По-русски

Waves Rolling Down the Avenue

Two houses embracing the building of "Sputnik" Hotel at the Leninsky Avenue: the new urban ensemble reacts to the traffic flow with plastic waves of the facades, concealing a cozy "courtyard" square inside.

05 February 2015
Object
mainImg
The laconic sixteen-story slab of "Sputnik" hotel was built at the Leninsky Avenue - if you drive from the city center, you will see it soon after the Gagarin Square - in the late sixties. By that time, the "Kaluzhskaya Zastava" square was adorned by an imposing semicircle of two "Stalin" buildings (1940 and 1950 respectively); the yard to the west got, upon the project of architect Vlasov, an openwork tower of the "Labor Palace" (1936), and along the Lenisky Avenue, large brick frames of residential houses lined up (1959–1960). This place is very populated and vital for the city: the road junction of the Third Transport Ring neighbors on the beginning of the "Neskuchny Garden" - with a lot of academic institutions, the very names of which will hardly be intelligible to everyone. The "Kaluzhskaya Zastava" square was renamed to become the "Gagarin" Square after the tragic death of the legendary cosmonaut; however, the theme of flights "found its home" here as early as in 1961 - because after his first space flight Gagarin drove down this very avenue. The name of the hotel - “Sputnik” - also refers us to the "space" theme.

The hotel stands on the hillock, stepping back from the highway of the avenue's relief road. In front of it, there is a lawn and a parking lot, on the left, western, side, there is a small park. At some distance, there is also a house of the Khrushchev time, and, to the right, nearly precisely next to the hotel, there is a tower built in the late nineties.

The ADM architects were faced with the task of reconstructing the hotel and adding yet another hotel and a shopping building to it - at the same time keeping the park intact. The architects placed the low-rise but at the same time elongated volume of the shopping center along the red line, thus supporting the front of the residential houses of the avenue. For the new building of the hotel, named Staybridge, a place was found in the third row, deeper inside the land plot, behind the slab of the remodeled "Sputnik" - that will be renamed into Holiday Inn.

The architects did keep the existing square intact. As for the territory between the shopping mall and the hotel buildings, however, it was turned into a well-organized city square with picturesque mosaic of diverse paving patterns, blue spruce trees, pavement-level green lawns, the though-out laconic street furniture and the umbrellas of the summer cafes - in a word, the architects carefully organized it, the way ADM does in its virtually project, growing around their buildings layers of so-unlike-Moscow comfortable and well-thought urban space. Meanwhile, the internal square is situated not at all on the ground level but on the roof of the facilities of the basement tier - the relief here gradually lowers three meters down from northwest to southeast, and the architects leveled the place out at the expense of sub-structures, getting a flat surface on the roof, and usable premises under the roof - the extra volume that stops short in the western part with a stark glass wall turned to the trees of the park. Behind the glass wall, there are conference halls.

Part of the design of the hotel square is the protruding marquee of the entrance group of the former "Sputnik" (now "Holiday Inn"): under this marquee, the taxis can await the hotel guests without the latter running the risk of getting wet in the rain. The wooden laths echo the design of the reception areas on the ground floors of both hotels and, alternating with the stripes of the lamps of the same configuration, look like piano keys. The lamps and the ceiling merge into one, and one starts wondering involuntarily - perhaps ALL the stripes are capable of glowing here? But - no! Wood is also important, and it is really abundant behind the transparent walls of the lower floors, giving the whole place - both outside and outside - a cozy countryside feel.

Besides the special features of the terrain, the architects were to take into consideration the close vicinity of a residential house. Looking to keep the insolation of its apartments as intact as possible, the architects cut diagonally the northeast corner of the trading center - which became the starting point - although not the sole reason - for its smooth, wave-shaped, and undulating sculptural shape. An impression is created that the architects gave a good shaking to the bands of the horizontal floors, creating on the facades waves of different amplitude that successfully liven up the long horizontal, overhanging over one another, forming below, on the bridge, convenient awnings for the summer cafe, capable of also protecting the pedestrians that hurry to the metro. The curves of the upper snow-white floors are accentuated by the smooth rhythm of the converging and dissolving strokes of the glazed terra-cotta laths that give the structure an extra resemblance to the wave. Since the permitted height of the volume touching the red line oscillated from six to eighteen meters, the eastern part of the trading center on the roof got a large open-air terrace.

