По-русски

​An Architect about Architecture and Architects

In this article, we are giving a summary of a lecture by Alexander Skokan. The author’s subtitle is a subjective attempt to share about the professional problems.

11 January 2019
View
mainImg


Why am I an architect?

There were family prerequisites for that. My grand-grandfather, Peter Makushin, a patron of art, a prominent public figure, and an educator of Siberia, who founded the first publishing house in the city of Tomsk with a subsidiary in Irkutsk, and who also opened book stores and the first public library, built in 1916 in Tomsk, at his own expense, the “House of Science” for the public university.

A son of a country vicar, getting an education in the Ecclesiastical Academy of Saint Petersburg, he implemented this idea of his in the best architectural traditions: he organized a competition for the best construction project that was won by the then-young and unknown architect, Andrei Kryachkov.

Possibly, it was this event that influenced the choice of the profession for his grandson – the architect Peter Skokan, who became one of the students of the Ivan Zholtovsky Studio.

Peter Skokan, my uncle, a figure well-known at one time for his various gifts and killer charm, also influenced my professional choice to a large extent. Later on, it turned out that virtually all of the members of my family (children, nephews, and their wives) are architects. I hope that we will be able to save at least our grandchildren from this curse.

In the 1960’s, when I went to the Moscow Institute of Architecture my teachers were the famous avant-garde architects of the 1920-1930’s, Mikhail Turkus and Vladimir Krinsky; parallel classes were taught by Mikhail Barshch and Mikhail Sinyavsky. In an institute corridor you would oftentimes see Gregory Barkhin, the author of “Izvestia”, one of the best buildings in Moscow of the XX century, who would hurry to his class with giant books under his arm. And the son of Gregory, Boris Grigoryevich Barkhin, was the teacher of the group that I was in. It was him who fostered the rudimentary professional skills in us, or, simply speaking, taught us how to work.

After I graduated from the institute in 1966, I was sent on a “postgraduate work assignment program” (there was such a thing back in the soviet times) to work in Mosproject-2. The student romance was replaced by mundane reality. The studio where I worked chiefly designed housing projects for the “Facilities Administration Office” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which, by the standards of those days, could arguably be considered to be elite housing. I was young, brimming with energy and enthusiasm, but the civil service did not allow me to fully explore my potential, and, this is why, when I was invited to join the “New Element of Settlement” working group, I happily agreed – it was a great honor for me to work alongside Aleksey Gutnov, Ilya Lezhava, Andrey Baburov and other legendary figures. It was at that time that I developed my skills as a team player, which came in very handy for my further professional career – now I see that any kind of successful work is about playing as a team, where you know exactly who plays which part, and where the players are united not only professionally but by friendly ties as well.

One must realize that back in the 1960’s, all the sources of information, for the exception of the official ones, were virtually nonexistent, and this is why communication between people was so utterly critical. Speaking to one another, we would be getting across our knowledge and our subjective points of view. For example, my friend Andrey Baburov noticed, and I remembered that you could only listen to piano pieces by Skryabin if they were played by Vladimir Sofronitsky. Only in that room in the basement you could discuss a new novel by William Faulkner or Max Frisch, and it was there that I was first exposed to jazz music arranged by Gil Evans, and I also made a lot of other discoveries and got a lot of other knowledge there.

Once the term of my mandatory work of the postgraduate work assignment was over, I enrolled at the postgraduate courses at VNIiTIA. My science adviser was Andrey Ikonnikov – a most venerable student and theorist of architecture. And, again, I was lucky because I found myself in what you might call the intellectual epicenter of the university, i.e. in the smoking area underneath the staircase; for two years, every week (the postgraduate students were supposed to show up once a week); I would listen to Andrey Leonidov (the son of Ivan Leonidov), Alexander Rappoport, my friends Andrey Bokov and Vladimir Yudintsev. Also, there were such great people working there as Selim Khan-Magomedov, A.Oppolovnikov, and Nikolai Gulyanitsliy.

A few years later, Vladimir Yudintsev and I again ended up working together. This time it was the research and development department of Genplan Institute of Moscow, which a while later was headed by Aleksey Gutnov. Thanks to Gutnov’s organizational and other talents, we had something like a special status and could busy ourselves with what was interesting to us and what seemed to us really important; we also would come up ourselves with the subjects of our design and research projects.

