Ring At Saisary Lake

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

The project of the building, uniting the State Philharmonic of Yakutia and the Arctic Center of Epic and Arts, was commissioned by the administration of the republic to the architects of the TPO "Reserve" a little less than a year ago, at the end of February 2019. One of the initiators of the project, its ideologist and "soul" is Andrei Borisov, head of the Sakha theater and the Olonkho theater named after the Yakut epic, in 1990-2014 - the minister of culture and spiritual development of the republic, now a state adviser.

By May, the first versions of the concept were ready, the second version was discussed in the summer, and finally, in mid-December, the project received the AGO, which made it possible for a relatively expanded publication. The project, however, continues to develop and refine, the architects promise to later show a more detailed version.

The complex is located in the southern part of Yakutsk, not far from the city center, on the shores of the legendary Lake Saysary. The lake is sacred, and on the cape, where the building of the Philharmonic Society and the Arctic Center is now planned, until the 1990s, the main holiday of the Yakut people, Ysyakh, was held;

in 2014, the Olonkho Land complex was planned here - then, however, many used about the largest territory, 47 hectares. Now the building occupies 2.2 hectares in the triangle between Oykunsky Street, heading to the city center, Dezhneva Street and a branch of the lake.

The plan is based on the shape of a circle - an ideal figure endowed with extremely important meaning in Yakut mythology: the circle is the sun, and the plan of the dwelling around the fire, and the symbol of the cyclical nature of the annual calendar - not without reason, when "Reserve" took part last summer and won the competition for

improvement of Lenin Square in Yakutsk, where the basis of the project was also the shape of a ring - a traditional amulet, with many subordinate holes-rings.

So, two main parts are inscribed in the circle of the plan - the philharmonic hall and the theater of the Yakut epic, with a common entrance area, but separate foyers, which allows them to function autonomously. Since underground construction is unreasonable due to permafrost, it was impossible to deepen the technical areas under the stages, and all the auditoriums are located quite high, at a height of 6.6 m above ground level - two wide staircases, framed by escalators, lead up from the entrance and the reception with cash desks. …

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1/10 Section 1-1 through the halls of the Theater. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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2/10 Section 3-3 longitudinal. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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3/10 Section 2-2 of the Philharmonic Hall. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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4/10 Plan of the 1st floor at elev. +0.000. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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5/10 Plan of the 4th floor at elev. +9.900. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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6/10 Plan of the 2nd floor at elev. +3.300. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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7/10 Plan of the 5th floor at elev. +13.200. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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8/10 Plan of the 6th floor at elev. +16.500. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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9/10 Plan of the 7th floor at elev. +19.800. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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10/10 General layout scheme. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"

The Arctic center of the epic consists of three tents, whose shape is dictated by the memory of the traditional summer home of the Yakuts - the Uras. The tents are interconnected, in two there are stage spaces with spectator seats in a circle, in the third there is a rehearsal hall. The central and largest tent of the Olonkho Theater is combined with the Sakha Drama Theater, which occupies the eastern sector of the circle: here the audience continues higher and further. Spaces can be divided and connected using movable partitions.

Одна из схем расположения залов театра Олонхо и Саха. Международный центр эпоса евразийских народов Предоставлено ТПО «Резерв»

The roof is conceived to be exploited, they will host holidays on it; a round skylight illuminating the entrance area with daylight symbolizes the lake, and the entire roof is likened to alaas, or alas - a giant meadow in the taiga, the result of melting permafrost with a peat lake in the middle and fertile soil around the edges; historically, alases were the basic unit of Yakut agriculture and settlement. By the way, the glacial lake, as a rule, is round, a ring-shaped glade with tasty grass for horses around - largely explains the importance of the circle shape for Yakut culture and mythology.

Международный центр эпоса евразийских народов © ТПО «Резерв»

Here, on the roof of the Philharmonic Theater, the lake is small, and the urasa dwellings are large, but the scheme is generally recognizable: a “lake”, a clearing, a pointed cone-shaped dwelling - and becomes part of the scenography of the iconic building. It might seem that an even cylinder was cut out of the permafrost - with some kind of laser - and pushed up out of the ground, so that the “village” was on the roof, and the “chthonic forces” supporting it were transformed into the power of the art of theater and music; Where without them are the gods, and even more so shamans, in many cultures travel to the underground fire, but here it turns out that by some creative decision it is taken out of the earth and put, let's say, in the basis of performative creativity.

