Strictness of the form

The first impression of the new residential complex on Egorova street can be described in a few words: "Oh, really austere". It fronts the street with very simple 7 storey façade, from the inside yard it rises up to the 9 storeys. It is important that it is situated exactly along the border line of the site and so it looks large that it is. Facades, finished with rough dark-sand plaster, are decorated just by the glazed balconies joined into boxes with height of four storeys. Must say, this is one of Gerasimov's favorite tricks, and it always different: somewhere it masks the real scale of the building, somewhere, on the contrary, it emphasized it. On the residential complex on Egorova street these glass panels visually split up the massive volume into a number of relatively small sections. At the first floor level corners of the building are decorated with very impressive columns - behind there are entrances to the underground parking, but these supports are so large in diameter, that no one can see rampants making way under the building before the closest look. "I do not even call this element a column, frankly - says Gerasimov - they are just cylinders. The building was designed considering the nearby constructivist buildings of Obvodnoi Kanal and like them it is a combination of pure geometric shapes - square, parallelepiped and cylinder".

author: Anna Martovitskaya

http://agency.archi.ru/agency/eng/news_current.html?nid=27677