трехуровневый частный дом общей площадью 412 м2 в Подмосковье Sergey Bavykin

Passing the gallery

A photo: Evgeny Luchin, Alexander Gradoboev

Interview prepared: Irina Belobragina

Architect: Владимир Косенко, Sergey Bavykin, Наталья Смирнова, Константин Батаев

Magazine: N4 (71) 2003

The symbiosis of the Egyptian style and modern, created by Sergei Bavykin during the reconstruction of a completely ordinary brick house in a prestigious village near Moscow, gave unexpected resultsSALON: How do you characterize the overall design of the project? - I was faced with the task of reconstructing a typical brick house in such a way that it had its own style. Performing cosmetic "procedures" - repaint and direct marafet - it is not interesting for me. I offered the owner a radical restructuring. I liked the idea, and they allowed me to turn around both in the search for new forms and volumes, and in the choice of style. And if in the first sketches the house turned out neoclassical, then further it began to acquire new forms - an oval, a trapezoid, a triangle. And so, step by step, we went out on what you see.S: Is this the case when the owners immediately trusted the architect? - Still, some ideas about what you can expect from me, the owner had. After all, this was not our first collaboration.S: How can you define a style? - I think that this is still modern modern - the way I understand it, with elements of Egyptian architecture. The fusion of modernism with exotic traditions is usually organic and always fresh and interesting, because it is well known that architects of the end of the 19th century borrowed a lot from the cultural heritage of China, India, Japan, Morocco, Egypt. By the way, modern modern, or somewhat simplified styling for it, has been popular in recent years all over the world. Perhaps this is due, like a hundred years ago, a technological boom, a change of centuries, finally. On the other hand, the perfection of the newest building materials allows us to design forms of any complexity, work with lines, proportions! What attracts me is not the ornate modern, which is characterized by simplicity of form and plastic, but a strict modern based on the simplest geometric shapes.S: Why did you decide to combine modernity with Egypt, and not with Japan, for example? - This is the case. Once I, going to one unique exhibition in the Pushkin Museum, once again passed through the Egyptian hall. And finally I understood: how grandiose, majestic and at the same time harmonious was the architecture in ancient Egypt. I wanted to bring that magical aesthetics, not directly, but indirectly, to a house near Moscow. It was then that I finally decided.S: How did the idea - elements of modernity plus Egyptian quotes - put it in practice? - During the reconstruction, I added, or rather, attached to the house, separate elements-forms: an ellipse, a trapezoid and a triangle. Thus, an unusual terrace with a pergola and a faceted triangular bay window appeared in the oval room in the shape of an egg with narrow high windows, where the dining room is located. Separate from the house, but in an ensemble with a terrace, the pergola - the colonnade is also “added”, the function of which is to visually cut off the part of the garden nearest to the house from its neighbors. The configuration of windows has been changed: large windows have been converted into several small ones, which echoes the principles of early English and Viennese modernity - “more walls, fewer windows”. This gives the house weight - in the sense of solidity and solidity.S: How did you work with the inner space? “At the entrance, I designed an expanding space, or socket, connecting the front door and the central hall.” From here all the main zones "diverge": the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, and here the stairs to the top begins. Thus, from the hall all the rooms on the first floor seem to be perceived at the same time, and this creates the effect of a more spacious room than it actually is. The living room in the form in which it was before seemed an uncomfortable two-light space with a ceiling height of five and a half meters (with a ceiling height in the remaining rooms 2.80 m). To avoid the feeling that you are in the well, caissons were made on the ceiling, dividing the area into areas and making it not so “unambiguous”, and also a four-meter-high faceted stained glass window was attached. The semicircular column into which the fireplace is embedded is made according to Egyptian motifs: it is completed by a characteristic capital and decorated with rustic work. Another element of the "architecture of the pharaohs" is an opening in the shape of an eye, made in the wall opposite the sofa zone. About such "slit-eyes" I placed on the gables.S: Often, architects design not only the space - external and internal - but also create the interior. You only do architecture. Why? - It is necessary to clarify what is meant by the interior. If we are talking about decorating a space, this is one thing. If the task is to structure the environment, or, in other words, to create an interior architecture, this is another level. In addition, the architect’s responsibility is much higher due to the fact that the house is on public display and it is difficult to hide it from people's eyes - there will always be ratings and comments. And the interior, if it is unsuccessful, can be changed or not shown at all. To change the architecture of the house is a serious and expensive task. That is, the level of responsibility in these professions is incommensurable.Sergey Bavykin: "The owner asked me to change a rather ordinary brick structure, and we decided to radically change the architecture of the house. In this project, I tried to express my sense of Egyptian architecture in synthesis with modern architecture. : elements such as an oval, trapezium and triangle were "embedded" in the rectangle. "