workshop of architect Nina Prudnikova (Moscow) Nina Prudnikova, Philip Yushin

Passing the gallery

A photo: Dmitry Livshits

Interview prepared: Oksana Kashenko

Stylist: Eka Frampol

Architect: Nina Prudnikova, Philip Yushin

Magazine: N4 (93) 2005

There is a category of happy people whose work space is not called a workshop, a laboratory, or an office. And wears a cozy and at the same time proud name "workshop". This word itself says that a respected person, a master, lives and works here. And often it is the workshop, not the house, that truly reveals the soul of its owner. The architect Nina Prudnikova tells about her new workshop.Nina Prudnikova: The workshop is a synonym for the artist's life. Although I am an architect, but in the soul is an artist, and the artist needs a workshop. Here you can think, communicate with people, make friends. The word "office" is foreign, it was not used before. I love the word "workshop". In my youth, I often went to visit my friends, artists and architects ... And now for me the workshop is the second home.SALON: What is your furniture here! English? - Not all. Here is a typical English chair, which is usually placed by the fireplace. Look, he has such big elephant ears, they keep a microclimate around him, an aura. The man is sitting by the fireplace, it is cold around, and he is warm. And the color of the chair is purely English: dark green cell on a terracotta background. In general, my love for England is immutable and infinite. This does not mean that we only do English interiors, but we give the privilege to the English style.S: What high doors! “Philip and I designed the doors ourselves, everything, right down to the hinges with the little animals.” Here, the height of the ceilings allowed the doors to be made huge, and to decorate the ceiling with stucco and beautiful cornices. Just like in old Moscow houses. In the living room we have painting and photography. I am madly in love with old apartments of famous people who have now become museum apartments, where photos of relatives, friends, etc. are always presented. We have little cultivated. Although I would now begin to thoroughly develop this theme in our interiors. You take interesting old photographs and hang them on one of the walls (here, by the way, photos of all my relatives).S: Previously, this technique was used for offices, and your photos are hanging in the living room. Why? - Having traveled to different countries, I came to the conclusion that there are no canons at all. There are no such rules that only plates should be hanged in the living room, and from paintings only still lifes are allowed, but in the study only portraits and photographs can be made. I believe that you can mix anything.S: Furniture is also a concern? - Well, of course! Like and put. I believe that freedom must be everywhere. So I was recently visiting in France in the same apartment. The owners travel a lot and collect collections of various things that are arranged without any principle. But to be in this house is very interesting, because you see: the life of people beats with a key, it is filled with ideas and events. An apartment that is made as if bought in a store is dead! So you asked why photos do not hang in the office? And in my office there is no suitable wall, but there is in the living room, so I hung them here. I believe that the more you break the canons, the more lively and better housing becomes. The canons are fed up. Who came up with them?S: Nina, tell me, isn't this slyness? You are very good at canons and can afford to break them, knowing where to break. Our readers should not do that, right? - That's right, harmony is necessary to observe. And the customer himself can not do this. But I'm talking more about the other. I say that the architect feels like you can do in this particular case, but it is the customer who clogs his head with canons, and completely contrived. Here, for example: in the bedroom should be a bed, a bedside table and a light bulb on the bedside table. And to give up the idea that the bedside table is needed, the customer is very difficult, it is beyond his strength. Although it is clear that the bedroom can be without a bedside table ... Everything that you see here was collected, so to speak, from what it was. They brought something from the old workshop, invented something, bought something. Everyone likes cozy. That is, our task is just to make a grotto for the customer, a cozy mink, where he would feel comfortable. Do you know how I made my first apartment for myself? I was a student. I remember, then a very good Portuguese port was brought to Moscow, the drawers from which were made of good quality wood. Not from plywood. Midnight, I dragged these boxes into my one-room apartment, which I wanted to somehow furnish in a designer style. She piled the whole house with drawers. Then she didn’t get out of the apartment for a week: knocked a wall for herself, then a table (drawers, and a door instead of a tabletop), then something else. So I made the whole apartment out of the boxes. It looked beautiful! The inscriptions on them were so graphic! Friends ran up, all praise, say: "Nina! What is your apartment!" And you talk about canons ...Nina Prudnikova: "I came to the conclusion that there are no canons at all. The more you break the canons, the more lively and better housing becomes. I'm sure the apartment should be alive. The apartment, which is made as if bought in a store, is dead!"