At the beginning of the 19th century, the estate of Ivan Rodionovich Batashev, the owner of the iron-making factories in Vyksa, was the most luxurious palace in Zayauzie, with viewpoints and thin, non-standard reliefs on the verge of early and mature classicism. The authorship is unknown, but the palace is attributed either to Vasily Bazhenov, then to Charles da Valya (without any particular reason), or to his student Rodion Kazakov (which is more likely). The work was supervised by Mikhail Kiselnikov, a graduate and boarder of the Academy of Arts, according to some sources the serf of the Batashevs, according to others a merchant's son; it is believed that the reliefs of the facades belong to him (for the reliefs, see, for example, here).
The palace is well preserved, although it burned in 1812. In the 1870s, the Batashev estate was sold to the city and reconstructed for the Yauzskaya hospital; at the beginning of the 20th century, several buildings appeared in the spirit of the neoampire of the Silver Age, the author of one of them was Illarion Ivanov-Shits. In Soviet times, the hospital was renamed Medsantrud, in the 1920s it belonged to the GPU, then to medical institutes. Now the hospital is named after one of the professors who worked there in the 1930s, Ippolit Vasilyevich Davydkovsky, a pathologist, during the war - the organizer of the field surgery system.
In other words, the hospital is more than famous, specializing in surgery and neurology, and the palace is the most famous monument of Moscow classicism. Its restoration began in 2019, together with a comprehensive reconstruction of the hospital, and the building No. 4 in question is part of the reconstruction. The six-storey building was built in 1972 according to the standard design of the 2MG-05-5 series, on the eastern border of the hospital territory, along Zemlyansky lane. A laconic white panel building, a functional building on the former palace grounds.
The reconstruction of such buildings in Moscow usually consists, in addition to engineering and interior work, in the insulation of facades, which are covered, over mineral wool, with plaster, porcelain stoneware or, at best, with aluminum cassettes.
SPICH's architects proposed a more complex option, responding to the neighborhood of the famous palace. As part of a charitable project, they developed a project for the reconstruction of facades for the hospital free of charge, based on an idea implemented by Sergei Tchoban 10-15 years ago in St. Petersburg, in business centers"
Langensiepen”,“Benoit”and“The Four Seasons”- glass cassettes with photographs of historical decor, applied to the glass from the inside of the cassette.
The main entrance to the 4th building is located on the inside, from the territory of the hospital. Here, on the sides of the entrance, to which a gentle ramp leads, the authors placed two unique prints - enlarged photographs of reliefs from the main staircase of the Batashevsky palace, redesigned after the fire of 1812 under the supervision of Gilardi: "Farewell to the Warrior" and "The Return of Odysseus."
These reliefs are somewhat later than the façade decor of the main house; they belong to the post-fire Empire period. That is why the sculpting, subtle and detailed, including faces and costumes, easily withstood the enlargement. Genuine reliefs on the stairs are smaller, removed from the viewer and designed to be viewed from below. In the printed drawing, they are enlarged, although they remain a little less than human height, and are as close as possible: everyone who passes by on the way to the entrance can see the details and even compare themselves with these figures on a large scale.
The illusion of volume is curious: the contrasting chiaroscuro of the photographs emphasizes the relief, and at some point it seems that the figures are only placed under glass, as in a museum showcase; but on the other hand, they are a drawing on glass, and a little like a hologram.
All other reliefs, reproduced on glass panels, are decorative and refer to the external decoration of the palace, apparently made by the boarder of the Academy Mikhail Kiselnikov before the fire. Historians note the originality of these details, probably inspired by the Italian serf experience. Indeed, the facial expressions of the mascarons are completely atypical and may resemble the grimace in the Santa Maria Formosa bell tower in Venice; no less interesting are the compositions with tritons, tridents and a "dog" in the center - from the molded decorations of the main facade of the Batashev's palace.
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zooming 1/8 Ivan Batashev's Palace. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 2/8 Palace of Ivan Batashev. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 3/8 Palace of Ivan Batashev. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 4/8 Palace of Ivan Batashev. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 5/8 Palace of Ivan Batashev. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 6/8 Ivan Batashev's Palace. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 7/8 Ivan Batashev's Palace. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 8/8 Palace of Ivan Batashev. City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Facade details of the early 19th century building Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
Plus sockets, decorative balustrades and consoles with rich leafy patterns. All these elements became the basis for the decoration applied to glass panels, all of them are hypertrophied - greatly increased in scale, and, basically, have lost their place within the framework of the logic of the facade of the classicism building and received new ones.
