Club house "Aristocrat" by architects Ilya Mashkov and Alexandra Kuzmina, AB "Mezonprokt", completed three years ago, in 2017. Its location is quite advantageous: almost at the junction of the elite Mozhaiskoye and Aminevskoye highways. The latter continues to the north by Rublevsky, so we can say that the house is located at the beginning of Rublevka, close to busy Moscow highways. And at the same time, it is fenced off from the Aminevskoye Highway by the "Kozlovsky Forest", a fragment of a pine forest, where wooden houses and a section of unpaved Tulip Street have been preserved - Moscow is still very diverse, and the urban environment here has something in common with Nikolina Gora (first of all pine trees, of course). Although not to everyone: 12-15-storey brick towers, first in the late- and then post-Soviet “elite” format, began to appear here already in the late 1980s, also exploiting the neighborhood of pine trees, which, as you know, perfectly clean the air … House "Aristocrat" among them is the newest, it is less in height - 7-9 floors, but develops the same plot in a new form, which is facilitated, among other things, by the name.
The house stands on the border of the forest, because of which the highway is almost inaudible, the situation around, by city standards, is the most calm. Its architectural solution exactly meets the marketing task: as you know, in the format of the Moscow premium club house, the most in demand is the decorated direction, which combines the image of a palace with a sufficient degree of decoration. Nowadays its definition is widespread as "Art Deco", which is not entirely correct, since Art Nouveau and eclecticism are mixed with the general "rich and imposing" imagery, and Art Deco is only the closest prototype in time. Alexandra Kuzmina and Ilya Mashkov have been working in this field for a long time and quite successfully - in particular, the direct predecessor of the Aristocrat house is obviously the House of the Academy of Sciences built in 2009 on Sergei Kapitsa Street, right opposite the entrance to the Yuri Platonov Academy building, also located in a quiet natural area, not far from the slope of the Moskva River. Brick background, plaster details, consoles, flutes, sculptures. Plinth, attic, cornice, pilasters. Decorative inserts, openwork metal balconies. In general, this set forms the minimum minimorum of a representative-respectable house. Its undoubted advantage is a comfortable scale, rich texture; The main risk involved in working in this genre, which is welcomed by customers and marketers, is the interpretation of historical prototypes. Moreover, the risk is mutual: it is bad to make it too similar, but it is bad and to make it coarser, larger or simpler. The professional community, familiar with the concept of "minimalism", accepts the decorative approach with difficulty, but simply a society starving on a minimalist diet, on the contrary, demands more. It would seem that over the past 30 years, the "textured hunger" would be time to pass; and yet decorated buildings are still in demand today. This is a challenge, and the works of Mezonproekt provide their answer. Sufficiently detailed, proportionate, restrained in its own way; balancing on the verge of a generalized neo-Greek, but with a Palladian symmetrical U-shaped plan, modernity, which stands on the verge of theatrical orientalist "Egyptian" hobbies, - and modern ornamental architecture, whose techniques are gradually losing ground to the "realistic" order and decorative sculpture, recognizable elements tenement houses of the period of historicism.
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zooming 1/4 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" Photo © Mezonproject
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zooming 2/4 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" Photo © Mezonproject
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zooming 3/4 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" Photo © Mezonproject
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zooming 4/4 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" Photo © Mezonproject
If we compare the "Aristocrat" of 2017 with the house of academicians in 2009 - there are 8 years between them, but there are many proportional calls, as between siblings - the difference will be that the overall tone from contrasting brown-beige has become light, the brick has acquired an almost flesh tint, and decorative elements have received a great degree of generalization. Energetic lotus-shaped ornaments and gargoyle consoles have given way to light greenish lattices and majolica inserts, whose relationship with the beloved ceramics of Abramtsev and Talashkin is quite obvious.
Generally speaking, tiles and majolica are a well-known weakness of any anti-modernist, urban contemplator, eager to see something pleasing to the eye. Such joy is a tile of the second half of the 17th century in Yaroslavl, Pertsova's house on Prechistenskaya embankment, Spas from the already mentioned Talashkino; but not only them, but any insert made of glass colored glazing that can be noticed on the facades of the city. We cling to these colored reliefs, and it probably won't be an exaggeration to say that, among other things, we love Art Nouveau architecture for the celebration of color. The house "Aristocrat" responds to the theme: between the windows in wide frames are placed "tiles" with floral designs, birds and griffins, the atticas above the projections are decorated with large majolica. The drawings are large and bright, which is true, since they serve as decorative spots and are designed to be viewed from a distance. At the same time, a low level of detail is characteristic of later artists, which somehow brings the solution closer to the present.
The generalization of decorative details is also typical. A big role is played by gratings: opaque metal and transparent white vetillation on the park facade, balconies everywhere. Pilasters are actually thin vertical rods. The attic receives ribs - conditional flutes, but without grooves, rather a striped relief. There are few consoles, no sculptures, large curbs prevail. In general, the decor has become not only lighter, but more laconic and lighter.
The house is planned by "peace" - the letter P, complicated by risalits at the ends and groups of loggias in the main part. The basement floor, in contrast to the light main volume, is faced with dark granite, complicated by horizontal dies of rusticum and is additionally weighted down by a massive portico stretched far ahead between the wings of the house, to Veresaeva Street, as if somewhat even further than was required in order to provide a comfortable exit to a velvet dress from a limousine.
“In the project, the basement tier was decorated more richly,” says Ilya Mashkov. - It was planned that in the lower part the house should be rich, even "lordly", festive, solemn, and at the top it would become more restrained. The crowning cornice of the first floor was not made according to the project, the first floor turned out to be ascetic and discordant with the upper one”.
Apartments in the house are spacious enough, which corresponds to its class; living rooms at the corners with an area of 40 m2, and with three windows. Terraces appear along the contour of the basement and on the roof of the central part, whose height is somewhat less than that of the wings, and a small garden and a green roof appear at the top. In the lobby, at the entrance, residents are greeted by a grand double staircase.
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zooming 1/6 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" © Mezonproject
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zooming 2/6 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" © Mezonproject
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zooming 3/6 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" © Mezonproject
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zooming 4/6 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" © Mezonproject
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zooming 5/6 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" © Mezonproject
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zooming 6/6 Premium-class club house "Aristocrat" © Mezonproject
So, the facades of the club house, on the whole, without departing from the generalized historicism, have been rethought in the spirit of modern decorativeness. Its tone is light, which is intended, among other things, to lighten the volume. The seven-nine-storey height makes the house a comfortable example of urban development against the background of 12-15-storey surroundings, and the delicate ornamentation and confident tread of symmetrical "peace" turns it into a kind of palace in front of a pine park at the very beginning of Rublevskoye Shosse. The class of housing speaks for itself: in Moscow it “asks, even demands” a decorated solution. But in this case, we are observing a new step in the evolution of the approach to decoration: the elements of the historical facade become practically signs of themselves, laconic and light enough so as not to look redundant. They give up the focus of attention to other motives: ribbons of ornamentation, textured bricks and inserts of colored ceramics, attractive as a picture on a wall.
