The Headquarters of “Garage”

In this issue, we are publishing one of the chapters of the book dedicated to the reconstruction of the headquarters of the “Garage” museum in Gorky Park, and to the research of this multilayered building. The reconstruction project was developed by FORM.

22 November 2018

Book

Firm:

FORM http://formbureau.co.uk/

The building standing at the edge of Gorky Park next to the Krymsky Bridge, to the right of the main entrance to the park (or to the left of the minor entrance on the embankment side) does not attract any particular attention; at some moment, when the reconstruction of the park had only just begun, they even planned to tear it down altogether to make room for expanding the Garden Ring. Meanwhile, after the building was turned into the headquarters of the museum of modern art “Garage”, which moved in here from the Bakhmetyevsky Garage, the museum, in turn, invited FORM to develop the reconstruction project, and they started doing a research of the building, it turned out that it was a sophisticated multilayered structure with approximately nine periods of development. The building appeared in the end of XIX century as a part of the Bromley dockyard, was later on remodeled to become a pavilion of the All-Union agricultural exhibition, then served as the GOZNAK convention center, then one of the first sound movie theaters, then a public bathhouse, and then a sanitary ware store.

zooming — Krymsky Val 9/45. The Unknown Monument of Gorky Park. Moscow, 2018 © ABCdesign

With the support from the museum, the architects not only turned some of the building into an office of “Garage” but also thoroughly researched it – their work was shown a year and a half ago at Arch Moscow 2017. Parallel to doing the research and design, they were writing a book fully dedicated to the building standing at Krymsky Val, 9/45. Below we are publishing one of the chapters of this book written by the architects of FORM, historians Marianna Evstratova and Sergey Koluzakov, ABCdesign publishers, Kuchkovo Pole publishers, and the team of the museum of modern art “Garage”. More about the book (in Russian).

Krymsky Val 9/45. The Unknown Monument of Gorky Park. Moscow, 2018
Olga Treivas, Vera Odyn, Polina Patimova, Polina Litvinenko, Alina Yaroshenko, Kristina Timchuk, Idris Suliman, Svetlana Dudina, Konstantin Kim, Mikhail Mikadze.

Chapter 7. The Park Management. Office of the Museum of Modern Art “Garage”. Architectural firm FORM.

“In 2011, Sergey Kapkov was appointed the Director of Gorky Park. From that moment on, the park underwent profound changes that caused heated controversy. Within the first half a year, all the outlaw structures were removed, and almost all of the amusement rides were dismantled – this caused a negative reaction from the visitors and the owners of the park cafés alike but the changes were still enforced.

During the same period of time, Sergey Kapkov was speaking about demolishing the office wing next to the Krymsky Bridge. It was proposed to make a road junction there and solve the problem of traffic jams inevitably forming near Gorky Park, but seeing how unpromising the whole idea was, they soon gave up on it altogether.

In 2012, the Museum of Contemporary Art “Garage” was preparing to moving to Gorky Park and needed a place for its headquarters. The management of Gorky Park offered the museum to be headquartered in the left half of the building next to the Krymsky Bridge – the one that hitherto hosted the sanitary ware store. As the architects of this project, The director of “Garage” invited FORM as the architects of this project.

The first acquaintance with the building, and especially with its interior, was not particularly inspiring: clapboard walls, mosaic panel pictures, and even a jacuzzi bowl that was inherited from the sanitary ware store. The whole place was cluttered with tiny rooms, one of the staircases being completely blocked for yielding more office space. It was hard to imagine that all this mess actually concealed a surprisingly spacious house full of sunlight. However, after the architects studied the Bureau of Technical Inventory documents, it became obvious to them that the building had a clear-cut and interesting structure that is hard to discern behind the renovations of the 1980‒2000’s.

In spite of the fact that from the outside the management building looks rather coherent, for more than half a century it has been existing as two separate volumes with a ruin of the movie theater in the middle. The ruin can only be seen from the inside of the building – it is separated from the city by two blind façades. The reinforced concrete pillars and beams of the movie theater that survived a Nazi bombing, are exposed to the blue sky up to this day. Upon the initiative of “Garage”, the trees, which appeared inside the ruin over the fifty years, were made sparser but were still preserved.

Working with the building, the FORM architects decided to bring out the best in it by clearing it from whatever later additions were there, and adjust the floor plan of the movie theater for the museum headquarters, exposing the historical brickwork.

