apartment with an area of ​​410 m2 in the house of the last century (St. Petersburg) Andrey Kurochkin, Vyacheslav Valoven

Passing the gallery

A photo: Peter Lebedev

Text: Nadezhda Nadimova

Stylist: Tatyana Bakanova, Yulia Korzhova

Architect: Andrei Kurochkin, Vladislav Valoven

Magazine: N1 (79) 2004

The house where the apartment was reconstructed is a traditional example of 19th century Petersburg architecture. Its good quality and classical standards partly influenced the style of the apartment, not seeking to come into conflict with its architectural context. But only partly ... The architectural direction to which this work belongs can be defined by the word "eclecticism", while the term is interpreted broadly, not as a specific historical style, but as a way of thinking, implying a free choice of forms, plastic ideas and motifs drawn from the arsenal of the past. In fact, eclecticism gives freedom from any style. And in this sense, it fully responds to the aspirations of the creators of the apartment on Tavricheskaya Street, who are inclined to consider the style and associated ideas of decor, color, materials only as a means to reveal the "implicit interaction of things", which is called space ... An extensive communal apartment, located in the house of the last century, according to the architects, willingly responded to their invasion. The rooms-halls along the windows of the main facade, which are crowded with partitions and outbuildings, easily cleared and formed a volume of three rooms “strung” on one axis - the office, the main living room and the master bedroom. The rooms of the female half with windows facing the courtyard also form a space close to the suite. Compositionally, each of these two perpendicularly located suites is subject to the principle of symmetry - both have a large living room in the center and almost identical rooms to the right and left of it. Add to all of the above such elements as the colonnade with the opposite perspective in the lobby, the repeated oval motif, the complex curve of the living room walls and the master bathroom, as if arguing with the geometric clarity of the enfilade axis, and in front of you will be a modern Baroque reminiscence. The authors themselves do not conceal that the eclecticism of the apartment they created actively, though not directly, borrows the imagery of this particular agitated style, appealing more to the feeling than to the mind. However, the architectural decoration and the whole entourage of the apartment, its elegant decor, coloristic and exquisite light colors, strict, but elegant furniture give the impression of a more relaxed, “classic” in comparison with the dynamics, emotionality and even capriciousness of spatial volumes. This hidden duality of space and scenery does not give rise to contradictions, but, on the contrary, creates unity. And although the architects themselves consciously went into eclecticism from stylistic specifics (and above all from what is commonly called the "Petersburg" style), the apartment turned out to be surprisingly stylish and still "Petersburg".Andrey Kurochkin: "Our goal is to create a kind of" metaphysical "architectural space in which abstract laws of rhythm, harmony, and time exist, where stylistic preferences lose their meaning and remain only signs, behind which lies something more ..."