The project for the Refurbishment of Casa da Escrita consists of the remodelling of the Casa do Arco, the former residence of poet João Cochofel, to house spaces and events related to writing – an open archive, writing workshops and temporary residences for writers supporting a broad set of activities and interactions between literary writing and other artistic creations.
The building is located in the old upper area of Coimbra in a dense urban set of predominantly residential narrow winding streets. The site area is about 1500 m2 and includes the building, the garden, a greenhouse and some outbuildings. The building area is equivalent to 1115m2 (gross area).
Diagram
The program aims for the contemporary reuse of the building, adapting it to new functions, while reconciling patrimonial and symbolic values with the present demands for comfort and flexibility. Without losing reference to the original space and the house’s atmosphere of comfort and intimacy, every room was restored or preserved by using traditional materials, such as wood, plaster, stucco, stone and tiles. All furniture has also been carefully selected.
The refurbishment‘s main purpose was to convert these rooms into adaptable spaces, with a wide range of uses and interpretations. At the ground floor, the building is divided by a street. On the South wing, new metallic staircases and a self-contained wooden structure (housing toilets and lockers) have been added. The North wing houses the main entrance, the bookshop and the reception. The new wooden staircase connects the main entrance with the second floor, where the library, dining, reading and exhibition rooms are located. From there one can access the garden or the South wing, where one can find a small flat for resident artists. Upstairs the loft has been converted into a single room now featuring the archives and three reading cells.
UPDATE: The news has now been confirmed. David Chipperfield Architects has been officially selected to convert the US Embassy near London’s Grosvenor Square into a “world-class” 137-room hotel, after the building’s current occupants relocate. According to a new report from AJ, restaurants, retail, a spa and a 1000-person ballroom will also be included in the design. The first images of the project have now been released.
As reported by the Architects’ Journal, David Chipperfield Architects has been selected in an invited competition to remodel the US Embassy in London, once the building’s current occupants move into the new embassy building currently being constructed in the Nine Elms. The existing building, a Grade-II listed design by Eero Saarinen dating back to 1960, is set to become a hotel after developers Qatari Diar purchased it in 2009.
The AJ cites anonymous sources stating that Chipperfield was selected ahead of Foster + Partners and KPF in a competition run by Malcolm Reading Consultants. However, they were unable to gain confirmation from either Chipperfield’s office or Qatari Diar, who stated that “a range of options on the best use of this important site are currently being considered.”
Rendering of Kieran Timberlake's design for the new US Embassy in Nine Elms, slated for completion in 2017
With the new embassy by Kieran Timberlake still under construction, staff for the US embassy are expected to vacate the building by 2017.
From the architect. We were confronted to a cultural-social equation: we, Brazilians, São Paulo based architects, got a commission from an American couple living in New York to design a holiday house in José Ignacio, Uruguay.
Starting point was to research the local constructions with the intention to capture common, regional traces. We found a strong contemporaneity, were unusual volumes slip into the landscape.
We were delighted with the legacy of Eladio Dieste (an Uruguayan engineer by formation, architect honoris causa) and his mastering of brickwork, a material highly popular and widely used in the past.
Floor Plan
We also observed our clients, Anne, French-American, determined, enthusiastic, beautiful, great cook, attentive and caring mother of Julian and Max (14 and 15), and Bill, her husband. In our short encounters she expressed her interest in graphic motifs, which led us to splash outdoor spaces with pergolas that, with the movement of the sun, would draw over the large walls an ever-changing graphic design in the form of light and shadow.
To the attentive mother who our client showed to be, observer of all movements, we provided a plan with minimum compartments, where the circulation through a walkway that runs along the house exposes their passers.
Metal inserts support this walkway, a large cantilever ring that surrounds and connects internally the central area, the living room, to the suites upstairs. The architecture transits individual structural solutions with varied materials. Brick volumes define the four main functional areas that result as a kitchen / dining room / suites. The enormous perpendicular volumes, designed towards the outside and with a single, very high coverage, define the living areas. The rooms and balconies are linked by two axes, transverse and longitudinal. The kitchen is huge, a playground for her owner, and probably future treat for the family´s guests.
In the decision of the primary cladding, we chose to honor Eladio Dieste and dressed up the house with bricks, which accumulated in a large cube resulted antagonistic, a monolithic mosaic, homogenized by the monumental scale of the walls.
The wooden pergolas and terraces that shape the facades explore the cantilevered solutions, except the large span of the west façade, defined by consoles, a more primitive technique.
The encounter of sky and prairie, blue against green, is seen through wide and tall openings directed to the outside, framing within this large voids the typical landscape of the Pampas.