The technical audit showed that the bearing structures were significantly damaged, and the brick columns inside the building and some of the apertures were reinforced by metal staples. The roof of the building was assembled anew: the original wooden beams were not single-cut, they consisted of pieces of wood of different sizes, and were deformed; in addition, one of the beams got badly burned during the bombing in the Second World War. The new beams, the shape of which is identical to that of the original ones, are made of glued timber. The new heat-retaining roof made it possible to use the space directly underneath it as an extra story: the two new lofts are connected to the other space with two new staircases, a straight and a spiral one. During the work, two blocked windows were restored on the façade that overlooks the park, and a few small windows of the bull’s eye type.

The four floors of the headquarters are plainly visible: several working spaces are situated at different levels.

With the coming of “Garage” museum, the building aroused a lot of public interest. This is the place that guests of honor are invited to, and a place, to which creative people from all over the world come, including many famous artists and architects.

The fate of the ruin is a story that is yet to be continued. Possibly, the destroyed fragment of the building will take on a new independent function or it will be annexed by one of the functioning parts. Several Moscow-based architectural firms proposed their concepts trying to make out just what you can turn this ruin into but so far none of them has been implemented.

The serious research done by the authors of this book allows the architects to continue their work using the extensive knowledge about the historical context and the place that this unique building occupies in it”.

Firm:

FORM http://formbureau.co.uk/

22 November 2018

Headlines now

Object

The Secret Briton

The house is called “Little France”. Its composition follows the classical St. Petersburg style, with a palace-like courtyard. The decor is on the brink of Egyptian lotuses, neo-Greek acroteria, and classic 1930s “gears”; the recessed piers are Gothic, while the silhouette of the central part of the house is British. It’s quite interesting to examine all these details, attempting to understand which architectural direction they belong to. At the same time, however, the house fits like a glove in the context of the 20th line of St. Petersburg’s Vasilievsky Island; its elongated wings hold up the façade quite well.

The Wrap-Up

The competition project proposed by Treivas for the first 2021 competition for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025 concludes our series of publications on pavilion projects that will not be implemented. This particular proposal stands out for its detailed explanations and the idea of ecological responsibility: both the facades and the exhibition inside were intended to utilize recycled materials.

Birds and Streams

For the competition to design the Omsk airport, DNK ag formed a consortium, inviting VOX architects and Sila Sveta. Their project focuses on intersections, journeys, and flights – both of people and birds – as Omsk is known as a “transfer point” for bird migrations. The educational component is also carefully considered, and the building itself is filled with light, which seems to deconstruct the copper circle of the central entrance portal, spreading it into fantastic hyper-spatial “slices”.

Faraday Grid

The project of the Omsk airport by ASADOV Architects is another concept among the 14 finalists of a recent competition. It is called “The Bridge” and is inspired by both the West Siberian Exhibition of 1911 and the Trans-Siberian Railway bridge over the Irtysh River, built in 1896. On one hand, it carries a steampunk vibe, while on the other, there’s almost a sense of nostalgia for the heyday of 1913. However, the concept offers two variants, the second one devoid of nostalgia but featuring a parabola.

Review

Midway upon the Journey of Our Life

Recently, Tatlin Publishing House released a book entitled “Architect Sergey Oreshkin. Selected Projects”. This book is not just a traditional book of the architectural company’s achievements, but rather a monograph of a more personal nature. The book includes 43 buildings as well as a section with architectural drawings. In this article, we reflect on the book as a way to take stock of an architect’s accomplishments.

Inverted Fortress

This year, there has been no shortage of intriguing architectural ideas around the Omsk airport. The project developed by the architectural company KPLN appeals to Omsk’s history as a wooden fortress that it was back in the day, but transforms the concept of a fortress beyond recognition: it “shaves off” the conical ends of “wooden logs”, then enlarges them, and then flips them over. The result is a hypostyle – a forest of conical columns on point supports, with skylights on top.

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Transformation of Annenkirche

For Annenkirche (St. Anna Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg), Sergey Kuznetsov and the Kamen bureau have prepared a project that relies on the principles of the Venice Charter: the building is not restored to a specific date, historical layers are preserved, and modern elements do not mimic the authentic ones. Let’s delve into the details of these solutions.

The Paradox of the Temporary

The concept of the Russian pavilion for EXPO 2025 in Osaka, proposed by the Wowhaus architects, is the last of the six projects we gathered from the 2022 competition. It is again worth noting that the results of this competition were not finalized due to the cancellation of Russia’s participation in World Expo 2025. It should be mentioned that Wowhaus created three versions for this competition, but only one is being presented, and it can’t be said that this version is thoroughly developed – rather, it is done in the spirit of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, the project is interesting in its paradoxical nature: the architects emphasized the temporary character of the pavilion, and in its bubble-like forms sought to reflect the paradoxes of space and time.

