квартира общей площадью 92 м2 Levon Airapetov, Karen Avakov

Passing the gallery

A photo: Zinon Rasudinov

Text: Lyudmila Fedorova

Architect: Levon Airapetov, Karen Avakov

Magazine: N5 (10) 1996

Having crossed the threshold of this apartment, you do not immediately believe that you are not in a fantastic maze, but in an ordinary living space. Unfortunately, from photographs one can make only a very rough idea of ​​this interior, as in a complex, multidimensional space unexpected new views open up every second. So without a detailed guide in traveling through the maze of an apartment is not enough. And the genre of such a guide will be closest to the detective ... Even from the hallway, the apartment is seen through, diagonally: a corner of the living room with a bar, then, through an opening in the living room wall, a section of the wall in the sofa room and, finally, a piece of the master's office with a window. However, it is not possible to enter the office in a straight line. Having made two or three steps in his direction and noticing the jumble of corners on the right (they are formed by several halls flowing into each other), we are forced to deviate from the direction of the diagonal in order to go around the bar. And here we find ourselves already in the living room, in the center of which is a transparent round table, “reflected” by a circle of light bulbs on the ceiling. We are trying to understand where the passage to the office has gone, but instead of it, through the “breach” in the walls we see a sofa, which is actually part of the living room. With caution bypassing sharp corners, at some point in the gap between the wall and the curved bar counter we notice a piece of the kitchen that is immediately hidden. And we find ourselves in the space between the office of the hostess and the sofa. Having finally reached the cabinet, we find out that its two walls do not merge. It is impossible to pass into the formed gap, but it is possible to glance. We look in and understand that there is a living room, from which we have just come. But having turned his back to the window (the same one seen from the hallway), we are relieved to see that we can move in a straight line. Past the couch - to the bedroom hostess. Adjacent to it is a guest bathroom, polygonal, like all rooms. The bedroom is the only room in the apartment in the usual sense, that is, isolated from the common space. Through the sliding mirrored door from here you can get to the master bathroom, however, because of its impressive size, it should be called the bathroom. Bedroom and bathroom with a simulator - the most inhabited rooms. Not without regret leaving them, we get into the very cluster of corners, which were frightened at the very beginning. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that these are several small halls - in front of the bedroom, sofa and kitchen - which converge with each other. And, finally, returning to the hallway, we find the kitchen, also glimpsed already seen. When the initial shock gives way to a little nervous curiosity, you begin to realize that behind a chaotic at first glance jumble of corners, protrusions, broken lines is some author's idea. All space — fantastic, flowing from one form to another, as if in a dream — is subject to undoubted logic, to a single center. The author of the interior, calm and balanced in nature, in architecture, by his own admission, is a supporter of the most courageous experiments, violation of all norms. Not afraid of this, the customer, a girl with a European mindset, who did not intend to start a family (at least in the near future), put at her disposal her own apartment. Perhaps the reason was the relationship of souls, perhaps - the desire to shock guests. The result, at least, met all expectations: it is an example of what an architect’s unbridled imagination can turn into a rectangle of 92 m². The creation of the interior was preceded by an image born in the imagination of the author. More precisely, there were two images at once, they are clearly traced in the plan: this is a spear stuck into the old structure, and a bird that flew into a cage and broke it. Many difficulties arose with the technical embodiment of the plan, as the house is old, and there were screeds in the pierced main walls. The silhouette of the spear-bird is outlined by the curved line of the bar, the broken outlines of the walls; it is embossed on the ceiling, accentuated with halogen spotlights, black tile highlighted on the floor. Internal movement of space, perceptible in every corner and nook of the interior, is directed to the tip of the spear, which falls on the hostess's office. This center, which opens from unexpected openings in the walls, is invariably returned to the viewer. The image of an apartment varies between illusion and certainty, logic and hoax, balance and deviations from it. The walls themselves are no more than a decoration, suddenly breaking off - these gaps are emphasized by the lighting - and not reaching the ceiling, so that it seems floating in the air. Of course, not everyone, even among those who consider themselves an opponent of stereotypes, can live in such a phantasmagoric apartment, although it is functionally quite suitable for housing. Despite the unusual shape, all the rooms correspond to their purpose: familiar housewives can gather in the living room, the bedroom is quite suitable for sleeping, and the office, respectively, for work (provided that there is no one else in the apartment). Based on the experience of avant-garde art of the twentieth century, the architect offers the customer a completely extraordinary apartment-experiment. However, the destruction of stereotypes is not an end in itself, not the result of the artist’s unrestrained self-expression. On the contrary, it is entirely subordinated to a specific task - the creation of a modern interior, where aesthetic extravagance would be combined with practicality and comfort.