Tonight, the “Pritzker Laureates’ Conversation”—titled Challenges Ahead for the Built Environment—will be broadcast live at 6.30pm ET. It will provide a rare opportunity to hear 2016 Pritzker Laureate Alejandro Aravena in conversation with previous Pritzker Prize Laureates, including Richard Meier, Glenn Murcutt, Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano, Christian de Portzamparc, Richard Rogers, and Wang Shu. The conversation will be moderated by Cathleen McGuigan.
The panel discussion can also be watched directly on the UN Channel here.
Near Montenegro‘s most southern town Ulcinj sits the former saline “Bajo Sekulic,” a completely artificial, man-made biotope which has taken on almost global importance as a crucial node in the migratory patterns of birds. As such, the Solana Ulcinj is the front line of all kinds of conflicts: between nature and culture; the local and the global; economy and environmental awareness.
The Project Solana Ulcinj, commissioned by Dijana Vucinic and the Ministry of sustainable development and tourism and curated by Bart Lootsma and Katharina Weinberger, is the Montenegrin contribution to the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of the Biennale di Architettura. The Montenegrin pavilion hosts four projects outlining four different sustainable futures for the Solana Ulcinj, developed specially for the Biennale by four practices: ecoLogicStudio from London, LOLA form Rotterdam and LAAC from Innsbruck, while a fourth project will be decided following a national competition in Montenegro. The project is accompanied by a series of three symposia in Montenegro and in Venice.
With a surface of 14.9 square kilometers Solana is one of the largest salines in the Mediterranean region. It is a completely man-made, artificial landscape which, founded in the nineteen twenties, turned into a biotope of global importance. Looking for lands suitable for industrial salt production, the Monopoly Management of former Yugoslavia selected the area around the Zoganjsko Jezero lake, in the delta of the Bojana-Buna River and close to the Adriatic Sea. At a height of 253 meters above sea level the plateau can become hot and there is a constant wind. These conditions are favorable for the evaporation of water, which is essential for salt production. Between 1926 and 1934 the first salt pans, buildings and machinery were constructed and in 1935 the first salt was harvested. Over the course of its history, the size of the area was increased several times.
The aftereffects of the last Balkan war, notably the international embargo related to it, the falling apart of former Yugoslavia and the political and economic transformations in Montenegro afterward caused the Solana Ulcinj to go bankrupt in 2005. The salt production was no longer protected by a state monopoly and the value of salt on the world market had drastically decreased, with most of the world’s salt now coming from China. Therefore, the industrial salt production the Solana had focused on was no longer profitable. The Solana Ulcinj was privatized and came into the hands of a few major stakeholders. Ever since, the status of the Solana has been unclear, which explains why it is in urgent need of renovation and reconstruction today. Its future is torn between the commercial interests of the current owners and the international pressure of conservationists, supported by the EU, to turn it into a nature reserve. The government of Montenegro tried to turn the Solana into a protected area by law but the decision was partly revised by the constitutional court, while at the same time the ownership of the Solana is disputed in Commercial Court.
The Solana Ulcinj is an unreal man-made artificial and abstract landscape, in which only a few machines stand out, which look like huge donkeys made of rusting steel. Far away, in the background, one can see mountains topped with snow. These are the only elements that define the place, forcing one’s gaze to focus on small or even tiny plants and animals. Some are only visible through a microscope or binoculars, but here, undisturbed by any other distractions, this is exactly what makes them fascinating. As such, it is a landscape with a high cultural value. More importantly, the process of salt production in a series of salt pans produces a great diversity in chemical conditions. This not only lends the Solana a great colour palette, but also great diversity of conditions for different flora and fauna. When the sea water is pumped up, small organisms and shrimps come with it. Fish and and other animals feed on them. This is the main reason that the Solana Ulcinj currently houses 250 of the 500 kinds of birds that live in Europe for longer or shorter periods every year. Of those 250, 70 are protected under the Bird Directive of the European Union. The Solana Ulcinj is a resting place for protected bird species on the Adriatic flyway from northern Europe and Siberia to Asia and Africa and vice versa and a wintering or breeding place for others. A special sight is the appearance of the Dalmatian Pelican and the Greater Flamingo. Therefore, in principle, the Solana Ulcinj meets all the required criteria to be listed among the most important protected nature reserves in Europe.
As the saline has been out of use since 2012, sea water has not been pumped up for a number of years, and there has hardly been any maintenance performed on the extremely vulnerable infrastructure of dikes, buildings and machines. All infrastructure for bird watchers, like a museum and the watch towers, has been destroyed. Poachers enter the area relatively easily and shoot protected birds. Pending definitive decisions, the Montenegrin state and the city of Ulcinj together have taken a series of provisional measures to avoid the worst, but it is clear that this situation is far from ideal for many different reasons.
