It was not by chance that the author Roman Leonidov named the house Parallel House. The architect managed, using a minimal arsenal of tools, only with the help of parallels and perpendiculars, squares and rectangles, cubes and parallelepipeds, without diagonals and curves, without soft lines - to create a powerful "rock and roll" image. “My houses look aggressive and modern,” says Roman Leonidov with pride. “In addition, in this case, a strict house is a portrait of the owner - a solid man, standing firmly on his feet, knowing what he wants and, most importantly, what he can.”
The house is large, its total area is more than 800 m2 plus a basement with a billiard room and a vinotheque. The location on the site is due to the desire to close off the road and make room for the landscape. The house is roughly U-shaped in plan, facing the meadow and tall trees, the side buildings embrace the front yard, forming a natural border for the private life of the inhabitants.
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zooming Private house Parallel House. Courtyard facade Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
The entrance to the house and the entrance to the garage are located on the side of the road, and the park and side facades are the front ones. The house is conditionally subdivided into a central building with a three-light public area and a master's block, the left building with a pool and spa on the first floor, a staff apartment on the second, and the right building with four nurseries on the second floor, the owner's office and a guest room on the first.
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zooming Parallel House © Roman Leonidov Architectural Bureau
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zooming Parallel House © Roman Leonidov Architectural Bureau
The construction of the house Roman Leonidov preferred the traditional, time-tested, available to builders: the foundation is a concrete slab, the walls are brick with reinforced concrete floors. On top of solid bricks, there are natural materials: slate, larch, travertine.
The composition is based on the fact that the parallelepipeds crash into each other, and some of them also hang over the ground in a cantilever manner. Hence the feeling of power and movement, but also poise. There are six parallelepipeds: two black slate, two red larch, two white travertine. Black are the main ones, they stand out in height. One of them combines half of the public area and the master's block: bedroom, dressing room, bathroom. This "slate" parallelepiped looks at the park with two symmetrical stained-glass windows with vertical bindings, and from the side of the road it is cut in the upper part by tape windows that create dramatic lighting in the interior (more on which later).
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
The second black parallelepiped contains two children - double-height ones! - the rooms and forms the side façade, the most representative in terms of the image of the house. Its wall, like that of the first one, is cut through by symmetrical stained-glass windows, but with horizontal devitrification (even in the drawing of bindings, the principle of parallels is observed). This slate heavy volume "levitates" a few meters from the ground, leaning against the ephemeral glass wall of the study, and at the same time, like an icebreaker, crashes into a leafy, lower parallelepiped. Which, in turn, is suspended by an imposing console, albeit lightened by avant-garde glass corners. Finally, the white travertine vertical “nails” the whole composition to the ground.
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
Larch red parallelepipeds are more horizontal and extended. In the left (if you look at the plan) one-story pool is located, with a glass wall open to the front yard. In the right parallelepiped, as already mentioned, the first floor is given to the study and the guest room, and the part closest to the garden is an open-air hearth. Kitchen equipment for a barbecue looks very brutal and impressive: it is also a system of suspended metal cubes. That is, the artistic principles of the house are repeated here in miniature.
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
A low travertine parallelepiped, visible from the courtyard, marks the chimney part of the public area. Another travertine vertical adds stability to the levitating shapes by connecting them to the ground. The connection between nature and home is carried out not only through glazing, but also with the help of materials. Decorating with travertine stone literally continues into the interior.
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming Private house Parallel House. Fireplace area Photo © Alexey Knyazev
It is impossible not to note the very spectacular solution of the public area. It is a complex, multi-level, almost Pyranesian space, crossed by bridges and staircases, in which streams of light intertwine from different directions. It consists of a kitchen, a dining room and a fireplace, where the dining room is the highest part, and the fireplace and kitchen are on one level. From the side of the garden, the living room is decorated with a tall stained-glass window, and on the contrary, in the hallway and stairs, there is also a stained-glass window and the space is open to light.
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming Private house Parallel House Photo © Alexey Knyazev
On the second floor level, the public space is surrounded by a gallery with glass railing. The gallery turns into a "bridge" leading to the nursery on the second floor. And under the ceiling, the space is surrounded by a ribbon window of gallery lighting. Being in the living room, you can gaze over the entire space as a whole, with all its intersections, with the second and third lights, bridges and passages, "canyons" and "caves". It is interesting that the spacious, two-height master bedroom opens onto the main park facade with a high stained-glass window; it is located not in a secluded, but in a representative part of the house; as already mentioned, it is part of the central parallelepiped. All this together gives it a splendor.
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zooming 1/3 Parallel House Private house Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming 2/3 Parallel House Private house Photo © Alexey Knyazev
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zooming 3/3 Parallel House Private house Photo © Alexey Knyazev
In the air, behind a double-height stained-glass window, at the level of the second floor, a terrace is suspended - from the side of the living room, people on it, as if hovering between heaven and earth, should look like actors in a constructivist theatrical scenery or like staff figures in the same Pyranesian engraving, understood in a new way harmony.
