two-level apartment with an area of ​​252 m2 in St. Petersburg Ingmar Vitvitsky, Tatyana Nikitina, Igor Sergeev

Passing the gallery

A photo: Peter Lebedev

Text: Nikolay Fedyanin

Stylist: Vladimir Nikiforov

Project author: Ingmar Vitvitsky

Architect: Tatyana Nikitina, Igor Sergeev

Construction Manager: Alexey Solovyov, Alexander Kostenko

Textile: Daria Romanova

Magazine: N11 (89) 2004

In this interior, architect Ingmar Vitvitsky simply, elegantly and beautifully decided the eternal St. Petersburg problem of lack of light. In the living room, he built a reflective wall from a variety of mirror disks of double curvature. It turned out that the sun is always present in the apartment.SALON: Tell us how the idea of ​​such a mirror wall appeared? Starting to ask the author of this interior about the device of an unusual wall, we learned a lot of interesting things about mirrors and marble, light and color. - In this apartment, some windows are on the north wall, while others are on the south, so I had to create a trap for light. The idea was to, without creating obstacles to the passage of light, to catch it in various ways. I speak not only about the mirror wall and partitions, but also about the marble inserts on the floor, which reflect the light. Even the sofa in the living room has a “translucent” back: the pillows “part” and let the sun's rays through.S: At the same time, the light interior with white walls is a rather dark kitchen ... - The kitchen is the shadow side of the apartment. When everything is made very light, airy, a person should be the place where he can feel himself in contrast, in the antithesis of space. Then the whiteness, monotony will not seem intrusive, annoying. Mostly people spend time in the kitchen either in the evening or in the morning. I made the kitchen dark blue because it is the color of the evening sky: it seems to merge with the walls of the kitchen, and the lights of the devices are combined with the lights of the night city. In the morning, this color is soothing, it makes you get used to the bright light.S: As far as I understand, not only color and light are important in this interior, but also the very idea of ​​reflections? - Yes, the mirrors reflect a very beautiful view of the park and the bend of the Neva. While lying in the bedroom, you are not looking at the picture that will bother you in six months, not at the picture, which will bother you even faster, but at the landscape reflected in the mirrors, which is constantly changing.Ingmar Vitvitsky: "The work of the architect is to manage the mood, control the perception. For me it is important to create not only beautiful, but also a healthy interior in which it will be pleasant to live, to be nice to be."