in Saratov. There is a logical explanation - to accommodate all the infrastructure necessary for servicing flights, a lot of land is needed - about 20 hectares. Most airports are located in the suburbs of large cities and, if they need to carry out reconstruction, for example, to lengthen the runway, they manage using internal reserves or buy out neighboring areas.

Saratov was not lucky in this regard. The Tsentralny airport was located too close to the city center and over the past decades found itself surrounded by urban development, which put an end to the plans for its reconstruction. The city made a radical decision to close Tsentralny and build a new city airport, for which it took a long time to find a place that would satisfy all current and probable future requirements. As a result, in 2011 they chose a site 40 kilometers northeast of Saratov.

The operator of the future airport complex was

holding "Airports of Regions", one of the leading players in this new market for Russia. His portfolio includes seven built airports and several under construction. This result was achieved thanks to an effective system of organizing work on projects: one of its key elements is the competitive selection of authors of architectural and design solutions.

The ASADOV bureau team won the 2013 competition and took over the development of the architectural design of the terminal in Saratov, the master plan of the territory, the design code of infrastructure facilities, as well as the design project of the interiors of public areas and the architectural and artistic supervision of the project. The functions of the general designer were performed by Spectrum Group of Companies. According to Alexander Volkov, head of the group for the design of transport infrastructure facilities of Spectrum Group, the design and construction of the airport from scratch has become a serious challenge for the entire team: “If usually construction is carried out in the existing conditions and the limitations of the existing agglomeration, there are some engineering networks, roads with access roads, in this case it was just an open field. In addition to engineering communications, serious work was required to coordinate the actions of three main stakeholders: the holding, federal and regional authorities, as well as a large number of involved services, such as: FSB of Russia, FCS of Russia, Rospotrebnadzor, Rosselkhoznadzor, border service, police, FSO, and so on. Further. An airport is a mini-city with its own rules, laws, needs, and all this had to be taken into account when designing."

Water and air

The airport project in Saratov has opened a new typological series in the portfolio of ASADOV bureau. Since then, more than 10 airports have been added to it in Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol, Chelyabinsk, Perm (implemented, for more details see.

here), Novy Urengoy, Kemerovo and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. In each of these projects, the architects solved figurative problems in different ways, varying the degree of imagery and abstractness of the volumetric-spatial solution.

It is interesting that the two completed projects - Saratov and Perm - represent almost polar approaches to solving one problem. In Perm, the technique of literal visualization of the image of a wing or a winged angel from a local museum was used, while in Saratov the solution is more architectural, plastically restrained, only indicating the theme of flight. Andrey Asadov confirms the difference in approaches: “From a professional, architectural point of view, I can now say that Saratov is one step ahead of Perm. Perm, for all its expressiveness and showiness, is too literary. The image found there is too literal. And in Saratov we were able to find a more subtle and restrained solution. Perhaps this was due to the development of the project over six years, separating the competition concept from the start of construction."

Аэропорт «Гагарин» в Саратове © Архитектурное бюро ASADOV

At the 2013 competition, the participants were faced with the task of finding an original architectural design for a typical terminal block developed by the German company WP ARC. German specialists have placed in the most compact volume all the functions necessary for servicing passengers, dividing the departure and arrival zones by levels. The architects of the bureau ASADOV proposed and subsequently developed a solution based on images related to local specifics and the most recognizable symbols of Saratov, such as the Volga River and the famous bridge with gentle arches almost 3,000 meters long.

Саратовский автомобильный мост через Волгоградское водохранилище Автор: U. Steele – собственная работа, CC BY-SA 3.0

Having added the local "specialty" - the Saratov accordion to the associative array, the architects came up with an original volumetric-spatial and constructive solution for the main facade of the building - a folded stained-glass window, like a fan opening out from the middle of the building and leaning forward more and more with each new ledge, as if bending under pressure air currents from aircraft taking off. The stained glass window rests against the original cornice - an inclined plane, lined with golden metal panels. Metal and glass meet, forming an arc, whose intense energy is enough to bring dynamism to the image of the building, combining the themes of water and air.

Grigory Yurov, Chief Project Engineer at Spectrum Group of Companies, comments on the work on the original stained-glass window: “A lot of time and effort was spent on bringing the rather complex structure of the facade to the form that is implemented today. The fact is that almost all enclosing structures are glass, inclined, lightweight, and special complex nodal solutions were developed to reduce the impact of wind and snow loads. Since the façade is curved in three directions, it is very susceptible to such loads. The task was difficult. This is a “capricious” facade, but it turned out to be beautiful, and today it is the face of the airport”.

