По-русски

The Magic of Rhythm or Ornament as a Theme

Designed by Sergey Tchoban, the housing complex Veren Place in St. Petersburg is the perfect example of inserting a new building into a historical city, and one the cases of implementing the strategy that the architect presented a few years ago in the book, which he coauthored with Vladimir Sedov, called “30:70. Architecture as a Balance of Forces”.

Lara Kopylova

Written by:
Lara Kopylova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

24 December 2020
Object
mainImg
The Veren Place house is situated in the center of St. Petersburg, on the street that bears a “countryside” name of 10th Sovietskaya (I wonder how many hundreds of Sovietskaya (“Soviet”) streets have survived across Russia?), not far from the Nevskaya Clocktower, also designed by SPEECH. Back in the day, the ten “Soviet” streets used to be called “Rozhdestvenskaya” (“Nativity”), named in honor of the nearby Church of the Nativity of Christ built in the middle of the XVIII century, blown up by the Bolsheviks later on, and now being restored. Since 1990’s, there have been repeated attempts by the local preservation activists to rename these streets back into “Rozhdestvenskaya”.

Veren Place housing complex
Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


Let’s, however, start off by making a small digression dedicated to the “30:70” strategy (the book “30:70. Architecture as a Balance of Forces” was out in 2017; Sergey Tchoban repeatedly presented it at his lectures both in Russia and abroad). One of the most important messages that it carries is that a harmonious city cannot consist of iconic buildings alone – they must constitute no more than 30% of it, the other buildings playing a background part, yet with thoroughly detailed facades. These need not, or rather, must not be of neoclassical architecture; instead, these should be different variations of Art Deco, but other options are also possible. 

On the 10th Sovetskaya Street, which is not excessively long, there are two houses standing at the beginning and at the end. One of them, the corner one, iconic and modernist, was designed by Studio 44, headed by Nikita Yavein. According to Sergey Tchoban, this building is a typical corner dominant with an unusual floor plan and active forms. On the other corner of the 10th Sovetskaya, where it meets the Mytninskaya Street, stands the former Ivan Smirnov tenement (1902, designed by Andreev and Pavlov). Both houses occupy about a third of the street each. The land site between them was allotted for the construction of Veren Place. The complex is designed in the spirit of Art Deco, although with some clearly modern features, which means that the Veren Place building has joined the background construction of St. Petersburg, and the ratio of the houses on the street neared the 30:70 strategy. All the houses on the opposite side of the streets are tenements of the early XX century, moderately decorated and rather ordinary for their time, intercepted by a park at one point.

The housing complex Veren Place consists in fact of two buildings standing on a common stylobate: one unit stretches along the street, and the other stands almost parallel to it inside the block; between them, there is a private residents-only green yard on the roof of the parking garage. From the yard side, one gets through the glass grand entrance both into the hallway (whose design matches the overall artistic concept of the complex), and to the underground parking garage. In the cramped space of the historical city, the parking system features not a habitual ramp, but a special parking elevator. The house has 80 apartments and 45 parking places in it – this ratio is great for the environment. The apartment floor space ranges from 40 to 105 square meters.

  • zooming
    1 / 4
    The masterplan. Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: © SPEECH
  • zooming
    2 / 4
    Plan of the 2nd floor. Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: © SPEECH
  • zooming
    3 / 4
    Plan of the 7th floor. Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: © SPEECH
  • zooming
    4 / 4
    Section view 3-3. Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: © SPEECH


The outer building features a highly developed plastique with bay windows, characteristic of St. Petersburg houses. The inner building, which overlooks a mini park is without bay windows, yet with the same pattern structure.

  • zooming
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


The traditional three-part vertical composition of the facades – bottom, middle and top (a basement floor, four mezzanine floors and two upper floors plus an attic) – is observed in both buildings. And, of course, another thing that they have in common is the ornaments on the piers. Here the architects used a musical principle: the overall form is subdivided into themes that sound and repeat, developing and changing slightly each time. Both grand facades are filled with details, while the yard facades are more reserved.