The main motivation for our activities was overthrowing the then-almighty governmental agency Genplan (which translates as “Master Plan”) that would divide the city into a few (seven or eight) independent towns-planning zones, each with a center of its own. The main ideologist of Genplan, Simon Matveev, whom we would inevitably corner in our discussions, would ultimately always extricate himself with an answer to the effect that “better a bad master plan than no master plan at all”. This young urge to do everything “OUR OWN WAY”, look at things at a different angle, allowed our team to make a lot of discoveries and come up with a lot of new lines of research, along which we would work later on.

We proposed to view a city contextually, as a part of a complex system of agglomeration ties, which, back in those days (and sometimes today as well) is obstructed by administrative obstacles that tend to separate the city from its surrounding territory, generally known as “oblast”. We also claimed that a city needed a polycentric structure of multifunctional business centers situated at several transport hubs, instead of just one. Also, right about that time, we discovered yet another promising branch – working with the historical city and its environment, which generally did not comply with any of the existing rules and regulations. “Discovering” this city that we had known for years from our everyday life but knew nothing about from the professional standpoint, we started our research from historical, morphological, functional, and even attempts at social analysis. We saw the problems of the city from a whole number of new different angles.

Back in the 1980’s, although they had to work a lot, the architects did not make much money, while their friends – painters, sculptors and graphic designers – sometimes made decent money when they chanced to land a lucrative contract. This is why the architects were so lured by the prospect of working in “Integrated Art Centers”, where they would enter in a creative symbiosis with artists and designers. Together, they would work on the expositions of museums and exhibitions, design theater stages, community centers, and industrial buildings.

Working together with these artists was a great professional school, an experience of free intuitive creative activity, without the architectural pre-programming.

Here I was taught by: sculptor Nikolai Nikogosyan, the Rukavishnikov sculptor family, and, finally, the sculptor of monuments and painter Ivan Lubennikov, with whom we did a few very important joint projects – the exposition of the Soviet section of the Auschwitz memorial museum, the XVII Youth Exhibition of the “Memorial” society, a few contests, and many other interesting projects.

Speaking of my great teachers, I cannot help but mention Leonid Pavlov, with whom I was looking lucky to work almost for a month in Weimar (Bauhaus) in 1978 within the framework of an international project conference. The clarity, the crispness, and the dramatic quality of his architectural gestures, talking to him in general, and the master’s charming ways really impressed me.

And, finally, 30 years ago, in 1989, the project of reconstructing Moscow’s Ostozhenka area brought about the appearance of our architectural firm, which later got the name of Ostozhenka.

It was on that project that all the experience that I had accumulated hitherto came in very handy, as well as my skills of working as a team player.

After working in Genplan with the territories of Zamoskvorechye, Stoleshnikov Lane, Pokrovka Street, and such like, working with historical environment was habitual and easy. Also came in very handy the idea of parceling that we discovered when still working on the Stoleshnikov Lane – the new buildings started to easily fit in with the historical environment it these historical guidelines were observed. Working with the Ostozhenka Street was also about an experience of working with initially timid clients and developers, who would at first politely ask: “how many square meters can we build here?”, and the communication with the then-forming class of government officials, many of whom had in fact recently been our brothers in architecture.

I also had a very interesting experience of working with overseas architects: Finns, Italians, English, Turks, and Yugoslavs (yes, if you remember, there was such a country – Yugoslavia), Dutch, and French.

Since 2003, it has been the time of major international competition, and our company has been participating in many of them.

This was the competition for Saint-Petersburg’s Mariinski Theater, the competition “Big Moscow” (2012), and the competition “Moscow River”. As for our last two competition projects, we did them together with our French colleagues (Ives Lion architects). Again, we made discoveries that were very important for us and our city – a railway, a river, a 100 cities and 140 little rivers). In these competition projects we also partnered with geographers, transport experts, sociologists, and one architectural historian, Andrei Baldin. Not trying to say anything final, and not claiming to be holding the ultimate truth, in conclusion of this talk about architecture and architects, I would like to try and formulate a few keynotes that seem important to me:

Keynote one: “APPROPRIATENESS OF ARCHITECTURE”

“Appropriateness” means that your architecture fits in with its place and its properties. At the same time, you must keep in mind that today the very notion of “place” is being constantly diluted, that is, the farther away we are, the bigger this place is, and we are now sort of in a different place.