The side facades are also designed in two materials: glass and metal. Stained-glass windows, like giant waves covered with silvery ripples of inclined decorative imposts, cut through the metal surface of the side facade cladding, which ends in an acute angle, like the bow of a ship looming over the square in front of the main entrance to the terminal.

In the interior, the water-air theme was developed in the form of huge light lanterns, which in their elongated shape a little resemble fish - the shape is abstract, but the architects were inspired by three silver sterlets on the coat of arms of Saratov. The openings in the roof complement the elliptical volumetric structures, some of which frame the lanterns from below, and some of them float freely in the multi-height space of the terminal. These objects are assembled from many flat ribs with LED strips mounted on the outer edge. Spectacular art objects, therefore, serve as the main source of light for the airport space.

Special interiors

In 2017, the Airports of Regions holding held several contests for the interiors of key areas of the terminal: a deluxe lounge and VIP lounges for international and domestic flights.

Three Russian teams became the winners, two - OFFCON with the concept "Water" and VOX Architects with the project "Sky", already having experience in creating representative interiors, and the third - Kosmos Architects, unexpectedly burst into this elite market with a provocative design of a business lounge for international flights, called "Chambers".

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1/3 Business lounge for international flights. Airport "Gagarin". Project "Chambers", bureau Kosmos Architects © KOSMOS architects
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2/3 Lounge for domestic passengers. Airport "Gagarin". Project "Water", bureau OFFCON © OFFCON
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3/3 © VOX architects

New topic

The implementation of the project of the new airport in Saratov took a little longer than originally planned - mainly due to the World Cup'18 in football, which required the concentration of all the facilities of the Airports of Regions holding on the delivery of a new terminal in Rostov-on-Don, which hosted the World Cup match … The extended timeframes allowed the architects to work out all the main elements more carefully and update some solutions, including due to the fact that in 2018 the airport received a new name - "Gagarin": Yuri Gagarin graduated from the flight school in Saratov and after his flight into space landed on the Saratov land. The new name, and even such a significant one, brought another powerful semantic layer to the image of the airport.

However, the inclusion of space themes did not require cardinal changes: associations with air currents were also appropriate and easy to read - in the folded stained-glass window one can now see the pulsation of the plasma flow or prominences of hot air arising from jet engines. And in the metal facing of the facades there is a resemblance to the body of a rocket. Cosmic analogies will intensify when a cantilever canopy similar to an "airship" appears above the entrance vestibule of the main facade.

Lamps-"fish" in the interiors of public spaces have also acquired a resemblance to airships, and the neutral, with a predominance of white interior color can remotely resemble space stations, as filmmakers Andrei Tarkovsky or Stanley Kubrick presented them, which is largely facilitated by the original streamlined pavilions for service and trade infrastructure developed by ASADOV bureau.

Neo-modernism or 1970s again

The name "Gagarin" and the semantic link to the theme of space allowed to develop and accentuate the similarity with the buildings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, outlined in the volumetric-spatial composition of the terminal, in particular, the Moscow cinema "Russia", the first large-format, subsequently many times repeated.

Against the background of the catastrophic situation with the architectural objects of this period, demolished, rebuilt, collapsing everywhere in Russia and the world on the wave of society's rejection of the associations that they cause, for the professional community their value becomes more and more indisputable. Large-scale and plastic, expressive and majestic, using various building materials and techniques for working with planes and textures, combining architecture with other types of monumental art - these buildings and complexes serve as an adornment of former Soviet cities and a reminder of the time when, after the victory, people tried to build the perfect world and made their dreams come true, including the most fantastic - about a man's flight into space.

Andrei Asadov confirms the idea of homage to “Soviet modernism”: “We deliberately turned to themes and forms characteristic of the architecture of the 1960-1970s in order to emphasize the connection between eras. The architectural style of the terminal is supported by the improvement of the square in front of the main entrance, in the spirit of Oscar Niemeyer, with a rectangular pool, stele and a huge ball, which were proposed by our colleagues from the Nowadays bureau."

Symbol in the rye

For modern airports, the formation in front of the main entrance of a large and conceptually designed space, a full-fledged main square is not the most common practice, which cannot be said about the transport infrastructure facilities of the last century, which the architects designed, guided by the rules for creating classical ensembles, and not under the pressure of numerous and often contradictory requirements for the logistics of passenger and freight traffic. Fortunately, the new Saratov terminal has become an exception to this practice.