  • zooming
    1 / 3
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    2 / 3
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    3 / 3
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


The main facade on the street side is organized by a large rhythm of three bay windows. The main thing, however, as was already said, is what this large form consists of, the themes and details. First of all, Veren Place politely bows to its neighbors. It is just as black and white as the house designed by Nikita Yavein (white top, black bottom), and it continues the wavy character of its neighbor in its trapeze-shaped bay windows, at the same time “calming it down” and bringing it to order. And the next tenement in line features bay windows on the corner that are even more austere and rectangular. The motif of two narrow windows that split the bay windows of Veren Place echoes the neighboring tenement as well. Such windows are characteristic for the Art Nouveau times; when they resurfaced in modern architecture, they took on a more austere shape. The other windows have a two-squares-side-by-side proportion, just like the windows of many other historical buildings in Saint Petersburg, the pleasant difference being that these are French windows reaching to the floor.

Veren Place housing complex
Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


The traces of classical order architecture, even if visible at all, are latently present: Sergey Tchoban believes that the classics is akin to the Latin language – however beautiful it is, limiting yourself to classics alone is like cooking meals from just one ingredient. In the black “granite” (actually, fiber-concrete) plinth, only a hint of pilasters in grooved blades is left. The windows are separated by smooth horizontal bands, and in this particular context it does not make much difference whether the window rests on the band or the other way around, the band serving as the top framing for the window.

Veren Place housing complex
Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


The design solution of the facade layers is indeed remarkable. On the one hand, the wall definitely has its plastique, layers, depth, and play of light and shade – all the qualities that a city house must possess to win people’s trust. On the other hand, it is not just an interpretation of the traditional wall. The layers are intertwined in a rather sophisticated way, making one want to examine them and take in the details. There is also a parallel with high fashion that occurred to me (with which Sergey Tchoban agreed), when it’s all only seemingly simple, but after you take a closer look, you find a lot of designer thought in there. For example, a simple black jacket features an unconventional construction – the lapel of the jacket goes into the pocket, as in a möbius strip: it was just an additional surface and suddenly became the main one. Accordingly, the facade of Veren Place has the wall level, and a level of frames superimposed on it: wide horizontal ribbons between the floors play the role of upper frames for windows (instead of a window casing), and vertical narrow rods become side frames (instead of pilasters). At the same time, these ribbons and molds are part of one surface, which divides the facade into cells. Some of the cells, spaced at regular intervals, have ornaments in them. The main surface of the wall, along with the molds, also flanks the windows. The outside window sills form yet another layer, which prominently stands out, accentuating the role of the windows upon the facade. As a result, one’s eye is always unraveling the riddle – where is the main surface, where is the secondary one, where is the protrusion, where is the depression, where is the background, and where is the frame. And this is just what Sergey Tchoban declares in his book: the human gaze must have something to hold on to. On the whole, what it ends up being is a shape that is harmonious and convincing. (Please read more about the efficiency of vertical windows in St. Petersburg in the interview).

  • zooming
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


The signature element of the building is the ornamental panel with florals, leaves, stars, and fruit (it is always worthwhile reminding the resident of a megalopolis about the Garden of Eden). A few types of repeating patterns in the piers look like “stone” carving, but in fact these are slabs of high-quality fiber-reinforced concrete about 5 cm thick, the depth of the ornament being 3 cm. In the comments and on social media people are discussing whether it is stone or not, which testifies to the creative success. The surface of the street part inherits the looks of the house at Granatny Lane, 8, which Sergey Tchoban designed back in 2008. In that house, the carved pattern covered the horizontals and verticals; the St. Petersburg house has more smooth surfaces, but the overall principle of ornaments, ribbons, and several layers, still holds.