The pavement in front of the building will at some places be as much as twenty-five meters wide: the glass wave of the first floor, contrasting with the overhanging "snow chunks", is decorated with black granite and it recedes into the depth of the volume, increasing the size of the extension of the consoles and suggesting a promenade running along the showcases. In the middle, the undulating front of the shop windows is torn by a wide aperture similar to a cave - the glittering rounded corners seem to draw you inside - the driveway leads to the hotel yard, and this is one of the main exits/entrances (there are two more on the east side next to the park, and the entrance to the underground parking garage of the shopping center closer to the avenue; the transport layout is rather intricate).

On entering the aperture between the shop windows of the shopping center and finding oneself on the already familiar to us inside square of the two hotels, the visitor will probably at once recognize the motif of the wave that he has already noticed on the street facade - in a more reserved way, it is echoed by the cavities on the facades of the new Staybridge Hotel building in the depth of the land site and by its rounded corners. This building was planned to be twenty-two stories high and triangular on the plan but after the consideration at the architectural council, where it was decided to cut the building by three floors, it took on the slab shape. However, its facades preserved both the filleted corners and the thin rock faceting with the elegant variability of the width of the cross connections and the module, which unites the floors into groups of three - all these vertical lines balance the flowing horizontal, giving to the volume simultaneously stability and respectability. And, at the same time, building but a hint of the "image" connection with the "Novatech" building located further down the avenue.

The central and the ostentatiously geometric component between the two wave-shaped objects is the "Sputnik" building, clad by the architects into a new shell of the dark terra-cotta panels in combination with glass surfaces covered by the thin vertical stripes of silk printing. The former “Sputnik", three stories lower than the volume high-strung behind its back, keeps its historical proportion and looks in this new company as the most regular, horizontal, and geometric one. Its seriousness is emphasized by the predominance of dark tone and by the soundness of the facade grid of the assumed “backbone” of the building: meanwhile, the thin vertical primes of the strips of silk screen printing - just as the light asymmetry of the cross-linked with wide primes rhythm - make the old volume a contrasting, but still completely harmonious part of the new complex that has grown around it.
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Master Plan © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Square of two hotels © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Improvement elements © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Organization of the inside square © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Inside public square © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Entrance group of Holiday Inn © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Marquee of the entrance group © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Commercial block © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Shopping center © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Staybridge Hotel © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Fragment of the facade of Holiday Inn © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Pavement along the shopping block © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. The arch leading to the courtyard of the complex © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Fragment of the facade of the shopping center © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Fragment of the facade of the shopping center © ADM Studio
Hotel and shopping complex at the Leninsky Avenue. Overview from the avenue © ADM Studio