The Project Solana Ulcinj addresses the Biennale di Architettura 2016 theme “REPORTING FROM THE FRONT” by reporting about this crucial project in Montenegro, which is caught up in struggles between the local and the global, nature and culture, tourism and sustainability, economy and the social realm. Project Solana Ulcinj wants to offer spatial strategies that may guide new syntheses for these conflicts. As the Solana Ulcinj is currently torn between conservation and economic interests, it finds itself at an impasse. It is therefore crucial to develop new plans for the future of the saline which are both ecologically and economically sustainable. The Project Solana Ulcinj takes the challenge to come up with new proposals of how to save the important ecological position and the unique cultural qualities of the landscape, while at the same time enabling and regulating economic interests in the area.
To generate a public debate in Montenegro, four practices are selected. All four of them represent very different positions in the field of landscape architecture and sustainable development. This will give new input to and thus enable to open up and speed up the decision making processes around the Solana Ulcinj. It will also stimulate the debate about architecture and landscape architecture in Montenegro and establish an international exchange.
The Cloud of Saline Species / LOLA Landscape Architects
LOLA Landscape Architects, a Dutch practice based in Rotterdam, wants to increase the current biodiversity in the Solana Ulcinj even more in their proposal “The Cloud of Saline Species.” They do this by activating and differentiating the salt sedimentation system in order to generate more life, more diversity of life, and new ways of experiencing the beauty of it all. They introduce more pumps in the saline and propose to pump up salt water all year, instead of just in the hot season to which the industrial salt production was originally limited. Their idea is not to produce more salt, as the Solana could never compete in price with Chinese salt, but to produce salt of a higher and more specific quality, which can be sold for higher prices. Therefore, a smaller part of the Solana Ulcinj would be used for this salt production, and it would use the latest robot technology for harvesting. The real reason for the year-round pumping is to attract even more different kinds of birds, also in periods where there are not that many present right now. These new species are attracted by a larger differentiation of the different fields, which entrepreneurs, hotel owners and farmers can use for different small scale leisure activities (bird watching, floating on salt water, mud baths) or production. The existing buildings would be redeveloped for leisure activities and only a few selected buildings and machines with specific functions (floating sauna, watchtowers, overnight stay cabins, etc.) would be added. A new path system, including new waterways, would make the edges accessible, while the core would remain inaccessible.
In the exhibition, the richness of the new, upgraded ecosystem would be demonstrated through a pyramidal cloud with 1000 laser cut contours of all species that could live in the new Solana Ulcinj, from microbes and shrimps through plants and birds to predators and finally humans. In this project, it is assumed that the (national) government of Montenegro owns the Solana Ulcinj, activates the main pumps and does basic maintenance, while encouraging and coordinating local private parties to take entrepreneurial initiatives for production or tourist activities, to increase the biodiversity and to improve the local economy.
London-based ecoLogicStudio proposes to take the artificial territory of the Solana Ulcinj, which was shaped in the twentieth century by industrial and mechanical processes, to the twenty-first century by means of the latest technologies. Their project “Solana Open Aviary” proposes to literally turn the site into an aviary without a net, where birds and humans can explore close interaction “without being forcefully enclosed in a confined envelope; this is made possible by digital bird tracking technologies, hi-resolution satellite earth monitoring and robotically driven land sculpting.” “Open” refers in this project just as well to open systems, open source technologies, and the “open” networks of sites defined by migration. The project connects all scales, from the intercontinental scale of bird migration to the molecular scale of the salt and other chemicals that define the special landscape of the Solana Ulcinj. On the largest scale, ecoLogicStudio shows that the Solana Ulcinj is part of a larger network of other salines in Europe and northern Africa, which go through similar problems. These habitats may be scattered over many different countries, but they are all parts of a larger project when it comes to preserve the global bird population and its complex migratory behaviour. Therefore, ecoLogicStudio propose that an international NGO, with international funding, should be in charge of these places.
In collaboration with ESA, ecoLogicStudio show the latest analyses of Sentinella2, a high resolution monitoring satellite, which can reveal biochemical processes on the ground and in the water. This reveals the Solana Ulcinj as a landscape that is inextricably the product of the combination of human agency and local biological life. Similar conditions to the ones that appear in the Solana Ulcinj appear in the surrounding landscape, which might enable to virtually enlarge the field of the biotope and thus increase its capacity. At the same time an increase of the range of activities in this area enables economic development on a local scale. The tectonic of the Open Aviary becomes literally a combination of the geological tectonic and human interventions in the skin of the earth. It becomes a robotically fabricated artificial but highly differentiated landscape, capable of attracting an even wider variety of bird species and accommodating all kinds of new programs, from research to leisure and from sports to healthcare.