  • zooming
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


I deliberately wrote about the semantics of the ornament, which is read by anyone, be that a kid or an old person, a man or a woman, a knowledgeable person or a layman, in a similar way. I have always been amazed at the sheer nerve of Adolf Loos, who more than a century ago denounced any ornament as an architectural atrocity and a sign of a savage, who is afraid of clean surfaces, despite the fact that magical protection is just one of the multiple meanings of the ornament, and not the most important nowadays, either. It is clear that there are other meanings – the connection to organic nature, flora and fauna symbols, the mathematical ratios within the rapport between the repeating patterns, and whatever else ornament may mean. Ornare means “to decorate” in Latin. Philosopher Hans Gadamer believes that the human need for decoration to be the source, and in some sense, the synonym of the beautiful. And in Greek, κοσμάτος (decorated) and κόσμος (order) are words that have the same root.

  • zooming
    1 / 4
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    2 / 4
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    3 / 4
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko
  • zooming
    4 / 4
    Veren Place housing complex
    Copyright: Photograph © Dmitry Chebanenko


And it’s just great that Sergey Tchoban consistently implements his strategy. He proposes not just case-specific solutions but a whole new path that can be followed by many. Since the time “30:70” was written, his company completed such large-scale projects as Admiralteiskaya Sloboda in Kazan and a renovation bloc in Moscow’s Kuzminki. The recently completed architectural ensemble VTB Arena Park successfully combines Art Deco houses by Sergey Tchoban and modernist houses by Vladimir Plotkin, this being the perfect case of a common denominator for both styles: modernism with a tint of classics and Art Deco with a tint of modernism are brought together through the rhythm. According to Sergey Tchoban, it is the rhythm, and not the classical order details that produce this magical effect on the observer – and the observer ultimately is every person of this city, and not just the resident of this house. The duality of freedom of expression and order, felt in the colonnades, in the repeating ornaments, and in musical constructs, yields the desired magic of rhythm that heals the spirit and the eye. These qualities are a basis of the human perception of the city. But then again, it is the architecture of Sergey Tchoban that consistently revives the ornament, inscribing it into the logic of the modern facades: besides the “Byzantine House”, one can recall Wine House, the corner building at the crossroads of the Leningrad Highway and the Third Transport Ring, and the signature housing project “Tsarskaya Ploshchad”, where the blade pattern also borrows the motifs of the carving of the Teremny Palace of the Moscow Kremlin. 

In other words, ornamental facades by Sergey Tchoban can be already lined up in a whole new string, an individual narrative that the author has been developing for more than a decade as one of the directions of his work in search of new modern architecture, which would fit both a historical city and its resident. 

Veren Place is yet another step in this direction. It picks up the rhythm of the city that surrounds it, and embodies, on the one hand, traditionally, by maintaining the height and the rows, the sequence of bay windows and the classical logic of vertical arrangement. On the other hand, one must note that the house is very contemporary – to feel that, it is enough to take a look at the tenements across the street. In such opposition, the house does not even look as though it belongs with the “seventy percent” of the rank-and-file construction: in addition to respect for the context, modern construction in a historical center requires a rather high quality of execution and materials, as well as clear and crisp outlines. And this house – bright, based on the contrast between almost-white and black, dissected with partitions and ribbed “flutes”, yet at the same time “wrapped” in bay windows like in an ocean wave – does not in the least look like a replica of its neighbors, but rather presents a sum of modern technologies and the author’s beliefs about the conceptual and emotional value of the ornament. It is this specific role – that of a building that balances on the verge of modernist and historical St. Petersburg, and dictated, probably, not only by the proximity of a relatively new and a relatively old building – that this house plays best of all.

