designer Artem Levitin's apartment in the center of Kharkov Artem Levitin, Olga Chechelnitskaya

Passing the gallery

Materials prepared: Julia Sakharova

A photo: Alexey Reydalov

Project author: Артем Левитин

Magazine: H (76) 2003

Artem Levitin is a member of the Union of Designers of Ukraine, lives in Kharkov. In 1981 he graduated from the Abramtsevo School of Industrial Art (class Vesnina), and in 1989 - Kharkov Art and Industry Institute. In 1993-1994 he worked in the company "Piikok-design" in Leipzig, carried out design work for the firms "Duker" (Germany) and OMW (Austria). Since 1994, makes private and public interiors. Artem Levitin's design works are awarded with medals and prizes. Artem Levitin lives in the center of Kharkov. From the windows of his two-level apartment, facing one side, an unexpected view of the city center opens. Through the branches of fruit trees one can see a road going beyond the horizon, hills and small churches in the distance. The fact is that the sixteen-story house is built on a natural elevation, so the owner had the unique opportunity to admire the surroundings from a bird's eye view, while being 3-4th floor ... This is reminiscent of the "mathematical" jokes of the author of "Alice in Wonderland." Fans of Lewis Carroll will appreciate other similar "oddities" of this apartment, invented together with the architect Olga Chechelnitskaya. For example, here the top and bottom are elegantly “confused”, as a result, there is a study and a bedroom on the lower floor, a kitchen and a living room on the upper floor. Such a layout looks especially impressive in combination with a ladder floating in the air without a railing. Its oak steps exist without visible support and resemble shelves with a secret attachment, only located not along the wall, but across. It seems that the designer intentionally "confused" the plane, obeying the laws of a certain game. On the same wall hangs and this shelf, but already hung "as it should." Easy game of the author with the essence of things is perceived as an installation in the spirit of Dadaism. In this context, the “juggling” of scales turns out to be quite appropriate: in the small hallway the owner installed an overly large lamp and decorated the wall with a pattern of huge colors. By the way, it doesn’t contradict the essence of dada with Artem’s recognition that everything happened by chance ... And the apartment accidentally changed its top and bottom, and the stairs were simply invented like this, and magnificent craquelures appeared on the living room wall "only" because of the acoustics council plaster the surface of the walls. “At first, I had just a studio apartment,” says Artyom Levitin. “One-room housing is always multifunctional. But still, the main function of the living room and home theater was in it. I was planning to buy the same one-room apartment on top to place private zones there, but it didn't work out. The circumstances were such that it was possible to buy the lower apartment. So the study and the bedroom were downstairs. " The bed looks very unusual next to the stairs, so the designer marked the border between them using a sisal curtain that resembles a fishing net. Sisal is harmoniously combined with other natural materials: wood, ceramic tiles, rattan. And natural materials - with artificial ones: bent plastic, painted with linkrust with enchanting plant patterns, textured plaster. And this is not surprising, since everything is mixed in this house: scales and spaces, designer and ordinary furniture, wood painting and etchings. And everything seems to be accidental ... But how beautiful!