Coexistence / LAAC
With their project “Coexistence” Innsbruck-based practice LAAC present an animation that transcends the current reality in a more poetical and architectural way. Together with the Viennese firm artfabrik, they have made a complete 3D laser scan of the whole landscape of the Solana Ulcinj. The digital material of this laser scan, which is incredibly detailed, forms the basis for a series of digital metamorphoses, in which nature constantly morphs into technology and the other way round, constantly blurring the boundaries between nature and artifice, suggesting the possibility of a coexistence of the two. Proposals for a new museum on the site and partial re-use of the existing buildings complete the project.
The fourth project will be selected from a competition among Montenegrin architects.
To enable an optimal exchange between the Project Solana Ulcinj, regional, national and international audiences, three symposia will accompany this fact-and-potential finding mission.
The first symposium, “THE BRIEF” took place in Ulcinj on February 12 and 13. Here, the participants in the project will be briefed by regional, national and international experts in the fields of planning, ecology and sustainable tourism. The symposium was open to the general public and it was visited by a crowd of local inhabitants, people from other parts of Montenegro and politicians.
The second symposium, “REPORTING FROM MONTENEGRO” will take place in the Montenegrin Pavilion in Venice on May 29. It presents the Project Solana Ulcinj for an international audience in Venice, addressing this years Biennale di Architettura theme.
The expansion of a 1970s Brutalist-style library in downtown Lawrence, Kansas has transformed it architecturally, reinventing it as a 21st century civic place. The existing library, designed by Lawrence architecture firm Robertson, Peters Ericson, Williams P.A. and constructed in 1972, was uninviting due to poor thermal performance, difficult wayfinding and a lack of daylighting and openness. Library attendance was down, particularly with younger generations. Through extensive community dialogue, the citizens of Lawrence voiced their thoughts and established key design considerations for the project, including an enhanced children’s area, greater access to technology and an emphasis on environmental sustainability. The citizens recognized the significance of the library’s location in the community and the opportunity it provided to establish a new “place” within the downtown area. Gould Evans responded with a design that addresses the changing role of the library: from book repository to multimedia community hub.
The design for the addition is based on a simple expansion diagram. A continuous reading room wraps the existing library on all sides, transforming it into a forward-looking, community-centered place. Each new elevation opens up to a different public constituency: neighborhoods to the west, the post office to the north, downtown to the east and a new plaza to the south. The new terra cotta façade is solid in areas where book collections need to be protected, employing long, narrow horizontal apertures to bring daylight into reading areas. Each corner is designed with floor-to-ceiling curtain walls that reveal glimpses of unique public amenities, including children’s cubby areas, teen gaming zones, small meeting spaces, and a coffee bar in the main lobby.
Three primary building materials were selected to work in concert with each other and convey the concept of a continuous experience for patrons. A high performance terra cotta rain screen is the primary exterior material. This was selected as a gesture to the historic red brick of downtown Lawrence while demonstrating a very modern application: its high-performance assembly helps control thermal transfer from exterior to interior. Clear-coated tongue-and groove ash paneling installed over the previous exterior walls of the original library form a continuous interior surface, providing warmth in contrast to the original painted concrete walls. An abundant use of glass opens the library up at each of its corners and via new skylights and clerestories, brings light into the core of the original library.
To aid in the goal of achieving a warm, open, light-filled and welcoming place, a new atrium was cut out of the center of the original library, connecting the basement level to all the way up to the new clerestory windows at roof level. A glass sculpture created by a local artist fills the atrium with a wide spectrum of color. In addition to stacks for books and periodicals, the addition and renovation provides dedicated areas for different age groups and places emphasis on community gathering places over silent spaces. New youth areas are organized around two main zones: a younger children’s zone and a teen zone, each with appropriately scaled technologies. The younger children’s zone has independent study areas, play areas and computer zones. The teen zone is similarly organized between print and electronic media. The electronic media spaces are visible to the streetscape along a main pedestrian artery, conveying the library’s identity as a 21st century facility.
Meeting and maker spaces are distributed throughout the library, adjacent to and in support of the other library spaces. One key space that has become particularly popular is the Sound + Vision Room: a community access recording studio complete with a drum set and instruments. Lawrence has an active music culture and the Sound + Vision Room is used by local musicians to make recordings, such as demo tapes. Within a few months of the library’s reopening, user visits increased 55% over the previous year, with youth program attendance up 160%.
A new plaza park adjacent to the library entry was part of the project. This park accommodates both library and community functions with an informal stepped amphitheater, an events plaza and support for an ice-skating rink over the holiday season. In addition to the planned events, the park provides informal space as an outdoor reading area and as a connector to the community swimming pool and the larger downtown area.
