The White Tulip

Currently, there are two relevant projects for the Great Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, which was transferred to a land site in Admiralteiskaya Sloboda in February. One of them, designed by TsLP, was recently showcased at Arch Moscow. In this article, we are covering another project, which was proposed during the same period for the same land site. Its author is Aleksey Ginzburg, the winner of the 2022 competition, but now the project is completely different. Today, it is a sculptural “flower” dome symbolizing a white tulip.

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

16 June 2023

Object

Designing large-scale church buildings, especially timed to coincide with high-profile anniversaries, is rarely a simple story with a linear plot. Accordingly, the story of the Great Cathedral Mosque in Kazan, timed to coincide with the adoption of Islam by the Volga Bulgaria in 922, is putting on new details. The land sites and projects prepared for them keep on shuffling. In the spring of the anniversary year of 2022, a competition for the design of the mosque for 10,000 people was announced; then, in May, the amusement park Kirlay on the right bank of the Kazanka River opposite the Kazan Kremlin was demolished and the first stone of the future construction was laid there. In July 2022, the results of the architectural competition were announced, and at that time the first place was shared by the project by Alexei Ginzburg (a hypostyle hall of white lotus-shaped columns overlooking the public space of the square), and the project by Aivar Sattarov (a netted domed hall with four minarets).

Then, virtually without making any announcements, the city considered a few new locations for the construction of the anniversary mosque. Specifically, according to the 116.ru website, three locations were considered: one in the eastern part of Kazan in the Troitsky forest, one south of the Kremlin near the River Station on the left bank of the Volga, and one next to the Park of Newlyweds.

The third location – one in Admiralteiskaya Sloboda, on the cape where the old riverbed of the Kazanka joins the Volga – became the main one in May 2023.

For this location, two projects were announced, upon which their authors had been working – as far as I am informed – since February 2023. One of the projects was authored by the winner of the competition 2022, Aleksey Ginzburg, who throughout fall and winter worked upon adapting his competition proposal for other locations, and in spring came with a totally different concept for Admiralteiskaya Sloboda. The other project was by Alexander Tsimailo and Nikolai Lyashenko, upon which, according to the architects, they worked at the commission of the republic’s president, Rustam Minnikhanov. The concept was presented at Arch Moscow, at the “Architect of the Year” TsLP booth (check out here and here).

Alexei Ginzburg’s project was published on the company’s website in the first decade of May, and received less publicity. Now we are telling you about it. What the two projects have in common is the plot, the capacity of the mosque, and the rectangular platform on the water; then the differences begin: the first project proposed a black Kaaba, the second – AK LALE – a white tulip.

Let’s, however, say a few words about the location first.

The site is a rounded cape. To the east, there is a housing estate, north, there is Clara Zetkin Street, then, two kilometers away, there is the railway station “Admiralteyskaya Sloboda”. This place is essentially countryside, although the Kazan Kremlin is still viewable from here. The context here is not so much urban as of the riverside type: the Volga in front of the Kremlin makes a 90° turn, flowing from the west and turning to the south. In addition, the river is rather wide here – the reason for that being the Kuibyshev reservoir, located downstream in front of Ulyanovsk. After the creation of reservoirs, the Volga changed the shape of its riverbed in many locations, so there are its flood lands and backwaters here as well. Looking at the satellite images, one can see that the cape in question – the future mosque site – is 140 meters away from the Kamenny (“Stone”) Island that is partially flooded. And there are two channels of the Kazanka River, the old and the new.

Situated on such a water surface, the Cathedral Mosque will become the “gate” to the city, a landmark from the side of the river. At the same time, the cape should be viewable from the Kremlin, elevated on a tall hill.

“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Copyright: © Ginzburg Architects
“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Alexsey Ginzburg

The new site has completely different characteristics, and we understood that it would be impossible and even wrong trying to adapt our first project to it. So when we were asked to think about an option for Admiralteyskaya Sloboda, we proposed a whole new idea, which comes from the urban planning features of the new site. The building can be seen from afar, from the river as well as from the city – in our opinion, it should have an iconic silhouette that is easily readable and recognizable from afar.

