water park "Transvaal-Park" (Moscow) Andrey Romantsev, Irina Pukhaeva

Passing the gallery

A photo: Evgeny Luchin

Text: Anna Vergasova

Architect: Irina Pukhaeva, Andrey Romantsev

Magazine: Nya (65) 2002

"Transvaal-Park" in Moscow Yasenevo (Golubinskaya st., 16) without exaggeration can be called an architectural project of the year. In early summer, the country's largest water park opened. The huge multifunctional complex (total area of ​​more than twenty thousand square meters) is unique for many reasons. But first of all, because such large-scale objects are rarely decorated by one architect and in the same style. As a result of an international tender, the conceptual solution of the interior of the water park was entrusted to the Moscow design studio Akant. Most of the water parks in the world when designing fit into a “living”, authentic landscape - in this case, nature turns out to be a “major player” and a self-sufficient connecting element. In "Transvaal" nature is in an artificial volume - a closed space, therefore an extremely important condition for both the customer and the architect was to find a capacious global image that would make the water park zones a single whole. Architect Irina Pukhaeva chose the mythology of travel as such a complete motive. Indiana Jones, Leopold Bloom, Aztec ruins and the Roman amphitheater ... The plot of adventure, overcoming obstacles and a sacred goal builds a coherent entertainment space. The antinomy of the elements and civilization is given by the asymmetric foyer zone: its right side leading to the rollerdrom - a night club, fitness halls, massage rooms - is absolutely neutral, while the left wing, behind which the water park itself is located, prepares the visitor to dive into the gaming environment. The motley columns are an ethnic element that opens the main theme of the interior. An abstract mosaic of colored ceramics on a massive white portico seems to depict cracks through which nature “breaks through” into the interior. The architecture of the interior of the complex directly imitates nature: the spiral staircase resembles a powerful funnel that takes the visitor to the lower levels - to the water zone, where rides imitate sea waves, and mountain rivers, and waterfalls, and quiet backwaters. Central Asian huts adjoin here with the ruins of an ancient castle, the chalk mountains and the body of a pirate ship - with the sharp mouth of the Dragon Cave. The theme of travel in different interpretations returns again and again. Naturally, the authors of the interior did not set themselves the task of accurately reproducing the historical or literary context, with such a volume it would have been impossible. For each zone, a detail was found, a bright-shaped element, causing a long associative array. In the Irish restaurant dedicated to the Dublin odyssey of Leopold Blum, this is a glass roof filled with shards of bottle glass, in the bowling “Temple of the Sun” - sculptures and carved columns from Aztec temples, who, as you know, were the first to invent the ball game. This is how an architectural environment is created, the purpose of which is to be a background and entertainment for a floating person for several hours.