The sustainable design strategy for the addition focused on increasing energy efficiency via daylight harvesting throughout the interior, improving thermal performance via the terra cotta rain screen system, and strategic sun-shading to eliminate glare. While not tied directly to energy savings, the existing building and mechanical systems were re-used rather than completely replaced which reduced some of the embedded energy involved in building a new structure. The net result of these strategies was the library was able to increase its size by 50% while actually reducing the building’s energy consumption.
The building is in the LEED certification process. The building has recently been recognized with a Landmark Libraries Award by Library Journal, as well as the Honor Award for Excellence in Architecture by the AIA Kansas.
The search to connect with nature has been of great value to architecture, not only in terms of respecting and enhancing the natural conditions of a place, but also in creating a holistic relationship between the user and the space.
For the March Project of the Month, we recognize a residential project located in a unique landscape: the Tepozteco area in Mexico. In this project, the architecture connects with nature through a building that blends with the surroundings, while at the same time engaging with the setting in a unique way.
Selected because of its intelligent integration with its context, the project strengthens its connection with the surrounding environment through the use of transformable architectural elements, local materials, and autonomous water systems. This house, by the young Mexican office EDAA, emphasizes the importance of honoring and contemplating nature through its spatial interpretation and outstanding construction.
1. Unique Location
Casa Meztitla is located in one of the tropical regions of México, at the foot of the Tepozteco hill on a site which, due to its geography, has been divided into three terraces and two slopes with the aim of taking advantage of the views and not damaging the existing natural space.
2. Integration with Nature
The division between the built and the natural is almost invisible. The elements are introduced at strategic points, such as folding doors in the living area and an outdoor pool, increasing the interaction with the landscape.
3. Use of Natural Resources
Aiming to take advantage of the building’s closeness to nature, two strategies have been implemented in terms of aesthetics and function: the use of regional materials in the structure of the house and the use of autonomous water systems for water management.
The Museum of London has announced the six architecture teams that are shortlisted to design a new museum in West Smithfield. The international competition was organized by Malcolm Reading Consultants and has a budget of £130-150 million. The museum will help preserve and regenerate a historic part of London, relaunch the recently popular museum, and protect a series of heritage buildings.
Almost 80 international teams submitted proposals for the first round of the competition, with the shortlisted teams being selected by a jury for criteria that included relevant skills and experience on cultural projects.
The short listed teams, in alphabetical order are:
BIG (Bjarke Ingles Group) with Hawkins/Brown, Donald Insall and Gehl Architects
Lucy Musgrave, Director of Publica, and competition juror, said, “The site for the new museum is complex and intricate. The shortlist represents an intriguing range of talent, some fresh and inspired collaborations, and reflects the international significance of this competition. Each of the finalists in different ways has created great cultural places in cities around the world, and we’re confident they will do the same for London.”
The shortlisted teams will now produce conceptual designs, which will be exhibited at the Museum of London this summer. A winner will be selected shortly after.
The Museum of London aims to bring the history of London to West Smithfield and will display the largest archaeological archive in the world. The new museum is planned to open to the public by 2021.
From the architect. The project, located in the coastal town of Alcossebre, is part of a Strategic Plan for Tourism Developmet in agreement with the Polytechnic University of Valencia and whose purpose is to promote tourism in the area through small spaces, buildings and activities of design.
The intervention is in the Paseo Vista Alegre, a privileged way along the promenade. It aims to eliminate the permanent traffic street, peatonalizar the vial, and renovate the small tourist office.
The implementation of the Strategic Plan for Tourism Design has resulted in a series of specific works in the village with a global vision, renewing its image and enhancing the development of local tourism. It has created a benchmark in the city, which all kind of amenities such as restaurants, shops, etc … Design as added value of urban and architectural renovation.
Plan
The ultimate purpose of the action is to promote the area as a tourist attraction using ceramic as the main material. In addition, it gives a boost to the main industry in the region of Castellón, with a clear social interest.
Technical products Three different types of ceramics, with different thicknesses, formats, colours, finishes and applications are used:
1. A technical porcelain pavement was used for the Paseo Vista Alegre promenade, from Urbatek (Porcelanosa Group), that allows a moderate traffic, in 30×60, 20×60, 10×60 and finished in Black , Grey and White . The multiple combinations of sizes and finishes provide infinite possibilities, thereby generating a new urban fabric on the pavement.
2. The tourist office´s project is inspired by the Mediterranean lattice, used in many of the seafront buildings from the 60s and 70s. A white glazed ceramic lattice was placed, forming three semi-transparent walls of different length around the building, to give it more presence. These lattice walls filter the light, the views and the breeze, improving thermal and lighting comfort and offering a new urban landscape.
3. The third ceramic element was used to create an airy façade, like a second skin enveloping the tourist office, to improve its living conditions, and solve the aesthetic problems posed by current enclosures. This façade also purifies the air by removing NOx.