05 February 2015

Headlines now
​The Power of Lines
The building at the very beginning of New Arbat is the result of long deliberations over how to replace the former House of Communication. Contemporary, dynamic, and even somewhat zoomorphic in character, it is structured around a large diagonal grid. The building has become a striking accent both in the perspective of the former Kalinin Avenue and in the panorama of Arbat Square. Yet, unfortunately, the original concept was not fully realized. In 2020, the Moscow ArchCouncil approved a design featuring an exoskeleton – an external load-bearing structure, which eventually turned into a purely decorative element. Still, the power of the supergraphic “holds” the building, giving it the qualities of a new urban landmark with iconic potential. How this concept took shape, what unexpected associations might underlie the grid’s form, and why the exoskeleton was never built – all this is explored in our article.
Resort on the Kama River
Wowhaus has developed a project for the reconstruction of Korabelnaya Roshcha (“Mast Grove”), a wellness resort located on the banks of the Kama River.
Nests in Primorye
The eco-park project “Nests”, designed by Aleksey Polishchuk and the company Power Technologies, received first prize at the Eco-Coast 2025 festival, organized by the Union of Architects of Russia. For a glamping site in Filinskaya Bay, the authors proposed bird-shaped houses, treehouses, and a nest-shaped observation platform, topping it all with an entrance pavilion executed in the shape of an owl.
The Angle of String Tension
The House of Music, designed by Vladimir Plotkin and the architects of TPO Reserve, resembles a harp, and when seen from above, even a bass clef. But if only it were that simple! The architecture of the complex fuses two distinct expressive languages: the lattice-like, transparent, permeable vocabulary of “classical” modernism and the sculptural, ribbon-like volumes so beloved by today’s neo-modernism. How it all works – where the catharsis lies, which compositional axes underpin the design, where the project resembles Zaryadye Concert Hall and where it does not – read in the article below.
How Historic Tobolsk Becomes a Portal to the Future
Over the past decade, the architectural company Wowhaus has developed urban strategies for several Russian cities – Vyksa, Tula, and Nizhnekamsk, to name but a few. Against this backdrop, the Tobolsk master plan stands out both for its scale – the territory under transformation covers more than 220 square kilometers – and for its complexity.
St. Petersburg vs Rome
The center of St. Petersburg is, as we know, sacred – but few people can say with certainty where this “sacred place” actually begins and ends. It’s not about the formal boundaries, “from the Obvodny Canal to the Bolshaya Nevka”, but about the vibe that feels true to the city center. With the Nevskaya Ratusha complex – built to a design that won an international competition – Evgeny Gerasimov and Sergei Tchoban created an “image of the center” within its territory. And not so much the image of St. Petersburg itself, as that of a global metropolis. This is something new, something that hasn’t appeared in the city for a long time. In this article, we study the atmosphere, recall precedents, and even reflect on who and when first called St. Petersburg the “new Rome”. Clearly, the idea is alive for a reason.
On the Wave
The project of transforming the river port and embankment in the city of Cheboksary, developed by the ATRIUM Architects, involves one of the city’s key areas. The Volga embankment is to be turned into a riverside boulevard – a multifunctional, comfortable, and expressive space for work and leisure activities. The authors propose creating a new link with the city’s main Krasnaya (“Red”) Square, as well as erecting several residential towers inspired by the shape of the traditional national women’s headdress – these towers are likely to become striking accents on the Volga panorama.
Valery Kanyashin: “We Were Given a Free Hand”
The Headliner residential complex, the main part of which was recently completed just across from Moscow City, is a kind of neighbor to the MIBC that doesn’t “play along” with it. On the contrary, the new complex is entirely built on contrast: like a city of differently scaled buildings that seems to have emerged naturally over the past 20 years – which is a hugely popular trend nowadays! And yet here – perhaps only here – such a project has been realized to its full potential. Yes, high-rises dominate, but all these slender, delicate profiles, all these exciting perspectives! And most importantly – how everything is mixed and composed together... We spoke with the project’s leader Valery Kanyashin.
​The Keystone
Until quite recently, premium residential and office complexes in Moscow were seen as the exclusive privilege of the city center. Today the situation is changing: high-quality architecture is moving beyond the confines of the Third Ring Road and appearing on the outskirts. The STONE Kaluzhskaya business center is one such example. Projects like this help decentralize the megalopolis, making life and work prestigious in any part of the city.
Perpetuum Mobile