The Forum of Time

The competition project for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka designed by Aleksey Orlov and Arena Project Institute consists of cones and conical funnels connected into a non-trivial composition, where one can feel the hand of architects who have worked extensively with stadiums and other sports facilities. It’s very interesting to delve into its logic, structurally built on the theme of clocks, hourglasses and even sundials. Additionally, the architects have turned the exhibition pavilion into a series of interconnected amphitheaters, which is also highly relevant for world exhibitions. We are reminding you that the competition results were never announced.

Mirrors Everywhere

The project by Sergey Nebotov, Anastasia Gritskova, and the architectural company “Novoe” was created for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025, but within the framework of another competition, which, as we learned, took place even earlier, in 2021. At that time, the competition theme was “digital twins”, and there was minimal time for work, so the project, according to the architect himself, was more of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, this project is interesting for its plan bordering on similarity with Baroque projects and the emblem of the exhibition, as well as its diverse and comprehensive reflectiveness.

Report

The Steppe Is Full of Beauty and Freedom

The goal of the exhibition “Dikoe Pole” (“Wild Field”) at the State Historical Museum was to move away from the archaeological listing of valuable items and to create an image of the steppe and nomads that was multidirectional and emotional – in other words, artistic. To achieve this goal, it was important to include works of contemporary art. One such work is the scenography of the exhibition space developed by CHART studio.

The Snowstorm Fish

The next project from the unfinished competition for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, is by Dashi Namdakov and Parsec Architects. The pavilion describes itself as an “architectural/sculptural” one, with its shape clearly reminiscent of abstract sculpture of the 1970s. It complements its program with a meditative hall named “Mendeleev’s Dreams”, and offers its visitors to slide from its roof at the end of the tour.

The Mirror of Your Soul

We continue to publish projects from the competition for the design of the Russian Pavilion at EXPO in Osaka 2025. We are reminding you that the results of the competition have not been announced, and hardly will ever be. The pavilion designed by ASADOV Architects combines a forest log cabin, the image of a hyper transition, and sculptures made of glowing threads – it focuses primarily on the scenography of the exhibition, which the pavilion builds sequentially like a string of impressions, dedicating it to the paradoxes of the Russian soul.

Part of the Ideal

In 2025, another World Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan, in which Russia will not participate. However, a competition for the Russian pavilion was indeed held, with six projects participating. The results were never announced as Russia’s participation was canceled; the competition has no winners. Nevertheless, Expo pavilion projects are typically designed for a bold and interesting architectural statement, so we’ve gathered all the six projects and will be publishing articles about them in random order. The first one is the project by Vladimir Plotkin and Reserve Union, which is distinguished by the clarity of its stereometric shape, the boldness of its structure, and the multiplicity of possible interpretations.

Object

The Fortress by the River

ASADOV Architects have developed a concept for a new residential district in the center of Kemerovo. To combat the harsh climate and monotonous everyday life, the architects proposed a block type of development with dominant towers, good insolation, facades detailed at eye level, and event programming.

Object

In the Rhombus Grid

Construction has begun on the building of the OMK (United Metallurgical Company) Corporate University in Nizhny Novgorod’s town of Vyksa, designed by Ostozhenka Architects. The most interesting aspect of the project is how the architects immersed it in the context: “extracting” a diagonal motif from the planning grid of Vyksa, they aligned the building, the square, and the park to match it. A truly masterful work with urban planning context on several different levels of perception has long since become the signature technique of Ostozhenka.

Object

Generational Connection

Another modern estate, designed by Roman Leonidov, is located in the Moscow region and brings together three generations of one family under one roof. To fit on a narrow plot without depriving anyone of personal space, the architects opted for a zigzag plan. The main volume in the house structure is accentuated by mezzanines with a reverse-sloped roof and ceilings featuring exposed beams.

Object

Three Dimensions of the City

We began to delve into the project by Sergey Skuratov, the residential complex “Depo” in Minsk, located at Victory Square, and it fascinated us completely. The project has at least several dimensions to it: historical – at some point, the developer decided to discontinue further collaboration with Sergey Skuratov Architects, but the concept was approved, and its implementation continues, mostly in accordance with the proposed ideas. The spatial and urban planning dimension – the architects both argue with the city and play along with it, deciphering nuances, and finding axes. And, finally, the tactile dimension – the constructed buildings also have their own intriguing features. Thus, this article also has two parts: it dwells on what has been built and what was conceived

Object

New “Flight”

Architects from “Mezonproject” have developed a project for the reconstruction of the regional youth center “Polyot”(“Flight”) in the city of Oryol. The summer youth center, built back in the late 1970s, will now become year-round and acquire many additional functions.