The cylindrical volume of the center rises to the east, where the entrance is located, oriented, according to the cultural patterns of the Yakut epic, to the sunrise. The facades are two-layered: the walls are glass inside, which should provide natural light for the foyer and the lobby, outside they are covered with a curtain wall. At the bottom, its contour rises in large waves, similar to arches - everything together works for the effect of soaring, echoes the theme of water and at the same time enhances the effect of an “iceberg” - a resemblance to a fragment of permafrost removed from the soil. The building is icy, sparkling, the glass at the base looks like pure ice, in which the contours of the pillars and floors, clearly distinguishable from the outside, are frozen.

The entrance is deepened by a shallow parabola - a body wave receding in front of the space of a small vestibule square. The contour of the plastic depression behind the screen of the outer shell seems to be another linear wave, joining the game based on muslin translucency, the visual permeability of the building. Note that the outer shell does not bend at the same time, "holds" the diameter, the waves are geometrized, the shape is large and light, delicate, clean, all analogies and comparisons do not cross the boundaries of very abstract abstractions and do not fall into literalism.

A wide wooden promenade platform and a small area for open air performances are planned along the shore of the lake. At some point, the construction of a stage near the embankment on the water was considered, but so far this idea has been abandoned.

In the first, May version, the structure and lightness of the solution - a glass cylinder with a wavy ribbon thrown over it, "hanging in the air," - was read even better: the shell was composed of white vertical lamellas, which formed a clean and transparent shading, reflected in the bends of the glass a surface that resonated with the lines of the frame of the glass walls and with the rhythm of the supports inside. All this worked for the "mirage", transparency and, to some extent, dematerialization, setting, at the same time, a degree of graphic discipline, completeness and detail that is appropriate to the scale. The stripes are large enough to distinguish them from a distance, and thin enough to "collect" volume. The option also assumed a thin, emphasizing the edge of the roof, frieze tape at the top.

In the same, first, version, the mutual arrangement of the auditoriums was different: a group of theaters lined up in a row to the right of the entrance, the Philharmonic Hall was located to the left, they were separated by an atrium-gorge, extended and looking into the light from the entrance to the sacred lake. As a result, the lobby received more daylight from above and claimed a more significant role as an inner square, a covered public space between theater and concert halls.

But one of the wishes of Andrei Borisov was the panorama of all three tents-uras from the side of the lake, so the theater was moved from north to west, the composition of the elements inside the circle changed, and the plan acquired a configuration resembling an hourglass: one trapezoid narrows from the entrance, the other to the lake, is expanding.

The facade with vertical lamellas also did not suit the customers - due to the fact that not far, eight hundred meters from the site of the Philharmonic, a building of the Russia - My History complex was recently built, on the facades of which light verticals were used in a different way. Then there was a desire to somehow capture in the project, in addition to the already outlined, sufficiently developed, symbolism, also a reminder of the Lena Pillars, the most majestic natural monument on the territory of the Sakha Republic. So two options appeared: one with a blurred golden pattern resembling the famous rocks, but very distantly, in the form of a pixelated picture, the other with a media screen where an image of a natural monument could be broadcast, as well as posters and broadcasts.

In autumn, the "orange" version with "Lena Pillars" was replaced by a lighter one - now the external facade screen consists of aluminum ovals diagonally fixed on a lattice structure made of octaers, which allows hanging the external surface at a sufficiently large distance from the glass of the main volume.

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1/5 Facade solution based on a spatial rod system with a rectangular module. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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2/5 Facade solution based on a spatial rod system with a triangular module. International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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3/5 Fragment of the facade (spatial rod system with a triangular module). International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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4/5 Fragment of the facade (spatial rod system with a rectangular module). International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"
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5/5 Fragment of the facade. Perspective view. (spatially rod system with a rectangular module). International Center for the Epos of the Eurasian Peoples © TPO "Reserve"

The structure should be shiny, but not like in the first version, where it resembled ice with ordered veins, but rather like snow or a cloud. And transparent: from the side of the lake, the imposing cones of the theater with a slight bend, surrounded by a glass floor and flying to the east, either with a scarf or a necklace, are clearly visible in the light. The picture is partly traditional, partly cosmic.