How to reflect Gagarin's name and space theme in the layout and design of the square in front of the terminal? Another Moscow team, the Nowadays bureau, which has experience in working with public spaces, was to find an answer to this question at the invitation of the Airports of Regions holding. From the very beginning, the architects categorically refused to use the most common associations with the theme of space, such as depicting planets or the solar system and other stereotypical techniques in work with landscaping.

The impetus for the emergence of the idea of the future square was a photograph of the landing site of Yuri Gagarin a few kilometers from the airport. Nata Tatunashvili describes this

Photo: “In the middle of a field of rye lies some charred gravicapa - a symbol of an event that turned people's ideas about the world, the embodiment of the dream of a whole generation, passionately striving to conquer space, to make it a part of the new history of mankind and a part of every person's life. And we thought that we need to recreate this image, which carries the strongest emotional message and supplement it with elements that convey the idea of the cosmos, which is next to each of us, and to see it it is enough to look at the sky."

This is how the design of the square appeared, combining current methods of working with landscaping and objects that would have been appropriate thirty years ago. The open space in front of the terminal is crossed by a long rectangular pond that reflects the clouds and the airport building. Thin trees grow from the water surface, planted in round concrete containers. Behind them rises a tall stele covered with steel plates that sway in the wind. And nearby, on a separate site planted with cereals, a huge sphere is installed, symbolizing the landing capsule that returned the first astronaut to Earth.

Close space

The design of the square in front of the terminal is just a preamble to the amazing space museum, which was created in the terminal building by a large team of architects, curators and artists led by the Nowadays bureau.

The concept of the Airports of the Regions holding includes obligatory cultural programming - the addition of non-standard functions and artistic content that can turn a utilitarian building of a transport hub into a tourist attraction and cultural space, where residents of the region would strive to get not only as passengers. After the first successful experience - the museum of the history of the Don Cossacks at the Platov airport, the holding decided to continue this practice, especially since the name "Gagarin" and the theme of space opened up the broadest prospects.

Nowadays architects and the curator of the exposition Arseny Kryukov proposed to create a museum about how people dreamed of space, how they were proud of each new step towards achieving it, and how it became something important for every person. “We thought about how it all began, what ideas began the era of space exploration, remembered cosmic motives in the works of Russian constructivists, retro-futurism, and how in the 1960s we imagined the future, considering that already in the 1980s That is, we will fly into space, like on a bus, what amazing pictures were painted by Russian artists such as Gennady Golobokov, and we wanted to tell a story about space, close to every person, - this is how Nata Tatunashvili comments on the search for an image for a future exhibition.which was to be solved with the help of art objects, media installations and interactive stands, and in such a way as not to interfere with passengers rushing to their flight and visually overload the space, which was already saturated with various objects and information carriers.

As a result, the idea of a huge media tape was born, a screen covering the side of the mezzanine floor, overlooking the main two-story hall of the terminal. The dimensions of the screen allow it to dominate the space, but thanks to the video series subtly orchestrated by the Rainbow Design team, it does not overwhelm it visually. The main information content is concentrated on the back of the screen, on a special table-stand, which runs along the edge of the balcony. Here you can see how dreams of space affected the work of many Russian philosophers, scientists, artists and architects, until in the second half of the 20th century, after Gagarin's flight, they became part of everyday life, giving names to children's toys, models of vacuum cleaners, and so on. … Several additional objects and installations have found their places in different areas of the airport. For example, on the mezzanine floor, departing passengers are greeted by a real boarding capsule, exactly the same as the one in which Gagarin landed. And at the landing gate, in the corridor leading to the plane, there is a media installation with a transcript of the countdown and the commands that Gagarin received from the flight control center.

Multi-hub

The second airport in Russia built from scratch in our time confirms the trend: a new typology is being born before our eyes. Instead of the former, moderately convenient, crowded terminals, we are waiting for fundamentally new, multifunctional complexes that give the concept of a "hub" a broader meaning and allow not only changing from one mode of transport to another, along the way buying some urgently needed small things and drinks that are not burdened by the state rent, but also receive a huge number of additional services and services, including cultural and entertainment. Maybe the optimistic science fiction writers were not so mistaken? We will know the answer to this question very soon.