The general logic of the placement of elements is decorative, akin to a carpet. Although it also has a classical basis: a white parallelepiped with windows received vertical and horizontal lines, top and bottom, an attic with rosettes and a basement tier with consoles. The horizontals of the balustrades cut through the verticals of the “pilasters”, to the full height, they begin with consoles and end with “capitals” - lions. For dolphins from the main facade of the palace facing the alley, there was a place on the street facade of the building.
The step of magnification is also different: the miniature rosettes placed in the original relief under the windows and a fragment of the wavy pattern are greatly enlarged, inverted relative to their base horizontal position and serve as a “pilaster” decor. But there is no deliberate "juggling" with elements, fragmentation, play here - rather, the motives justified by the neighborhood of the classicist palace add up to a new large pattern with their own internal logic.
This pattern is similar to grisaille, recessed in a golden-beige tone imitating travertine, appealing more to the stone of classical architecture in a broad sense than to the yellow paint of the facades of classicism. The new facade is not an attempt to turn the 1972 building into a kind of palace wing, but rather becomes a kind of reminder of the monument, a giant engraving on its theme, similar to the design of an exhibition. An attempt to actualize valuable reliefs, to draw the attention of a passer-by or a patient to them. And, of course, decorate, saturate with texture and emotions both the house itself and the environment.
Photos of facade reliefs are beautiful in themselves, especially in oblique light and magnification. The sculptural surface, conceived by the author, in real relief is combined with irregularities, paint drips, urban soot - these two drawings, conceived and real, are superimposed on each other and in such a combination are endowed with special attractiveness. They want to be photographed, viewed, enlarged. Admire. In essence, this is what the authors of the project of the facades of building 4 offer us - to admire the reliefs in magnification, just passing by. To be surprised to see a huge console behind the thickets of American maples, either embossed or "painted", but similar to a part of some park grotto from Italy, where the serf architect Kiselnikov trained.
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zooming 1/5 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of Building 4 Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 2/5 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of Building 4 Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 3/5 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of Building 4 Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 4/5 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of Building 4 Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 5/5 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of building 4 Photo: Archi.ru
Glass cassettes have one more feature: besides the fact that the drawing is developed, complex and precise, the glass surface reflects the environment. Shadows, reflections of neighboring buildings, for example, the palace wings or the church of Simeon the Stylite, and the outlines of trees are superimposed on the pictures taken out of context and enlarged, which once again complicates and enriches the drawing when it is directly perceived.
Of course, the reconstruction of the facade is limited in its possibilities, and in this case the glass cassettes helped only a little to "collect" the volume of the building and unambiguously immerse it in ornamentation. The windows retained their small size and recognizable proportions, although the slopes gave them depth.
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zooming 1/7 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of Building 4 Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 2/7 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of Building 4 Photo © Dmitry Chistoprudov
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zooming 3/7 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of building 4. Facade 1. View from st. Yauzskaya Project © SPICH
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zooming 4/7 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of building 4. Facade 2. View along Zemlyansky per. Project © SPICH
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zooming 5/7 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of building 4. Facade 3 and 4. View from Teterinsky lane and Nikoloyamskaya street Project © SPICH
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zooming 6/7 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of building 4. Main facade Project © SPICH
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zooming 7/7 City Clinical Hospital №23 named. I. V. Davydovsky. Reconstruction of building 4. Facade along Zemlyansky per. Project © SPICH
However, one should not forget that, in essence, it was about warming the facades - and a new experience of working with reliefs was obtained, which, being turned into graphics, retained some of the sculpture's features, since from a certain angle of view the illusion of volume reminds of itself. On the one hand, repetition and replication are obvious, on the other hand, there is no copying, since the motives have been transferred to other material and understood as part of another system, where they have taken other places. Rather, it is a collage with magnification, akin to the approach of a collector examining details of interest to him under a magnifying glass - and inviting a passerby to do the same.
