In the USSR, there was no clinker, like sex. The clinker factories of the Russian Empire were closed after the revolution due to the high cost and complexity of production. In post-Soviet Russia, interest in clinker - to which, to paraphrase, Vitruvius' triad of architecture as a whole: strength, durability, beauty - is quickly revived. By 2014, the turnover of clinker in our country reached 26 million pieces. And it continues to grow, although the share of domestic production is not yet large, mainly bricks are imported from Germany and Holland. The architects are fans of clinker. Asking them about this type of brick, you are guaranteed to hear delight on the verge of high poetry.
Painting by old masters
One of the main masters of working with clinker among contemporary Russian architects is Sergey Skuratov, President of Sergey Skuratov Architects. In his famous Art House in Tessinsky Lane, Skuratov created a precious "skin" of handmade bricks with volcanic inclusions, covering the entire body of the building, including the roof. Young architects, armed with good photographic equipment, come to bow to this house of outstanding artistic and construction quality. The art house has received many awards and has become a stage in the development of clinker in Russia.
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zooming 1/5 Embossed bricks on the facades of "Art House" Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 2/5 Embossed bricks on the facades of "Art House" Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 3/5 Residential building "Art House" © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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zooming 4/5 Residential building "Art House" © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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zooming 5/5 Embossed brick on the facades of "Art House" Photo: Archi.ru
In another iconic urban ensemble, Garden Quarters, Sergei Skuratov approached the brickwork, in his own words, likening it to the painting of the old masters with its layering, where a black or dark green layer shines through the craquelure under red paint. The red clinker on the black backing of the mortar joint reproduces this layering, and the brick surface itself is also replete with color overflows. The role of bricks in the complex is enormous; it is favorably set off by white stone and turquoise copper. The brick towers designed by Skuratov use the Hagemeister Gent Gartenviertel variety created specially for them.
Sergey Skuratov:
“For the Garden Quarters, it was important for me to find a brick, firstly, associated with the traditional Klein brick, and secondly, picturesque in itself. When fired, this brick gives a variety of shades and surfaces. A lot of different clays are mixed into it. It is complex. Depending on where the brick is located, the degree of its firing is different. Closer to the edges of the oven, where the temperature is higher, it is darker. Where the fires are pinpoint, it becomes melted like caramel. I like it wildly, it's a pleasure to hold this brick in my hands. This is a work of art. " (quote from the magazine "Project Russia" No. 82, M., 2017. P. 43).
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zooming 1/3 Residential complex "Sadovye kvartaly" Photo © Mikhail Rozanov
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zooming 2/3 Residential complex "Sadovye kvartaly" Photo © Mikhail Rozanov
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zooming 3/3 Garden Quarters Residential Complex Photo © Mikhail Rozanov
The fruitful cooperation continued at other objects of the architect. For a residential building on the street. Burdenko, Hagemeister has prepared a special clinker screen named after this facility. The handmade bricks range in color from cherry to grayish metallic to yellow ocher. The brick layout is detailed for each part of the wall. A relief pattern of bricks protruding from the plane of the wall and creating a spectacular chiaroscuro is added to the color variety.
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zooming 1/4 Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS. Residential building on the street. Burdenko Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 2/4 Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS. Residential building on the street. Burdenko Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 3/4 Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS. Residential building on the street. Burdenko Photo: Archi.ru
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zooming 4/4 Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS. Residential building on the street. Burdenko Photo: Archi.ru
An equally artistic approach to brick is characteristic of the Egodom residential complex. Especially for the residential complex "Egodom", the company Hagemeister, based on the sketches of Sergey Skuratov, produced the EGODOM variety, which includes the Gent BU and Lubeck GT varieties. In total, Hagemeister manufactured and KIRILL supplied to the construction site eight types of bricks for the Egodom residential complex, in particular: solid brick with three front sides, a brick with a front "bed", and a number of non-standard bricks according to the drawings of Sergey Skuratov's bureau …
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zooming 1/3 RC "Egodom" © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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zooming 2/3 RC "Egodom" © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
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zooming 3/3 RC "Egodom" © Sergey Skuratov ARCHITECTS
Sergey Skuratov participates in the European architectural seminars of Hagemeister, and in 2019 in his bureau, on the territory of the Garden Quarters, the KIRILL company with the Hagemeister company held their first joint Russian seminar on clinker. In April 2021, the seminar is planned to be held in the "Ruin" pavilion of the State Museum of Architecture. Shchusev.
Color, plastic, relief
Andrey Romanov, head of ADM, claims that everything is possible in a brick. In the Maison Rouge club houses and on Ordynka, he achieved, thanks to the use of clinker, an exquisite relief design of the facade, and the beauty and durability and, therefore, the environmental friendliness of buildings that clinker provides are the desired qualities in a modern city. Fifty and one hundred years later, the building should look as good as when it was built, then it will be protected. In RC “River Park” and RC “Vitality” there is a different approach to brick, based on large plastic. In any case, the use of clinker gives the architect flexible means of expression.
Andrey Romanov, CEO of ADM:
“We love working with clinker because it is one of the best materials and has a very rich texture. This is the so-called small-piece material, it consists of many elements, each of which - if it is a product of a good manufacturer - has its own shade and texture. This is especially important for modern architecture, since, unlike classical, it does not have a large number of details, such as platbands, balusters, etc. It is laconic, which means that the material must be interesting. The clinker, even with a laconic drawing, creates a convincing artistic image.