Object

The Yauza Towers

In Moscow, there aren’t that many buildings or projects designed by Nikita Yavein and Studio 44. In this article, we present to you the concept of a large multifunctional complex on the Yauza River, located between two parks, featuring a promenade, a crossroads of two pedestrian streets, a highly developed public space, and an original architectural solution. This solution combines a sophisticated, asymmetric façade grid, reminiscent of a game of fifteen puzzle, and bold protrusions of the upper parts of the buildings, completely masking the technical floors and sculpting the complex’s silhouette.

News

Arch, Pearl, Wing, Wind

In the social media of the governor of the Omsk region, voting was conducted for the best project for the city’s new airport. We asked the finalists to send over their projects and are now showcasing them. The projects are quite interesting: the client requested that the building be visually permeable throughout, and the images that the architects are working with include arches, wings, gusts of wind, and even the “Pearl” painting by Vrubel, who was actually born in Omsk.

Object

Architecture and Leisure Park

For the suburban hotel complex, which envisages various formats of leisure, the architectural company T+T Architects proposed several types of accommodation, ranging from the classic “standard” in a common building to a “cave in the hill” and a “house in a tree”. An additional challenge consisted in integrating a few classic-style residences already existing on this territory into the “architectural forest park”.

Overview

The U-House

The Jois complex combines height with terraces, bringing the most expensive apartments from penthouses down to the bottom floors. The powerful iconic image of the U-shaped building is the result of the creative search for a new standard of living in high-rise buildings by the architects of “Genpro”.

Object

Black and White

In this article, we specifically discuss the interiors of the ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh. Interior design is a crucial component of the overall concept in this case, and precision and meticulous execution were highly important for the architects. Julia Tryaskina, head of UNK interiors, shares some of the developments.

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The “Snake” Mountain

The competition project for the seaside resort complex “Serpentine” combines several typologies: apartments of different classes, villas, and hotel rooms. For each of these typologies, the KPLN architects employ one of the images that are drawn from the natural environment – a serpentine road, a mountain stream, and rolling waves.

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Opal from Anna Mons’ Ring

The project of a small business center located near Tupolev Plaza and Radio Street proclaims the necessity of modern architecture in a specific area of Moscow commonly known as “Nemetskaya Sloboda” or “German settlement”. It substantiates its thesis with the thoroughness of details, a multitude of proposed and rejected form variants, and even a detailed description of the surrounding area. The project is interesting indeed, and it is even more interesting to see what will come of it.

Object

Feed ’Em All

A “House of Russian Cuisine” was designed and built by KROST Group at VDNKh for the “Rossiya” exhibition in record-breaking time. The pavilion is masterfully constructed in terms of the standards of modern public catering industry multiplied by the bustling cultural program of the exhibition, and it interprets the stylistically diverse character of VDNKh just as successfully. At the same time, much of its interior design can be traced back to the prototypes of the 1960s – so much so that even scenes from iconic Soviet movies of those years persistently come to mind.

Object

The Ensemble at the Mosque

OSA prepared a master plan for a district in the southern part of Derbent. The main task of the master plan is to initiate the formation of a modern comfortable environment in this city. The organization of residential areas is subordinated to the city’s spiritual center: depending on the location relative to the cathedral mosque, the houses are distinguished by façade and plastique solutions. The program also includes a “hospitality center”, administrative buildings, an educational cluster, and even an air bridge.

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Pargolovo Protestantism

A Protestant church is being built in St. Petersburg by the project of SLOI architects. One of the main features of the building is a wooden roof with 25-meter spans, which, among other things, forms the interior of the prayer hall. Also, there are other interesting details – we are telling you more about them.

Object

The Shape of the Inconceivable

The ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh brings to mind a famous maxim of all architects and critics: “You’ve come up with it? Now build it!” You rarely see such a selfless immersion in implementation of the project, and the formidable structural and engineering tasks set by UNK architects to themselves are presented here as an integral and important part of the architectural idea. The challenge matches the obliging status of the place – after all, it is an “exhibition of achievements”, and the pavilion is dedicated to the nuclear energy industry. Let’s take a closer look: from the outside, from the inside, and from the underside too.

​The Headquarters of “Garage”

In this issue, we are publishing one of the chapters of the book dedicated to the reconstruction of the headquarters of the “Garage” museum in Gorky Park, and to the research of this multilayered building. The reconstruction project was developed by FORM.

The Headquarters of “Garage”