The penthouse
that Sergey Estrin worked at is situated on the 76th floor of "Gorod
Stolits" residential complex. The architect got the commission for the
design project of only the guest area of this apartment with a total area of
“Giving this panoramic view the main role in this interior, we were looking to
tie the outwardly open space with the architecture of the building itself,
stress somehow that it is a skyscraper in the first place”, - shares Sergey
Estrin. The massive square-section supporting columns became the perfect
solution for this task: they are faced with travertine plates that are shifted
in respect to one another in such a way that the supporting columns look like
they were made of separate cubic segments. In this composition, one can easily
trace the silhouette of the "Gorod Stolits" itself, the skyscraper
that looks like it is made up of glass blocks shifted in respect to their
central axis.
The ostentatiously skintled brickwork and the play of asymmetric cavities and
perches that unambiguously refers to the image of ancient ruins, became one of
the main themes of this interior. The bottom of the swimming pool gets deeper
in steps that are echoed by the wooden plates of the ceiling. The main accent
of the theme, however, is the supporting wall. For its facing, the architects
chose to use the shuttering plywood in conjunction with stucco-based plastic
mixture covered with mosaic copper. The copper was air-aged and then covered
with flat varnish, each fragment getting a texture of its own. The rich relief
and the complex texture of a warm shade color make the wall look like a remnant
of some ancient palace where a multitude of decorative layers blend into one
single mass that come alive in the mornings when the reflexes of the rising sun
(the penthouse is oriented eastwards) enhance its golden glow.
The sophisticated multi-layer lighting system of the penthouse is designed to
echo the numberless city lights outside its windows at nights. Backlit are the
relief of the wall and the ceiling plates but particularly interesting are the
metallic columns set in the glass imposts. The latter are made up of punctured
metal cylinders, and inside of them they have LED-lights capable of changing the
color of the windows’ "entwining". These columns also look like parts
of the "palace", only, because of the ornament, they look less brutal
- rather, like some openwork inserts inside the glass. The reflexes of light
enhance the play of masses and planes, echoing the big city lights, bustling
somewhere down below. And then it becomes clear that the most important accent
in the play of this theater of architecture is the height per se - gigantic,
mind-numbing and breath-taking.
