apartment (88 m2) in St. Petersburg Yakov Voloshin, Vladimir Chuvashev, Anton Golovin

Passing the gallery

Text: Olga Gvozdeva

A photo: Peter Lebedev

Project author: Yakov Voloshin

Architect: Vladimir Anatolyevich Chuvashev, Anton Golovin

Painting, graphics: Ivan Govorkov, Elena Gubanova

Finishing work: Evgeny Stepantsev

Builder: Oleg Vasiliev

Magazine: N5 (72) 2003

Here is a new, just built building, unexpected for restrained Petersburgers with the expressiveness of the facade. And yet there is something that allows you to put these two apartments in one - very nice - row. This is a special light aura - a sense of space, where, it seems, temporal and physical boundaries are overcome. It should be noted that an apartment in St. Petersburg is not for Natasha, her mistress, a place of permanent residence. Here she stops, arriving in St. Petersburg on business. And since this happens quite often, the apartment “feels” like a real home, with the only difference that it is freed from some burdensome functions of a permanent home. It is possible to call it a flat- "accessory", and, as you know, special requirements are placed on the accessory. The choice of style was decisively influenced by the original layout of the apartment (it was impossible to create a classic interior in a space of such a complex configuration). However, when buying real estate, the most attention was paid not at all to planning, but to the view from the windows: the hostess purposefully searched for the house with windows to the Gulf of Finland. During the reconstruction this feature of the apartment was emphasized. In particular, they increased the windows in the living room - now they occupy the entire wall from floor to ceiling. The same purpose is served by the inclusion of a warmed loggia into the living space: in good weather, the doors open wide and the loggia becomes an extension of the interior. In order for the small dimensions of the apartment to be less noticeable, the space is “opened up” as much as possible, retaining the internal partitions only where they are functionally needed. Through holes in the walls multiply the number of species points. White color, which psychologists consider the most difficult for perception, here, on the contrary, acquires unusual emotionality. In combination with soft lighting, the dominant white background increases the real dimensions of the space, "blurring" its boundaries. Even the curtains on the windows are involved in this visual game, turning from trivial gas curtains into a ghostly likeness of the Neva fog. And yet the emotion of the interior is strictly metered. In the living room it is balanced by bright spots of painting, in the bedroom the white color is “compensated” by the dark tone of the tree. But even here there are no compromises. The apartment- “accessory” does not allow itself compromises at all; it affects everything - the choice of brands, finishing materials, works of art. They are few, but every object, texture, color shade matters. Rearrange furniture in this apartment is unthinkable. Cold Nordic temper makes it look like a three-dimensional copy of the prototype created in AutoCAD. And the question arises involuntarily: perhaps the computer, having defeated the drawing board, has already irrevocably taken up positions in our real space? ..Yakov Voloshin: “We wanted to maximally“ uncover ”the interior and divert attention from some of the basic layout flaws that could not be dealt with, such as a low doorway, for example. , which is a visual continuation of the living room, and through openings in the walls. It turned out a neutral, light apartment. "