24 December 2020

Lara Kopylova

Written by:

Lara Kopylova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov
Headlines now
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”.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
​Rays of the Desert
A school for 1750 students is going to be built in Dubai, designed by IND Architects. The architects took into account the local specifics, and proposed a radial layout and spaces, in which the children will be comfortable throughout the day.
The Dairy Theme
The concept of an office of a cheese-making company, designed for the enclosed area of a dairy factory, at least partially refers to industrial architecture. Perhaps that is why this concept is very simple, which seems the appropriate thing to do here. The building is enlivened by literally a couple of “master strokes”: the turning of the corner accentuates the entrance, and the shade of glass responds to the theme of “milk rivers” from Russian fairy tales.
The Road to the Temple
Under a grant from the Small Towns Competition, the main street and temple area of the village of Nikolo-Berezovka near Neftekamsk has been improved. A consortium of APRELarchitects and Novaya Zemlya is turning the village into an open-air museum and integrating ruined buildings into public life.
​Towers Leaning Towards the Sun
The three towers of the residential complex “Novodanilovskaya 8” are new and the tallest neighbors of the Danilovsky Manufactory, “Fort”, and “Plaza”, complementing a whole cluster of modern buildings designed by renowned masters. At the same time, the towers are unique for this setting – they are residential, they are the tallest ones here, and they are located on a challenging site. In this article, we explore how architects Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova tackled this far-from-trivial task.
In the spirit of ROSTA posters
The new Rostselmash tractor factory, conceptualized by ASADOV Architects, is currently being completed in Rostov-on-Don. References to the Soviet architecture of the 1920’s and 1960’s resonate with the mission and strategic importance of the enterprise, and are also in line with the client’s wish: to pay homage to Rostov’s constructivism.
The Northern Thebaid
The central part of Ferapontovo village, adjacent to the famous monastery with frescoes by Dionisy, has been improved according to the project by APRELarchitects. Now the place offers basic services for tourists, as well as a place for the villagers’ leisure.
Brilliant Production
The architects from London-based MOST Architecture have designed the space for the high-tech production of Charge Cars, a high-performance production facility for high-speed electric cars that are assembled in the shell of legendary Ford Mustangs. The founders of both the company and the car assembly startup are Russians who were educated in their home country.
Three-Part Task: St. Petersburg’s Mytny Dvor
The so-called “Mytny Dvor” area lying just behind Moscow Railway Station – the market rows with a complex history – will be transformed into a premium residential complex by Studio 44. The project consists of three parts: the restoration of historical buildings, the reconstruction of the lost part of the historical contour, and new houses. All of them are harmonized with each other and with the city; axes and “beams of light” were found, cozy corners and scenic viewpoints were carefully thought out. We had a chat with the authors of the historical buildings’ restoration project, and we are telling you about all the different tasks that have been solved here.
The Color of the City, or Reflections on the Slope of an Urban Settlement
In 2022, Ostozhenka Architects won a competition, and in 2023, they developed and received all the necessary approvals for a master plan for the development of Chernigovskaya Street for the developer GloraX. The project takes into account a 10-year history of previous developments; it was done in collaboration with architects from Nizhny Novgorod, and it continues to evolve now. We carefully examined it, talked to everyone, and learned a lot of interesting things.
A Single-Industry Town
Kola MMC and Nornickel are building a residential neighborhood in Monchegorsk for their future employees. It is based on a project by an international team that won the 2021 competition. The project offers a number of solutions meant to combat the main “demons” of any northern city: wind, grayness and boredom.
A New Age Portico
At the beginning of the year, Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport opened Terminal C. The large-scale and transparent entrance hall with luminous columns inside successfully combines laconism with a bright and photogenic WOW-effect. The terminal is both the new façade of the whole complex and the starting point of the planned reconstruction, upon completion of which Tolmachevo will become the largest regional airport in Russia. In this article, we are examining the building in the context of modernist prototypes of both Novosibirsk and Leningrad: like puzzle pieces, they come together to form their individual history, not devoid of curious nuances and details.
A New Starting Point