On the one side, this is a result of our growing mobility – we have visited a great number of places in the world, and now it’s hard for us to stay committed to some specific place, even if it is our “small motherland”.

On the other hand, thanks to smartphones and other smart gadgets that have become an indispensable part of our life, we can be in this or that specific place only physically, while in actuality, looking into the screens of our smartphones, we can be in quite different geographic locations and life situations.

That is, thanks to digitalization, “gadgetization”, and other “smartphonization”, the properties of your physical location, from which you go online, for the obvious exception of sitting comfort, are no longer that relevant, after all.

In this connection, it will also be appropriate to touch upon another relevant topic: architecture and design.

Who are we? Architects or, rather, already designers? Designers of perfect objects, including buildings, their outward shells and interior spaces?

Design is exterritorial and cosmopolitan, it is not context-sensitive. A designer object (which you cannot say about architecture) will look great everywhere if it is perfect from the technical and aesthetic standpoint. Design is global. Globalism is partially a child of design.

An architect is by default more local, more “down to earth”. As a rule, the fruits of his labor are firmly rooted in the ground – even though they do talk about the architecture of ships, for instance, or about the architecture (and not design) of some institutions, like European Union, nothing more nor less, and quite recently, come to think of it, we had “architects of perestroika” and so on.

Not delving deeper into this discourse, I believe that with a fair share of certainty we can refer design and everything that is related to it to the class of global phenomena which exist with a certain contextual time frame – design by default is current. And architecture is something that is APPROPRIATE for a specific place, something that is inscribed into it, something that corresponds to its genius loci, its taste, its smell, and its history.

Keynote two: “EVERYTHING HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE YOU”

Meaning, you don’t have to invent anything – you only need to see what is already there, something that has been around for ages: as the historical traces of property boundaries, old streets and roads, buried little rivers and ravines, derelict industrial parks and railway lines that would entwine large cities in the first half of the XX century – all of this is already there or was there, and this is something that any urban researcher worth his salt will never overlook.

Such “discoveries” are essentially nothing more than one’s ability to see the seemingly habitual things from a different angle or ability to reinterpret the existing contexts in the light of “newly emerging circumstances”. A textbook example of a stupid or malevolent “coming up with something that nobody else did before” is the 2011 annexation of new territories by Moscow, instead of searching for new hidden resources for further development within the city. At that moment, by the way, the smart urban designers did propose a concept of recycling the redundant city territories, which lay unused, as well as the land adjacent to rivers and railroad lines – the so-called “forgotten city”. This would have been an example of recycling the land, of reusing the city substance with consideration for the changes in its meanings and functions, a natural and inevitable process (Lizin Pond – Tyufeleva Coppice – AMO – ZIS – ZIL – ZILART).

The real problem only lies in our attitude towards the remnants or the traces of the previous use of this land – is it curious, disdainful or is it respectful? This is a test of how cultured we are, and therefore, the demolition of the Khrushchev five-story houses within the so-called “renovation program” is not just an architectural problem.

And, finally, the keynote that I would call “DIFFERENTLY”

This means doing things not the way everybody does them or not the way that is usually done here and now. Not jumping on the bandwagon but trying to do your own independent thinking. That is, trying to be not just inside the process but also outside of it – then you will have much more chances to see what goes on, and what forces are at play.

The trick obviously is to be able to switch between being inside and outside the process. 

Your “different” position, your ability to see things from a different angle will also allow you to see and even predict the future.

Because architecture is always about the future. The beginning of design and the end of construction are always separated by a time lapse – a month, a year, a decade, maybe, even a century. Architectural design is always about a passthrough into the future. Therefore, one of the key tasks of architecture and architects is not just creating appropriate things but also setting the image of the future. Regretfully, today this task is most often performed by people who, out of their calling or job description, are simply “security guards” who fence off things that already exist from the future, in which they only see threats and challenges. Not to mention the economists who calculate how much responding to these challenges will cost, and the lawyers who provide the necessary legal sevices to this die-hard approach.