The interior of the headquarters of Natsproektstroy, created by the IND studio team, vividly and effectively reflects the client’s field of activity – it is one of Russia’s largest infrastructure companies, responsible for logistics and transport communications of every kind you can possibly think of.
Water and Light
Church art is full of symbolism, and part of it is truly canonical, while another part is shaped by tradition and is perceived by some as obligatory. Because of this kind of “false conservatism”, contemporary church architecture develops slowly compared to other genres, and rarely looks contemporary. Nevertheless, there are enthusiasts in this field out there: the cemetery church of Archangel Michael in Apatity, designed by Dmitry Ostroumov and Prokhram bureau, combines tradition and experiment. This is not an experiment for its own sake, however – rather, the considered work of a contemporary architect with the symbolism of space, volume, and, above all, light.
Champions’ Cup
At first glance, the Bell skyscraper on 1st Yamskogo Polya Street, 12, appears strict and laconic – though by no means modest. Its economical stereometry is built on a form close to an oval, one of UNK architects’ favorite themes. The streamlined surface of the main volume, clad in metal louvers, is sliced twice with glass incisions that graphically reveal the essence of the original shape: both its simplicity and its complexity. At the same time, dozens of highly complex engineering puzzles have been solved here.
Semi-Digital Environment
In the town of Innopolis, a satellite of Kazan, the first 4-star hotel designed by MAD Architects has opened. The interiors of the hotel combine elegance with irony, and technology with comfort, evoking the atmosphere of a computer game or maybe a sci-fi movie about the near future.
History never ends
The old railway station in Kapan, a city in southern Armenia, has been given new life by the Paris-based design firm Normal Studio. Today, it serves as a TUMO center.
A Deep, Crystal Shine
A new luxury residential development by ADM architects is set to rise in the Patriarch’s Ponds district, not far from Novopushkinsky Square. It will replace three buildings erected in the early 1990s. The project authors, Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova, have placed their bets on the variety among the three volumes, modern design solutions, and attention to detail: one of the buildings will feature smoothly curved balconies with a ceramic sheen on their undersides, while another will be accented by glass “sculpture” columns.
Grigory Revzin: “What we should do with the architecture of the seventies”
Soviet modernism came in two flavors: the good, author-driven kind, and the bad, standardized kind. The good kind was “on the periphery”, while the bad kind was in the center – geographically, in terms of attention, scale, and everything else. Can we demolish it? “That would be destroying public consensus out of thin air”. So what should we do? Preserve it, but creatively: “Bring architecture into places where it hasn’t yet appeared”. Treat these buildings not as monuments, but as urban landscape. Read our interview with Grigory Revzin on the pressing topic of saving modernism – where he proposes a controversial, yet really intriguing, way of preserving 1970s buildings.
A Roadside Picnic of Urban Planning Theorists
Marina Egorova, head of Empate Architectural Bureau, brought together urban planning theorists – the successors of Alexey Gutnov and Vyacheslav Glazychev – to revive the substance and depth of professional discourse. At the first meeting, much ground was covered: the participants revisited the theoretical foundations, aligned their values, examined a cutting-edge case of the Kazan agglomeration, and concluded with the unfathomable intricacies of Russian land demarcation. Below, we present key takeaways from all the presentations.
Perspective View
CNTR Architects has designed a business center for a new district in Yekaterinburg, aiming to reduce the need for commuting and make the residential environment more diverse. The architectural solutions are equally focused on creating spatial flexibility, comfortable working conditions, and a memorable image that could allow the building to become a spatial landmark of the district.
Malevich and Bathhouses, Nature and High-Tech
The Malevich Bathhouse complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2025 on the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway. The project, designed by DBA-GROUP under the leadership of Vladislav Andreev, is an example of an unconventional approach to the image of a spa in general and of a bathhouse in particular. Deliberately avoiding any kind of allusion, the architects opted for streamlined forms with characteristic rounded corners, a combination of wood with bent glass, and restrained contemporary shapes – both inside and out. Let’s take a closer look at the project.
Rather, a Tablecloth and a Glass!
After many years, the long-abandoned Horse Guards Department building in St. Petersburg has finally received the attention it deserves: according to a design by Studio 44, the first restoration and adaptation works are scheduled to begin this year. Both the intended function and the general scope of works imply minimal alteration to the complex, which has preserved traces of its three-century history. All solutions are reversible and aimed, above all, at opening the monument to the city and immersing it in a lively social scene – hence the choice of a cultural center scenario with a strong gastronomic component.
