House at the Trinity Cathedral
Petersburg, Fontanka river embankment, 130a, letter A.
Designer: INTERCOLUMNIUM
Customer: Megapolis LLC
Discussed: architectural and town-planning appearance
The residential building designed by Evgeny Podgornov's bureau was discussed at the City Council for the second and, it seems, the last time, which can be considered a success, since we are talking about work in the historical center of St. Petersburg.
The house will be built on the site of the Troitsky market, which is still operating, the pavilions of which were erected in 1951 according to the design of Lazar Khidekel and Lev Noskov. The site is located between the Fontanka, from which it is separated by only one row of tenement houses, and the square with the Trinity-Izmailovsky Cathedral, built in 1835 according to the project of Vasily Stasov. Along the line of the former Hospital lane, the site borders on the Alexander Hospital complex.
Objects of cultural heritage, high-rise regulations and the neighborhood with an architectural dominant could not but affect the appearance of the house: it will be a background building that will streamline a rather loose quarter, aligning with the environment, but not mimicking it. One building will close the quarter from the side of Troitskaya Square, the other - from the side of the former Hospital lane, thus reproducing the continuous buildings characteristic of the center of St. Petersburg. In this case, the passage from the square to the embankment will not only be preserved, but will also become more accented.
At the previous City Council, the experts had a lot of comments about the risalits, the "attic" floor, the color scheme and the influence of the building on the context. The majority voted in favor of finalizing the project.
In the new version, many wishes were taken into account. The risalits overlooking the Hospital lane have been replaced by a stepped building, which is gradually gaining height towards the cathedral. Evgeny Podgornov suggested turning the roof of the section closest to the Fontanka into a terrace accessible to all residents of the house. The facade from the side of Troitskaya Square has lengthened, bay windows have disappeared, the arch has shifted in the opposite direction, in general, according to the architect, it began to look more modern. The last, slightly receding seventh floor began to look less like an attic due to continuous glazing. The height to the eaves was 20 m, which corresponds to the neighboring building, the roof height is 24 m.
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zooming 1/4 Project of a residential building on the Fontanka river embankment, 130a, letter A INTERCOLUMNIUM, reshooting from Alena Kuznetsova's tablet
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zooming 2/4 Project of a residential building on the Fontanka river embankment, 130a, letter A INTERCOLUMNIUM, reshooting from Alena Kuznetsova's tablet
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zooming 3/4 Project of a residential building on the Fontanka river embankment, 130a, letter A INTERCOLUMNIUM, reshooting from Alena Kuznetsova's tablet
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zooming 4/4 Project of a residential building on the Fontanka river embankment, 130a, letter A INTERCOLUMNIUM, reshooting from Alena Kuznetsova's tablet
Evgeny Podgornov showed about a dozen visualizations that give an idea of how the house will fit into the city's panoramas. The experts were rather picky about them: they made a remark that summer photographs and tree crowns can hide new architecture, they suggested completely removing the piece overlooking the Fontanka embankment. The top floor is reputedly better, but still not perfect. Also, many noted that the facade in the new version does not look monotonous, although Mikhail Mamoshin considered it too schematic.
Vladimir Grigoriev called the main problem of the place "size, scale and appetites: the site is large and not typical for a residential building", which affects the proportions. However, as noted by Alexander Kononov, the last City Council brought tangible benefits to the project, even though it had to “manually debug Law 820”. The opinion of Svyatoslav Gaykovich can be cited as a general result: "the cathedral continues to dominate, the house does not pose any danger."