A total of 150 eighteenth and nineteenth century listed wooden buildings remain under protection in Moscow today. Modern city dwellers see only remnants of pre-revolution Moscow, which stayed almost entirely wooden until the early seventeenth century. This is one of the reasons why the Museum of Architecture and Kuchkovo Pole publishing house have joined forces to release a two volume set named Wooden Russia: A Glance Back From the 21st Century.
The first volume contains stories of expeditions and research projects studying the early period of Russian architecture, reports from open-air museums and articles on religious and traditional architecture practices. The second book focuses on neo-Russian architectural style, club architecture, Soviet intelligentsia dachas, and modern park buildings. Shchusev State Museum of Architecture researchers Zoya Zolotnitskaya and Lyudmila Saigina—experts on eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture—agreed to share the stories of ten wooden buildings which managed to survive in the centre of Moscow to this day.
Ostankino Palace
Location: 15 1st Ostankinskaya Str. Years Built: 1792-1798 Architects: Francesco Camporesi, Karl Blank, Pavel Argunov, Alexey Mironov, Grigory Dikushin and others
The first volume of Wooden Russiacontains an image of the Panorama of Moscow, an early eighteenth century print by Pieter Pickaert. The Panorama shows that at that time the entire city, with the exception of the Kremlin and Kitay-gorod, was clearly built out of wood. Although frequent fires were ravaging the urban areas, wooden architecture traditions persisted for a long time.
Wooden houses, cheaper and faster in construction than stone and widely believed to be more comfortable, were favoured in Russia. Semi-finished log cabins were offered for purchase at markets (one log market was located on a territory currently occupied by Trubnaya Square). On purchase, the log structures could be immediately disassembled, adjusted and transported to the site, where the carpenters put together the house in a very short time.
During the city manor construction boom in the second half of the eighteenth century rich stone houses continued to stand side by side with wooden buildings. Hoping to fall in line with the dominating classicism style, the owners of wooden houses tried to keep up appearances by imitating stone. The wooden columns were battened, plastered, painted and decorated with plasterwork. In Moscow, Kuskovo and Ostankino, two surviving eighteenth century palaces once owned by the extremely wealthy Sheremetev family, feature this technique. The Kuskovo Palace was build for the purpose of hosting receptions and providing entertaining to the guests of Sheremetev’s summer residence, while Ostanikino, according to the original intentions of an avid theatre enthusiast Nikolai Sheremetev, was meant to become a palace of arts. The middle section of the Ostankino Palace featuring three symmetrical porticos running along the main façade is made entirely out of wood.
An unaware person will hardly doubt that the palace is solid stone. Unfortunately, the limited service life of Ostankino wooden structures made the restoration process extremely difficult. The restorers used to joke that wallpaper was the only thing that kept the Ostankino Palace from falling apart.
Muravyov-Apostols’ Mansion
Location: 23 Staraya Basmannaya Str. Years Built: 1790-1804 Architects: unknown
Muravyov-Apostols’ mansion is a rare example of an old wooden building undergoing very successful restoration. In 1804 the mansion original owner, prominent Russian diplomat Ivan Muravyov-Apostol, ordered reconstruction of a small one-storey building sitting upon a stone podklet (uninhabited basement floor made of stone – Strelka). That was when the main mansion façade with a six-column Corinthian order portico stemming from a high arcade gained its solemn appearance. One of the corners facing the adjacent lane is distinguished by a domed semi-rotunda, formerly an open terrace. In line with classicism traditions, the building façade features large plaster bas-reliefs depicting mythological scenes. The house is plastered to resemble stone: the lower part of the façade is rusticated.
The house went through a lot of hardships in the late twentieth century. The wooden framework was completely run-down. In the 1990s the building housed the Decembrists Museum, an affiliate of the State Historical Museum. However, large-scale restoration was not carried out until the early 2000s, when Swiss banker Christopher Muravyov-Apostol, a distant relative of the Muravyov-Apostols, decided to pursue a noble task and fund wholesale house restoration. A team of experienced carpenters worked with dry wood delivered directly from Kostroma Region, cautiously replacing rotten logs row by row. The old vaulted stone podklet also underwent meticulous restoration. The interior work deserves special recognition: the original layout and architectural décor of the enfilade were preserved, as well as the antique fireplaces and genuine plaster bas-reliefs decorating the doorways. The restoration team even recovered fragments of the original wallpaper. Today the manor, rented to Christopher Muravyov-Apostol, is a home to the Muravyov-Apostol House Museum.
Sytin’s House
Location: 5 Sytinsky Lane Years Built: 1806 Architects: unknown
The Great Moscow Fire of 1812 destroyed three fourths of the city, with wooden mansions suffering the most. Sytin’s house was among those few wooden structures which managed to survive the fire and keep its pre-1812 appearance to this day. The house, originally owned by Izmailovsky Regiment Corporal Andrei Sytin, is very small – “nine axle wide”, as the saying went. The centerpiece of the classical façade features a four-column portico crowned by a triangular pediment. The Sytin manor has never been plastered: the paint was applied directly to the battened wooden logs.