That is why we offered the idea of a “tulip” building with four minarets: it correlates with the silhouettes of the most famous mosques; it allows you to make the main sculptural accent of the prayer hall volume; and finally it does not exclude the modern form that we tried to “mold” as being flowing and visually mobile, especially if we are to consider the building in motion, for example, when cruising down the river. At the same time, the symmetry of its composition works beautifully for representativeness and solemnity of the image, which is appropriate based on the anniversary meaning of the project and its significant scale.

So! The mosque is placed on a rectangular platform that is “rooted” in the bank part and protrudes in the direction of the river, forming an effect of a building that “floats” on the water, and picking up all the reflections you can possibly think of – the river is quite wide at this point.

The platform is embraced by an arched structure that does not obscure views from the plaza around the mosque, at the same time providing a rather austere orthogonal contour that puts you in the mind of the Sinan mosques of Istanbul – those are also built of light-colored stone, have a dome shape and a fence that ensures a confident distance. Inside of the platform, from the side of the dry land, there will be a parking lot; in addition, some of the earth will be built up and propped up by a concrete wall.

Unlike the austere contour of the arcade, the building is designed in the spirit of the approach that is commonly described as a “non-linear” or a “sculpture” house. Both the dome hall of the mosque and the four minarets are formed by large planes of light color with noticeable thicknesses – full of plastique, but not exactly flowing, as is sometimes the case with modern digital constructions.

You can easily imagine how these slabs are first flattened from sculptural modeling clay, and then are molded confidently and neatly, in a freehand manner, without any excessive dynamics. The architects make incisions in the “pipes” of the minarets, similar to the spring sprouts of some plants, superimposing giant petals on top of each other – for example, above the entrance. They “grow” the verticals of the minarets from a single “root” – at the bottom they all point toward the dome.

Meanwhile, we cannot say that the “biological” associations are literal, but rather that they form a vital energy, a kind of subtext of the form. Of course, we are facing a flower, but at the same time we are facing the sign of a flower.

Abstraction is further enhanced by the large form, generalization and, of course, the symmetry of the entire composition and the spiraling centripetal nature of the main volume. Minarets, paying tribute to the “root” center, then turn into slender verticals, hugging the rods of glass structures, glowing, like glass shafts between the “petals”.

“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Copyright: © Ginzburg Architects
“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

On the inside, the petals are covered with quotations from the Koran in Arabic; between them, there is a combination of triangles of structural glazing. Accordingly, here you get a hall that is well illuminated and permeated by natural light in the daytime.

“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

Copyright: © Ginzburg Architects
“AK LALE” Cathedral Mosque

The entire form – the white petals and the intricately curved glass structures – is an integral shell, calculated through BIM and based on metal structures (including ball-and-stick ones) that combine round and rectangular bars and hidden joints of structural stained glass frames. So we are not seeing a mass, as it may at first seem, but a grid that forms the desired plastique: both the petals and the glass form a single integral structure.

The symbolism of the form is obvious: the tulip is worshiped in the Islamic world because its Arabic name, “lale”, consists of the same letters as the name of God, Allah. Hence the frequent appearance of tulips in Arabic ornaments, especially in combination with the crescent, which also has the same letters as the name of Allah. The white color is interpreted as a sign of purity of intentions. All this creates quite a literal figurativeness, the transformation of a symbol into a form – historical mosques were decorated with tulip flowers, and here the building itself is a flower – which falls in line both with the anniversary sense of the construction, and with the spirit of modern architecture, where small forms are often transformed into larger ones.

If we are to speak about the contemporary architectural context, the project fully fits into it as well, as it develops the direction started by Oscar Niemeyer – the petals and stained-glass windows between them remind the Brasilia Cathedral (1958-1970) – and the trend continued by masters of neo-modernist deconstruction of the early 2000s. Ayvar Sattarov, the winner of the second place in the 2022 competition, author of the Kremlin’s Kul Sharif Mosque, cites an analogy to the White Rose Mosque project proposed in 2014 by architect Festim Toshi for Tirana city center (the project was not implemented, as they built the traditional “Sinan” mosque instead), but the similarity here lies primarily in the “flower” theme; besides, in the rest of the Muslim world the approach of sculpting a modern building out of sculptural “shells” connected by glass fills has been popular for quite some time. In addition to Niemeyer, the Sydney Opera House designed by Jorn Watson certainly plays a big role in shaping it. Closer examples include Paul Paul Böhm’s Mosque in Cologne built in 2017 (while this may not be the most charming building on this list, it is still a good demonstration of the variability of the approach) or, more related in form, the Bahai temple in South America designed by Hariri Pontarini (2002-2016).