11 January 2019

Headlines now
Review
Living in the Architecture of One’s Own Making
Do architects design houses for themselves? You bet! In this article, we are examining a new book by TATLIN publishing house. This book – unprecedented for Russia – features 52 private homes designed and built by contemporary architects for themselves. It includes houses that are famous, even iconic, as well as lesser-known ones; large and small, stylish and eccentric. To some extent, the book reflects the history of Russian architecture over the past 30 years.
Object
A City Block Isoline
Another competition project for a residential complex on the banks of the Volga in Nizhny Novgorod has been prepared by Studio 44. A team of architects led by Ivan Kozhin concluded that using a regular block layout in such a location would be inappropriate and developed a “custom design” approach: a chain of parceled multi-section buildings stretching along the entire embankment. Let’s explore the features and advantages of this unconventional method.
Report
Competition: The Price of Creativity?
Any day now, we’re expecting the results of a competition held by the “Samolet” development group for a plot in Kommunarka. In the meantime, we share the impressions of Editor-in-Chief Julia Tarabarina, who managed to conduct a public talk. Though technically focused on the interaction between developers and architects, the public talk turned into a discussion about the pros and cons of architectural competitions.
Object
Terraced Design
The “River Park” residential complex has confidently and securely shaped the Nagatinsky Backwater shoreline. Featuring a public embankment, elevated courtyards connected by pedestrian bridges, and brick façades, the development invites exploration of its nuanced response to the surrounding context, as well as hints of the architects’ megalithic design thinking.
A Kremlin’s Core and Meteorite Fragments
We continue our coverage of the competition projects for the residential district that the development company GloraX plans to build along the embankment of the Rowing Channel in Nizhny Novgorod. ASADOV Architects approached the concept through a deep dive into local identity, using storytelling to pinpoint a central idea for the design: the master plan and composition are imagined as if a meteorite had struck a “proto-Kremlin”. Sounds weird? Find more details below!
Contest Results
The Volga Regatta
GloraX plans to develop a residential complex spanning 14 hectares along the Volga River in Nizhny Novgorod. The winning design in a closed-door competition, created by GORA Architects, features housing typologies ranging from townhouses to terraced high-rise slabs, a balance of functions, diverse ways of engaging with the water, and even a dedicated island (no less!) for the city residents.
Object
A New Track
We took a thorough look at D_Station, a railcar repair depot dating back to 1906, recently reconstructed while preserving its century-old industrial structure, upon the project by Sergey Trukhanov and T+T Architects. Though work on the interiors – set to house restaurants and public spaces – is still underway, the building’s exterior already offers plenty to see. Visitors can explore the blend of old and new brickwork, appreciate the architect’s unique interpretation of ruin aesthetics, and enjoy the newly built pedestrian route that connects the Citydel Business Center’s arches to Kazakova Street.
Report
Four Different Surveys
The “Explore the City” competition, organized this year by the Genplan Institute of Moscow, stands out as a pretty unconventional one for the architectural field but aligns perfectly well with the character of urban planning work. The winning project analyzed contemporary residential complexes, combining urban planning insights with a realtor’s perspective to propose a hybrid approach. Other entries explored public centers, motivations for car ownership, and housing vacancy rates. A fifth participant withdrew. Here’s a closer look at the four completed works.
Report
Scheduled Evolution
ASADOV Architects unveiled the EvyCenter pavilion, a microcultural hub for fostering personal growth, organizing workshops, and doing gymnastics. Additionally, this pavilion serves as a prototype for a scalable country house, drawing inspiration from the “Loskutok” project, and constructed from CLT panels in a factory. This marks the beginning of a developer project initiated by the architectural firm (sic!), which is seeking partners to expand both small Evy settlements and even larger Evy cities, which are, according to Andrey Asadov, aimed at fostering the “evolutionary” development of the people who will inhabit them.
Object
The Golden Crown
The concept for a dental clinic in Yekaterinburg, developed by CNTR Studio, revolves around the idea of a “mouth full of gold”: pristine white porcelain stoneware walls are complemented by matte brass details. To avoid an overly literal interpretation, the architects focused on the building’s proportions, skillfully navigating between sunlight requirements and fire safety regulations.
News
Flexibility and Integration
Not long ago, we covered the project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential complex, designed by APEX. Now, we’ve been shown different fence concepts they developed to enclose the complex’s private courtyards, incorporating a variety of public functions. We believe that the sheer fact that the complex’s architects were involved in such a detail as fencing speaks volumes.