We’ve been wanting to examine the RuArts Foundation space, designed by ATRIUM for quite a long time, and we finally got round to it. This building looks appropriate and impressive; it amazingly combines tradition – represented in our case by galleries – and innovation. In this article, we delve into details and study the building’s historical background as well.
Molding Perspectives
Stepan Liphart introduces “schematic Art Deco” on the outskirts of Kazan – his houses are executed in green color, with a glassy “iced” finish on the facades. The main merits of the project lie in his meticulous arrangement of viewing angles – the architect is striving to create in a challenging environment the embryo of a city not only in terms of pedestrian accessibility but also in a sculptural sense. He works with silhouettes, proposing intriguing triangular terraces. The entire project is structured like a crystal, following two grids, orthogonal and diagonal. In this article, we are examining what worked, and what eventually didn’t.
An Educational Experiment for the North
City-Arch continues to work on the projects that can be termed as “experimental public preschools”: private kindergartens and schools can envy such facilities in many respects. This time around, the project is done for the city of Gubkinsky, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. A diverse educational and play environment, including a winter garden, awaits future students, while the teachers will have abundant opportunities to implement new practices.
Alexandra Kuzmina: “Working is easy when the rules are the same for everyone”
The subject matter of Moscow Region’s booth and presentations at Zodchestvo Festival was the concept of “Integrated Land Development”, and for a good reason: this task is very challenging, very relevant, and Moscow Region has already accumulated quite a formidable experience in this regard. In this article, we are speaking to the main architect of the region: about master plans and who makes them, about where you obtain resources for creating a comfortable environment, about her favorite projects, about why there are so few good architects, and what we should do with the bad ones.
The Cemetery: Inside and Outside
The workshop organized by the Genplan Institute of Moscow scored one of the two first places at the “Open City” festival. Its subject is reorganization of municipal cemeteries. Two action plans were proposed, diametrically opposite: one for the downtown and one for the suburbs.
Our Everything
Who is Alexey Shchusev? In the last couple of weeks, since the architect’s 150th birthday, different individuals have answered this question differently. The most detailed, illustrated, and elegantly presented response is an exhibition held in two buildings of the Museum of Architecture on Vozdvizhenka. Four curators, a year and a half of work performed by the entire museum, and exhibition design by Sergey Tchoban and Alexandra Sheiner – in this article, we take you on a tour of the exhibition and show what’s what in it.
For Mental Reboot
At the architectural competition held in 2023 in Novosibirsk, the project by GORA Architects – a pedestrian bridge leading to the town of Bor – was awarded the “Golden Capital” prize. In this country, more than a hundred pedestrian bridges are constructed each year. What makes the Bor bridge different?
Gold Embroidery
A five-story housing complex designed by Stepan Liphart in Kazan, responds to the stylistically diverse context with its form, both integral and agile, and as for the vicinity of the “Ekiyat” movie theater, the complex responds to it with a semblance of theater curtain folds, and active plastique of its balconies, that bear some resemblance to theater boxes. Even if excessively pompous a little bit, the complex does look fresh and modern. One will have a hard time finding Art Deco elements in it, even though the spirit of the 1930s, run through the filter of neo-modernism, is still clearly felt, just as a twist of the Occident.
Reconciliation
The restoration of the Salt Warehouse for the Zvenigorod Museum, on the one hand, was quite accurately implemented according to the design of the People’s Architect, and, on the other hand, it was not without some extra research and adjustments, which, in this case, was quite beneficial for the project. The architects discovered the original paint color, details of the facades, and studied the history of rebuilds of this building. As a result, the imposing character of the empire building, the oldest one in the city, and the differences of later additions were accurately revealed. Most importantly, however, the city got a new cultural and public space, which is already “working” in full swing.
From Moscow to Khabarovsk
This year, the works submitted by the students of the Genplan Institute of Moscow included a proposal for revitalizing Moscow’s “Pravda” complex with its structures designed by Ilia Golosov, landscaping an East Siberian town, located a 12-hour drive away from the nearest big city, and three versions of turning a derelict “pioneer camp” into an educational hub, similar to “Sirius”. Two sites out of three have an interested client, so chances are that the students’ works will be ultimately implemented.