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

Plans for the construction of RZD-City with an area of 450,000 m² on the territory of the Riga cargo yard it became known on March 20, 2019. Almost at the same time, a project of unknown authorship was published, with an area of 600,000 m²; it consisted of several stylobates - "islands" with rounded corners, uniting groups of towers no more than 20 stories high.

In response to this project and, in addition, to the idea of building the headquarters as such, Karen Saprichyan formulated his own proposal, where the headquarters appeared in the form of three thin towers with glass facades. Each tower "carries" one large letter and together they add up to a giant Russian Railways. The project was shown to representatives of the company's management and, according to the architect, aroused interest. But the story did not develop further: later, in July 2019, an international competition was announced, the finalists of which were mainly large international companies (the most famous of the participants is SOM). From July to November, the finalists worked on projects, the results of the competition, as far as we know, are planned to be announced the other day.

For now, we are publishing the project of Karen Saprichyan and the GrandProjectCity bureau, proposed this spring.

The project uses the old idea of a skyscraper, patented by the author, which in one form or another reproduces any symbolic letter and several letters: in this case, the abberviatura of Russian Railways is divided into towers. The letters are positioned high and are stylized in two ways: in one case, they are deliberately "cut out" at an angle of 90 degrees, in the other case, diagonals prevail.

Вариант 1 Эскизный проект небоскребов РЖД © ГрандПроектСити

Вариант 2 Эскизный проект небоскребов РЖД © ГрандПроектСити

The rest of the skyscrapers are tall, slender, laconic glass architecture, and similar to each other, which allows them to line up to "carry" volumetric letters on the facades. The author specifically emphasizes: the letters will be seen from different angles and, of course, from afar. For example, driving up the Riga overpass.

Or sailing along the Moscow River.

Despite the fact that already in March there was a talk about plans to build on the territory of the Riga cargo terminal, GrandProjectCity also considered one of the "fallback" options - a cargo terminal at the Kievsky railway station. It was he who made the river panorama possible.

In the second version, the letters with a predominance of diagonals are highlighted in red, leaving no doubt that this is the headquarters of Russian Railways.

The main and the first version, intended for the territory of the Riga terminal, is more strict and focused on the plasticity of the parallelepiped, which allows the letters to "grow" into the volume and accentuate the merging of signs with the buildings supporting them. The letters turn out to be, on the one hand, easy to read, but on the other - noticeably stylized; it is they who make skyscrapers look like an assembled puzzle, consisting of large elements with different types of glass surfaces, interconnected in a complex way.

The surfaces protrude and "sink", forming ledges, accentuating the complexity of the form, but retaining its rigor, gravitating to the prototypes of the 1970s. In the cold gleaming of the stripes, one can see the shine of the rails polished by wheels, as well as in general - a reference to the technogenic, “steel” specifics of the work of the giant company, which unites all the railways of the country under its leadership.

The tower format has two advantages in this case. Firstly, it allows you to compactly group all useful areas - it is clearly visible on the plans that a significant part of the plots under consideration remains undeveloped. Secondly, and this, one must think, is of greater importance, the tower is a classic, worked out architecture of the 20th century, the typology of the headquarters of a large company, noticeable and representative. In this case, an iconic meaning is added to these qualities: skyscrapers that raise the letters upward are read as a sign of the growth of representativeness, an unambiguous "dot over i", which in the case of headquarters is probably both appropriate, and even to what extent honest.