Moscow classicism-era manors, even small ones like Sytin’s House, had enfilades of high-ceilinged halls, which usually ran alongside the main façade of the building. Bedrooms were customarily placed on entresols facing the inner yard. Façade plaster bas-reliefs, plainly too heavy for the small house, were installed after the 1812 fire. During the Empire style period bas-reliefs like these were offered for sale at specialised workshops.
The Moscow climate does not favour the combination of wood and plaster which distinguishes many older wooden buildings in the city. In the 1980s communal apartment tenants occupying the manor were rehoused and the building underwent restoration. Even so, today the Sytin House is in poor condition once again, with the manor’s décor partially missing. The building is currently rented to commercial organisations.
Shteingel’s (Lopatin’s) House
Location: 15 Gagarinsky Lane Years Built: 1816 Architects: unknown
In 1813 the Commission for Moscow Buildings was established in the city. The commission was a special administrative body created to help deal with the consequences of the 1812 fire. Any house construction initiated in Moscow had to be first approved by the commission. Its members pursued a goal of introducing a single style for all newly-built Moscow manors. All new mansions had to face the street with their main façade, and the façade design plans had to be met with the commission’s approval. The façade’s architecture style, its exterior décor and paintwork had to be selected in advance. Future owners could choose to speed up design and construction process by picking one of the standard options from the design albums. Although repetitive classical patterns and details were typical for the Moscow Empire style, diversity of post-1812 manors styles was impressive.
Shteingel’s House is one of those mansions which managed to keep its individuality. The house composition is centred around a stepped attic and a four-column portico. The columns are joined by arches decorated with griffin bas-reliefs in the tradition exclusive to Moscow.
The mansion was built in 1816 by Vladimir Shteingel, an 1812 War veteran, a retired colonel and—according to masonic symbols portrayed inside the house—a freemason, who lived in the house until 1825. Shteingel got involved in the Decembrist movement, accused and exiled, and did not return to the house ever since.
In the 1830s the house was occupied by Ivan Turgenev’s uncle, and after that by Generalissimo Suvorov’s grandson Alexander Suvorov. Later on, in the 1860s, the house was a home of Russian philosopher and psychologist Lev Lopatin and his family. The Lopatins were a prominent family: ‘Lopatin Wednesdays’ hosted by the family were visited by Tolstoy, Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Pisemsky, Fet and other notable guests. During the Soviet period one of the rooms inside the mansion was occupied by famous Moscow bibliophile, collector and genealogy expert Yury Shmarov. Today the house still contains a genuine early eighteenth century fireplace and a secret doorway behind a mirror, which allegedly led to an underground passage with an exit on the opposite end of the street.
The building has been restored and currently houses the Architecture Department of the Russian Academy of Arts.
Palibin’s House
Location: 21 Burdenko Str. Years Built: 1818, rebuilt in 1847 Architects: unknown
The manor was owned by collegiate councilor and drawing office director Palibin and was built following the 1812 fires in place of a burnt building. Unlike faux stone Shteingel’s House, Palibin’s House was painted directly over its battened wood exterior. Although the house is only five windows wide, its decoration works are remarkable: several avant-corps (part projecting out from the main façade of a building – Strelka) make the façade utterly expressive. It is lavishly decorated with meander patterns and reliefs, including ornaments depicting Medusa Gorgon, winged horses and lit torches.
Palibin’s House is a classic example of a mezzanine house – a supported added floor embellished with a semicircular window and decorative plasterwork. Luckily, during the Soviet period the house ended up in good hands: the building accommodated one of departments of a restoration workshop. Therefore the house has been thoroughly studied and remains in good condition: the façade kept its original appearance, and rarest fragments of genuine hand-painted Empire style wallpaper were discovered and preserved in the restored chambers.
Vasily Pushkin Museum
Location: 36 Staraya Basmannaya Str. Years built: 1819 Architects: unknown
In the period between 1822 and 1830 this house was occupied by Alexander Pushkin’s uncle, Vasily Pushkin, a renowned poet of the early nineteenth century, the author of the early Karamzin literary movement manifestos and a prominent member of Arzamas literary society. The manor was built in 1819 by Pelageya Ketcher, the wife of a naturalized Swede and surgical tools manufacturer Christopher Ketcher. The wooden house atop stone basement features one of standard façade designs offered by the Commission for Moscow Buildings. The one-story building with entresols was entered from the yard side; its adjacent territory included an orchard and several outbuildings.