​Materialization of Airflows
The Nikolai Kamov International Airport in Tomsk opened at the end of August last year. We have already written about the project – now we are taking a look at the completed building. Its functionality is reinforced by symbolic undertones: the architects at ASADOV sought to reflect local identity in the architecture as fully as possible.
The City as a Narrative
Sergey Skuratov’s approach to large urban plots could best be described as a “total design code”. The architect pays equal attention to the overall composition and the smallest of details, striving to ensure that every aspect is thoroughly thought out and subordinated to the original vision. It’s a Renaissance-like approach, really – a titanic effort demanding remarkable willpower and perseverance. The results are likewise grand – architecture that makes a statement. This article looks at the revived concept for the central section of the Seventh Heaven residential district in Kazan, a composition so thoroughly considered that even the “gradient of visual emphasis” (sic!) across the facades has been carefully worked out. It also touches on the narrative idea behind the project – and even the architect’s own doubts about it.
A Garden of Hope for Freedom
In October, at the Spaso-Evfimiev Monastery in Suzdal, the Prison Yard Garden opened on the site that had served as a prison from the 18th century until the Khrushchev Thaw. The architectural concept was developed by NOῨD Short Film, and the landscape design by the MOX landscape bureau. In fact, there are two gardens here – very different ones. We try to understand whether they evoke the right emotions in visitors, while also showing the beauty of June’s ruderal plants in bloom.
A Laconic Image of Time
The Time Square residential complex, built on the northern edge of St. Petersburg, appears more concise and efficient than its neighbor and predecessor, the New Time complex. Nevertheless, the architect’s hand is clearly felt: themes of “black and white”, “inside and outside”, and most notably, the “lamellar” quality of the facades that seems to visibly “eat away” at the buildings’ mass – everything is played out like a well-written score. One is reminded of both classical modernism and the so-called “post-constructivism”.
The Flower of the Lake
The prototype for the building of the Kamal Theater in Kazan is an ice flower: a rare and fragile natural phenomenon of Lake Kaban “froze” in the large, soaring outlines of the glass screens enclosing the main volume, shaping its silhouette and shielding the stained-glass windows from the sun. The project, led by the Wowhaus consortium and including global architecture “star” Kengo Kuma, won the 2021/2022 competition and was realized close to the original concept in a short – very short – period of time. The theater opened in early 2025. It was Kengo Kuma who proposed the image of an ice flower and the contraposition of cold on the outside and warmth on the inside. Between 2022 and 2024, Wowhaus did everything possible to bring this vision to life, practically living on-site. Now we are taking a closer look at this landmark building and its captivating story.
Peaceful Integration on Mira Avenue
The MIRA residential complex (the word mir means “peace” in Russian), perched above the steep banks of the Yauza River and Mira Avenue, lives up to its name not only technically, but also visually and conceptually. Sleek, high-rise, and glass-clad, it responds both to Zholtovsky’s classicism and to the modernism of the nearby “House on Stilts”. Drawing on features from its neighbors, it reconciles them within a shared architectural language rooted in contemporary façade design. Let’s take a closer look at how this is done.
An Interior for a New Format of Education
The design of the new building for Tyumen State University (TyumSU) was initially developed before the pandemic but later revised to meet new educational requirements. The university has adopted a “2+2+2” system, which eliminates traditional divisions into groups and academic streams in favor of individualized study programs. These changes were implemented swiftly – right at the start of construction. Now that the building is complete, we are taking a closer look.
Penthouses and Kokoshniks
A new residential complex designed by ASADOV Architects for the Krasnaya Roza business district responds to its proximity to 17th-century landmarks – the chambers of the Hamovny Dvor and St. Nicholas Church – as well as to the need to preserve valuable façades of a historic rental house built in the Russian Revival style. The architects proposed a set of buildings of varying heights, whose façades reference ecclesiastical architecture. But we were also able to detect other associations.
Centipede Town
The new school campus designed by ATRIUM Architects, located on the shores of a protected lake in the Imeretian Lowland Ornithological Reserve, represents an important and ambitious undertaking for the team: this is not just a school, but a Presidential Lyceum for the comprehensive development of gifted children – 2,500 students from age 3 through high school. At the same time, it is also envisioned as a new civic hub for the entire Sirius territory. In this article, we unpack the structure and architecture of this “lyceum town”.