In other words, the context is rather wide – “sculpture” buildings and “flower” buildings have been around for at least 60 years now. You cannot call this project hyper-innovative – but the idea behind it develops a modern trend that definitely makes it possible to create a bright and memorable landmark with a clear agenda on the river in front of the city.

Now we will closely monitor the development of the design process of the Great Cathedral Mosque – one way or another, this is a very ambitious project.

16 June 2023

Headlines now

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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.

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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.

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Domus Aurea

In this issue, we examine the “Tessinsky-1” house, designed by Sergey Skuratov and completed in 2023. Located in the middle of the Serebryanicheskaya Embankment district, at the intersection of its main streets, this house assumes a sort of “nodal” role: it not only responds to everything around it and preserves many memories of the former EMA factory within itself, but it weaves all this into a newly directed pattern, reconciling bright “gold” and dark-colored brick, largely with the help of the new, modern-yet-archaic Columba brick, which, come to think about it, is the most precious element here.

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The Chimney of Nikola-Lenivets

In this issue, we are examining the “Obelisk House” designed by KATARSIS and built for the Arkhstoyanie 2023 festival. However, it was only finished later on, and this is why we are examining it now. It seems to us that after the “Obelisk House” appeared in Nikola-Lenivets, a dialogue and a few inner connections appeared between the temporary structures built here. These houses no longer look like “accidental neighbors”, more of which below.

Periscope by the Bay

The jury awarded the second place in the competition for a public and cultural center in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the companies GORA (“Mountain”) and M4. In the consortium’s proposal, the building resembles a sperm whale with a calf swimming next to it or a periscope, whose lenses capture the most spectacular views from the surrounding landscape.

Contest Results

From Arcs to Dolmens

While working on the competition project for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, ASADOV Architects prioritized the value of the natural and urban environment, aiming to preserve the balance of the location while minimizing the resemblance of the volume that they designed to a “traditional building”. The task was challenging, and the architects created three versions, one of which having been developed after the competition, where their main proposal took third place. However, the point of interest here is not the competition result but the continuity of creative thinking.

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Hide and Seek

The ID Moskovskiy house, designed by Stepan Liphart in St. Petersburg, in the courtyards near Moskovskiy Avenue beyond the Obvodny Canal and recently completed, is notable for several reasons. Firstly, it has been realized with considerable accuracy, which is particularly significant as this is the first building where the architect was responsible not only for the facades but also for the layouts, allowing for better integration between the two. On the other hand, this building is interesting as an example of the “germination” of new architecture in the city: it draws on the best examples from the neighborhood and becomes an improved and developed sum of ideas found by the architect in the surrounding context.

The Big Twelve

Yesterday, the winners of the Moscow Mayor’s Architecture Award were announced and honored. Let’s take a look at what was awarded and, in some cases, even critique this esteemed award. After all, there is always room for improvement, right?

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Above the Golden Horn

The residential complex “Philosophy” designed by T+T architects in Vladivostok, is one of the new projects in the “Golubinaya Pad” area, changing its development philosophy (pun intended) from single houses to a comprehensive approach. The buildings are organized along public streets, varying in height and format, with one house even executed in gallery typology, featuring a cantilever leaning on an art object.

Report

Nuanced Alternative

How can you rhyme a square and space? Easily! But to do so, you need to rhyme everything you can possibly think of: weave everything together, like in a tensegrity structure, and find your own optics too. The new exhibition at GES-2 does just that, offering its visitor a new perspective on the history of art spanning 150 years, infused with the hope for endless multiplicity of worlds and art histories. Read on to see how this is achieved and how the exhibition design by Evgeny Ace contributes to it.

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Blinds for Ice

An ice arena has been constructed in Domodedovo based on a project by Yuri Vissarionov Architects. To prevent the long façade, a technical requirement for winter sports facilities, from appearing monotonous, the architects proposed the use of suspended structures with multidirectional slats. This design protects the ice from direct sunlight while giving the wall texture and detail.

Contest Results

Frozen Magma

A competition for the creation of a public and cultural center was held in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Three architectural companies made it to the final, and we consider it important to share about the work of each. Let’s start with the winner – the consortium led by Wowhaus.