House in Kovensky pereulok, St Petersburg

by Vladimir Frolov

http://projectbaltia.com/archive-ru/5696

The house designed by Yevgeny Gerasimov consists of two blocks - a residential part, which overlooks Kovensky pereulok, and an office block, which is set back in the depths of the site, leaving a small open area in front of it. The space which has been created in this way opens up a view onto the side facade of the neigbouring building - the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Lourdes, which was erected to a design by Leonty Benois and Maryan Peretyatkovich in 1909. According to the architects of the new building, their idea was to create a "tranquil background for the church" while imparting to the design a distinctive quality of its own. The pursuit of these two objectives (contextuality and distinctiveness of design) has predetermined the project's strengths and weaknesses. The residential block, which stands on the street edge, follows the ‘Berlin' design code: it has a grid of identical elongated windows, no hierarchy of any kind on the facade or differences in the treatment of the storeys (with the exception of the first storey), extremely high-quality cladding in the form of natural stone (Jurassic marble), and no cornice. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of this building, however, is the meagre and elegant décor; the repeating heraldic details in the spaces between the windows refer to French medieval architecture (a semantic link with Benois and Peretyatkovich's Romanesque architecture). The light-coloured marble of the residential building contrasts with the dark granite of its neighbour. The neutral facade pattern of Gerasimov's building creates a favourable background for the delicate play of the volumes and textures of the church. The second, office, block, although clad with the same material as the residential block, has been treated in an entirely different way. First, it is considerably higher - and its façade extends behind the roof of its fellow building. Secondly, the entrance is in the form of a gigantic glazed portal (evidently intended to underline the building's function as a business centre). Finally, the rhythm of the windows has been deliberately disrupted (a clear ‘Hollandism'); and, in addition to the vertical windows, there are also horizontal ones. There can be no doubt that it is this part of the building which is intended to give this address its original character. But in actual fact the residential block seems considerably more distinctive; it shows that the Petersburg interpretation of the Berlin facade may be absolutely convincing and to a certain extent even surpass the original (through its treatment of the detailing, when account is taken of the genius loci). Finally, another controversial point is the clear space before the façade of the office block. The church's side wall, which is now visible to passers-by, was evidently not intended to be shown in this way and was built on the assumption that it would have another building standing next to it as a continuation of the street edge. One has to think that Gerasimov (and the client) should have designed their building with this in mind, following the usual layout of a house and courtyard in St Petersburg; incidentally, the irregular façade and the scale of the office block would have seemed much more apt had this been the case. Nevertheless, Gerasimov's project in Kovensk pereulok shows how it is possible in St Petersburg to build architecture which is true to both the past and the present. It remains now to take a further step away from Postmodernism with its relativist eclecticism and love for ‘complexities and contradictions'. God is in appropriate detailing. And in unity of composition.