The role of brick in a modern city is that it can be used to create an artistic image not only for aesthetes, but also for the general public. For a person, for psychological comfort, visual diversity is important, similar to what is in nature. This is physiology "hardwired" into us. We cannot stay for a long time in a too refined environment without textures and details, without various surfaces and shades. Brick perfectly meets this need of ours. This is a very human material.
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zooming 1/3 Residential building on Malaya Ordynka. ADM Photo © Yaroslav Lukyanchenko / provided by ADM
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zooming 2/3 Residential building on Malaya Ordynka. ADM Photo © Yaroslav Lukyanchenko / provided by ADM
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zooming 3/3 Residential building on Malaya Ordynka. ADM Photo © Yaroslav Lukyanchenko / provided by ADM
Is it possible to create something new in an old material like brick? Yes, absolutely. Brick is one of the most plastic materials, it has a lot of expressive possibilities. The first thing that clinker gives is color. There is so much you can do with color. The right color is an essential part of a well-done project. The creative process in architecture, at least in our case, is arranged in such a way that thoughts about the color of the material come simultaneously with thoughts about the composition and the drawing of the facade. In each case, a completely unique image appears. At River Park and Vitality, we have created Hagemeister clinker mixes that you will not find in any other project. They even got their own names.
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zooming 1/3 RC "River Park". ADM © ADM
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zooming 2/3 RC "River Park". ADM © ADM
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zooming 3/3 RC "River Park". ADM © ADM
The second strong point of clinker is its plasticity. It allows you to work very actively with the plastic of the facade. We can come up with very complex elements and clinker will allow them to be realized. For example, pylons triangular in plan in the Vitality Residential Complex or curved bay windows increasing upward in the River Park Residential Complex. In addition, we can give deep plastic directly to the masonry, creating embossed cornices or turning the brick at an angle, as on the facades of the Ordynka 19 residential complex or the Maison Rouge club house. Such techniques create a complex chiaroscuro and make the facade much more expressive. Well, and, of course, clinker bricks are more convenient than any other on curved sections of the facade."
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zooming 1/3 Vitality Club House. ADM © ADM
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zooming 2/3 Club house Vitality. ADM © ADM
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zooming 3/3 Club house Vitality. ADM © ADM
Venice and Byzantium in Moscow
The image of the facades of the Residential Complex “The Residences Mandarin Oriental” on Sofiyskaya Embankment, created by Ilya Utkin together with the general designers - AB Sergey Skuratov architects, who took upon themselves all the approvals and serious struggle for quality in the “decorative classicist”, final version of the facades, is based on dialogue between clinker and marbled limestone.
The combination of red brick and white stone is often found in historical cities: in Moscow, starting with the Kremlin towers, Amsterdam, London, Boston, then everywhere. It is necessary to explain what Venice has to do with it. The fact is that the architect Ilya Utkin wanted not only to reproduce the Moscow flavor in the decoration of the facades, he decorated the facades with Byzantine patterns. After all, Moscow is the heir to Constantinople, and we have a lot of Byzantine things: from icons to management style. And the Venetian Republic in the 15th century also thought of itself as the beneficiary of the dying Byzantium, Byzantine craftsmen worked there, and not only on the construction of the Cathedral of San Marco. And Utka facades with high quality clinker and white marble geometric "lace" are closer to Venetian luxury and color than Moscow white stone everyday life.
Ilya Utkin:
“Modern brick attracts, first of all, by the variety of texture and color! Brick, and in particular clinker, has a special quality - a large-scale texture: it gives the surface detail that is so necessary for the human eye. In addition, a person has a psychological trust in this material as a time-tested one! The clinker is conditionally eternal!
In the residential complex on Sofiyskaya Naberezhnaya, where I designed only the facades, and the entire project was done by Sergey Skuratov, we tried to adequately fit into the surrounding buildings. The northern facade of building No. 3, which is visible from the side of the Kremlin, where historically there were low-rise buildings, is architecturally resolved in the form of a composition of multi-storey residential buildings. The combination of brick and stone helps us in this decision. Two buildings of different floors are visually readable. The stone house is a bit narrower than the brick one. The three-story part of the house protrudes forward, forming a terrace for the upper floor of the four-story part. The brick facade is separated by ledges from the stone one. This spatial composition is united by a single plinth and belts of uniform borders.
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zooming Facade of building No. 3 of the residential complex on Sofiyskaya embankment. Ilya Utkin and Sergey Skuratov architects Photo: Ilya Utkin
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zooming Facades of the residential complex on Sofiyskaya embankment. AIlya Utkin and Sergey Skuratov architects Photo: Ilya Utkin
The composition of the western facade of the third building is also built on a combination of stone and brick. The lower basement of the facade is made of marbled limestone. The upper part of the façade is made of brown facing bricks and stone architectural details. This brick itself has a rich texture in a simple masonry. But we complicate the masonry design even more to achieve maximum richness of form. First, brick pylons are laid out with rustication, then they alternate with borders, and at the junction with the cornice they are decorated with a carved stone inlay. The brick cornice is made of different horizontal brick curb sets. The combination of a large border design with a small one, stepped projections with planes and corners give a rich design of the overall shape of the final cornice."
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These three examples show that clinker works well in a variety of styles. That he alone gives the building a guarantee of quality and longevity. We can say, perhaps, that the slogan "beautiful brick - and nothing else is needed" is appropriate for architecture, because today we value and preserve industrial buildings of the XIX-XX centuries made of bricks, which were considered ordinary by contemporaries, not least because of the material. And if talented authors also take up clinker, true masterpieces are born.