During the Soviet era the house underwent repeated restoration. The latest restoration project returned the house to its original appearance. The building currently houses the Vasily Pushkin House Museum, an affiliate of the Alexander Pushkin State Museum.
Ivan Turgenev’s House
Location: 37 Ostozhenka Str. Years Built: 1819 Architects: unknown
In 1840-1850 the house, which at that time was occupied by Ivan Turgenev’s mother, was the primary scene to events later depicted in Turgenev’s short story Mumu. The Empire style house, a typical example of post-1812 fire mass development, was built in 1819 and featured a six-column portico, enfilades and seven front windows. The outer columns are paired, representing a typical element of the Classical style.
Following the 1917 events, the living space was redistributed and the house layout was altered to fit communal apartments. The tenants were rehoused already in 1976, and the building was granted to a sports organisation. Large-scale restoration of the building commenced in 2015. According to plans, after the restoration is completed the manor will be turned into the Turgenev House Museum, its adjacent territory will be revamped and Ivan Turgenev’s room will be made open to visitors.
Pogodin’s Izba
Location: 12a Pogodinskaya Str. Years Built: 1856 Architects: Nikolai Nikitin
Nikolai Nikitin is a representative of the Moscow architectural school of the second half of the nineteenth century. During the Eclectic period, which gained popularity after the Classicism era, Nikitin remained an avid practitioner of the national architectural style. Pastiche was a common tool employed by Eclectic period architects of both Europe and Russia.
Nikitin, together with Russian Slavophile and historian Mikhail Pogodin, were the first to introduce a Russian national style, previously exclusively used in the construction of churches, in urban architecture. Pogodin’s Izba became the first experience of using Russian national style in the design of a city building. The small two-storey house delicately imitates countryside izbas, copying their festive shutters, carved strips installed below the projecting roof slopes and other decorative elements. However, traditional izba features of Pogodin’s Izba are hardly applicative: the make-believe izba was built to accommodate the needs of a scientist and serve as a place of his meetings with renowned writers, historians and public figures. In the late 1970s-1980s the izba housed The Tale of Igor’s Campaign Museum administrated by Igor Kobzev. Today a construction company office resides in the house.
Porokhovshchikov’s House
Location: 36 Starokonyushenny Lane Years Built: 1872 Architects: Andrei Gun, wood carving by Igor Kolpakov
The house of Russian entrepreneur Alexander Porokhovshchikov remains one of the few surviving monuments to the wooden architecture of the last third of the nineteenth century. The house project was recognised at the 1873 World Expo in Vienna as the best application of the national architecture elements in house design.
Despite the Classicist symmetry of the façade composition, the architectural and decorative features of the log building are deliberately exaggerated. At the same time the carved frames, cornices and strips decorating the roofline resemble Russian traditional patterns.
Although Porokhovshchikov was of noble birth, he engaged in industry and trade endeavours. Pursuing plans to build revenue houses, the entrepreneur invited Austrian architect August Weber to Moscow, who later constructed Slavyanskiy Bazar building on Nikolskaya Street with its famous Russian national style hall. Under Mayor Luzhkov, Porokhovshchikov’s house was returned to a private owner.
Vasnetsov House Museum
Location: 13 Vasnetsov Lane Years Built: 1893 Architects: Vasily Bashkirov, Viktov Vasnetsov
The house where Russian painter Viktor Vasnetsov lived from 1894 through 1926, as well as a church and wooden houses in Savva Mamontov-owned Abramtsevo Estate which he helped build, were the precursors of neo-Russian architectural style of the early 20th century. Instead of focussing on the national architecture of the seventeenth century, Vasnetsov and his fellow painters turned their attention towards the architecture of old Novgorod and Pskov. Deliberate transformation of architectural forms and their free interpretation spawned visual associations with earlier prototypes, shaping the epic, fairytale like image of the modern creations.
This associative line is also notable in Vasnetsov’s own house project. As imposed fire prevention measures no longer allowed wooden construction in the city, Vastnetsov instead opted to rebuild and implement certain adjustments to the existing stone building. The house was augmented with a wooden tower crowned with the barrel roof, a traditional element of Russian church architecture. The tower, where Vasnetsov placed his workshop, also adopted elements of svetelka, a small bright room traditionally located in the top part of Russian terems. Vasnetsov also designed the workshop décor, furbishing the tower with wooden furniture and implementing the concept of artfully stylish, yet meaningful room interior. The concept was distinguished by high degree of theatricality, polychromic intensity and applicability of decorative elements – all characteristic features of the new style. Vasnetsov workshop became a part of the museum opened in the house in 1953.
This article originally appeared on Strelka Magazine and has been shared exclusively with ArchDaily readers. Find out more about the magazine, which publishes in both English and Russian, here.
Sig Nordal 