Object
A Step Forward
The HIDE residential complex represents a major milestone for ADM architects and their leaders Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova in their quest for a fresh high-rise aesthetic – one that is flexible and layered, capable of bringing vibrancy to mass and silhouette while shaping form. Over recent years, this approach has become ADM’s “signature style”, with the golden HIDE tower playing a pivotal role in its evolution. Here, we delve into the project’s story, explore the details of the complex’s design, and uncover its core essence.
Object
Gold in the Sands
A new office for a transcontinental company specializing in resource extraction and processing has opened in Dubai. Designed by T+T Architects, masters of creating spaces that are contemporary, diverse, flexible, and original, this project exemplifies their expertise. On the executive floor, a massive brass-clad partition dominates, while layered textures of compressed earth create a contextually resonant backdrop.
Object
Layers and Levels of Flight
This project goes way back – Reserve Union won this architectural competition at the end of 2011, and the building was completed in 2018, so it’s practically “archival”. However, despite being relatively unknown, the building can hardly be considered “dated” and remains a prime example of architectural expression, particularly in the headquarters genre. And it’s especially fitting for an aviation company office. In some ways, it resembles the Aeroflot headquarters at Sheremetyevo but with its own unique identity, following the signature style of Vladimir Plotkin. In this article, we take an in-depth look at the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) headquarters in the Moscow agglomeration town of Zhukovsky, supplemented by recent photographs from Alexey Naroditsky – a shoot that became only recently possible due to the fact that improvements were finally made in the surrounding area.
Object
Light and Shadow
In this article, we delve into the architectural design of the “Chaika” house by DNK ag architects, which was recently completed in 2023 as part of the collection of signature designs at ZILArt. As is well-known, all the buildings in this complex follow a design code, yet each one is distinct. This particular building stands out not only for its whiteness and minimalism but also for the refined use of a limited number of techniques that, together, create what can confidently be called synergy.
View
Casus Novae
A master plan was developed for a large residential area with a name of “DNS City”, but now that its implementation began, the plan has been arbitrarily reformatted and replaced with something that, while similar on the surface, is actually quite different. This is not the first time such a thing happens, but it’s always frustrating. With permission from the author, we are sharing Maria Elkina’s post.
Report
Treasure Hunting
The GAFA bureau, in collaboration with Tegola and Arkhitail, organized an expedition to the island of Kilpola in Karelia as part of Moskomarkhitektura’s “Open City” festival. There, amidst moss and rocks, the students sought answers to questions like: what is the sacred, where does it dwell, and what sustains it? Assisting the participants in this quest were landscape engineer Evgeny Levin, artist Nicholas Roerich, a moose, and the lack of cellular connection. Here’s how the story unfolded.
Object
Depths of the Earth, Streams of Water
In the Malaya Okhta district, the Akzent building, designed by Stepan Liphart, was constructed. It follows a classic tripartite structure, yet it’s what you might call “hand-drawn”: each façade is unique in its form and details, some of which aren’t immediately noticeable. In this article, we explore the context and, together with the architect, delve into how the form was developed.
Object
Fir Tree Dynamics
The “Airports of Region” holding is planning to build an airport in Karachay-Cherkessia, aiming to make the Arkhyz and Dombay resorts more accessible to travelers. The project that won in an invitation-only competition, submitted by Sergey Nikeshkin’s KPLN, blends natural imagery inspired by the shape of a conifer seed, open-air waiting spaces, majestic large trees, and a green roof elevated on needle-like columns. The result is both nature-inspired and WOW.
Object
​A Brick Shell
In the process of designing a clubhouse situated among pine trees in a prestigious suburban area near Moscow, the architectural firm “A.Len” did the façade design part. The combination of different types of brick and masonry correlates with the volumetric and plastique solutions, further enhanced by the inclusion of wood-painted fragments and metal “glazing”.
Report
Word Forms
ATRIUM architects love ambitious challenges, and for the firm’s thirtieth anniversary, they boldly play a game of words with an exhibition that dives deep into a self-created vocabulary. They immerse their projects – especially art installations – into this glossary, as if plunging into a current of their own. You feel as if you’re flowing through the veins of pure art, immersed in a universe of vertical cities, educational spaces – of which the architects are true masters – and the cultural codes of various locations. But what truly captivates is the bold statement that Vera Butko and Anton Nadtochy make, both through their work and this exhibition: architecture, above all, is art – the art of working with form and space.
Object
Flexibility and Acuteness of Modernity
Luxurious, fluid, large “kokoshniks” and spiral barrel columns, as if made from colorful chewing gum: there seem to be no other mansion like this in Moscow, designed in the “Neo-Russian-Modern” style. And the “Teremok” on Malaya Kaluzhskaya, previously somewhat obscure, has “come alive with new colors” and gained visibility after its restoration for the office of the “architectural ecosystem” as the architects love to call themselves. It’s evident that Julius Borisov and the architects at UNK put their hearts into finding this new office and bringing it up to date. Let’s delve into the paradoxes of this mansion’s history and its plasticity. Spoiler: two versions of modernity meet here, both balancing on the razor’s edge of “what’s current”.
Interview
Yuri Vissarionov: “A modular house does not belong to the land”
It belongs to space, or to the air... It turns out that 3D printing is more effective when combined with a modular approach: the house is built in a workshop and then adapted to the site, including on uneven terrain. Yuri Vissarionov shares his latest experience in designing tourist complexes, both in central Russia and in the south. These include houseboats, homes printed from lightweight concrete using a 3D printer, and, of course, frame houses.
Object
​Moscow’s First
“The quality of education largely depends on the quality of the educational environment”. This principle of the last decade has been realized by Sergey Skuratov in the project for the First Moscow Gymnasium on Rostovskaya Embankment in the Khamovniki district. The building seamlessly integrates into the complex urban landscape, responding both to the pedestrian flow of the city and the quiet alleyways. It skillfully takes advantage of the height differences and aligns with modern trends in educational space design. Let’s take a closer look.
Object
Looking at the Water
The site of Villa Sonata stretches from the road to the water’s edge, offering its own shoreline, pier, and a picturesque river panorama. To reveal these sweeping views, Roman Leonidov “cut” the façade diagonally parallel to the river, thus getting two main axes for the house and, consequently, “two heads”. The internal core – two double-height spaces, a living room and a conservatory, with a “bridge” above them – makes the house both “transparent” and filled with light.
Object
The White Wing
Well, it’s not exactly white. It’s more of a beige, white-stone structure that plays with the color of limestone – smoother surfaces are lighter, while rougher ones are darker. This wing unites various elements: it absorbs and interprets the surrounding themes. It responds to everything, yet maintains a cohesive expression – a challenging task! – while also incorporating recognizable features of its own, such as the dynamic cuts at the bottom, top, and middle.
Object
Urban Dunes
The XSA Ramps team designed and built a three-part sports hub for a park in Rostov-on-Don, welcoming people of all ages and fitness levels. The skate plaza, pump track, and playground are all meticulously crafted with details that attract a diverse range of visitors. The technical execution of the shapes and slopes transforms this space into a kind of sculptural composition.
Object
Proportional Growth
The project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential area has been announced. The buildings are situated on an elongated plot – almost a “ray” that shoots out from the center of the area towards the river. Their layout reflects both a response to Moscow’s architectural preferences over the past 15 years, shifting “from blocks to towers”, and an interpretation of the neighboring business park designed by SOM. Additionally, the best apartments here are not located at the very top but closer to the middle, forming a glowing “waistline”.
Object
The “Staircase” Building
In designing the “Details” residential complex in New Moscow, Rais Baishev spiced up the now-popular Moscow theme of a “courtyard” building with an idea drawn from the surrealist drawings by Maurits Escher. He envisioned the stepped silhouettes and descending slopes as a metaphysical mega-staircase, creating a key void within the courtyard that gave the project an internal “spine”. This concept is felt both in the building’s silhouette and on its façades.
Object
Projection of the Quarter
No one doubted that the building that Vladimir Plotkin designed as part of the “Garden Quarters” would be the most modernist of all. And it turned out just that way: while adhering to the common design code, the building successfully combines brick and white stone, rhythmically responding to the neighboring building designed by Ostozhenka, yet tactfully and persistently making a few statements of its own. This includes the projection of the ideal urban development composition “14–9–6”, which can be found right next door, mathematical calculations, including those for various types of terraces (and perhaps the only reminder of the Soviet past of the Kauchuk rubber factory!), and the white “cross-stitch” pattern of the façade grid.