Guests often come to this apartment. Colleagues of the hostess are visiting, they are also friends; friendly conversation smoothly flows into a conversation about purely professional problems. Guests are arranged on a canape or in a chair, who wants both where he wants. This does not interfere with communication ... All routes of movement of the hostess between the kitchen and living room are viewed from anywhere in the space. Video equipment was self-proclaimed in the chimney niche; the dancing flame of the hearth does not attract the attention of our contemporaries as much as the magic TV screen. No, pathos is inappropriate here: the hostess and her interlocutors judge television from the inside, from a high bell tower of professionals. However, if you are on business, it is not necessary to sit long at a party for a long time. For a short business conversation, the cabinet is more suitable than the living room - and it is available here. With a desk, on which a typewriter, fax machine and other necessary things, with the soothing twilight of the solid size of the aquarium with fish and turtles. With a certain coldness, which allows, observing the rules of politeness, to maintain a distance. Each room in this house is conceived as the dominance of its own, very special mood. Light, open living room, dryish and practical office. And of course, the bedroom most distant from the front door, hidden from noise and prying eyes. Heavy, a little stuffy twilight - as if falling flat on a thick quilt. Dark curtains. Whimsical, somewhat mannered wallpaper pattern. If you set a goal, it is here that you should look for the key to the character of the hostess, her inclinations and weaknesses. However, we already rather unceremoniously invaded the privacy of others. Let's return to the living room, to our favorite canape.Plastic and depth Итак, перед нами снова квартира человека, чей удел - Творчество. Но, вопреки обыкновению, архитектор не ставил перед собой задачу с порога поразить гостя необычностью конструктивных и планировочных решений. Edward Zabuga отказался от тотальной перепланировки и в основе сохранил прежнее расположение комнат. Он попытался уже существующим стенам придать объем, пластику, функциональное наполнение. Мощная, экспрессивная пластика сообщается стенам за счет приема, который автор интерьера окрестил "выдавливанием". Ниша в ванной комнате оборачивается пилястрой с противоположной стороны, каминному углублению соответствует выразительный объемный элемент вдоль стены кабинета. Прежде безразмерные, стены начинают жить своей жизнью, придают интерьеру глубину и неоднозначность. Рельеф стены создается своего рода скульптурным жестом, "выдавливающим" углубления в податливом материале. Окружающий мир становится объемным, нарочито вещественным; комнаты перекликаются между собой, вступают в спор за каждый сантиметр.Multivariance life An elegant and rational solution of planning problems allowed us to use the existing, rather modest area with maximum effect. The most perfect and refined is the layout of the kitchen, dining room and living room. Located in the ledge, they form a kind of universal structure, a flexible module that can implement a variety of household scenarios. Troubles in the kitchen, an evening at the TV, a dinner party, a working meeting - the mise en scenes of everyday life can easily replace each other or coexist in a single space. The impeccability of the layout is all the more remarkable in an apartment created in record time - in just six weeks. In fact, we are dealing here not with a global architectural project, but with an individual, authorial approach to repair in a usual, in general, city apartment (this option, in our opinion, could in the future prove to be acceptable for any mass medium class). This, among other things, shows how impressive the result can be if a professional architect takes on the implementation of quite modest plans. One can have certain claims to his work: a light, modern door in tune with the interior of the bedroom; furniture selection is sometimes more eclectic than we would like. But flaws do not hurt the eyes, do not negate the impression of the whole. Even construction errors look like traces of time, signs of habitability, - just like a patina on an old buffet. The hostess admitted: she is not particularly impressed by the architectural schools of our century. Was this a rejection of modern art in general? Hardly. Then the pictures of the remarkable Almaty painter Rustam Khalfin, ideally suited to the setting, would not hang on the walls. The case is somewhat different. Our contemporaries are increasingly having a desire to somehow isolate themselves from machine, utilitarian aesthetics of constructivism, which often dictates a rigid framework of behavior for a person - how to behave and what to do. The interior created by Edward Zabuga arose as a result of a compromise between original traditions of the past and modern design. He does not impose on his owner (or rather, the owner) any uniform patterns of existence. On the contrary, life in it is markedly multivariate.Resurrection of the world of things And in this life, the objective world acquires at last a quality that it has lost over the years of general standardization. Here is furniture - various-style, made in different countries: Swedish, Finnish, Spanish shelves, Spanish table in the neoclassical spirit. In a European apartment in these places would be antique objects of the end of the last century, inherited by the owners. But then in Europe. Our twentieth century was even more turbulent than in the West. Priceless antique furniture burned in the oven, decayed in landfills. And now the replica replaces the material world of the past generations. The architect believes that this links the interior with the past, gives it a historical dimension. It seemed to us, rather, that time here seemed to be "taken down", stopped. Come here in another hundred years, as if inviting these walls, and you will see how little has changed. You can try to differently define the style of this interior. The architect says that he wanted to create a kind of "modern Parisian ladies' salon." Someone hesitantly utters the word "bourgeois", immediately recovering: "In a good sense, of course." And all these formulations are vague, approximate, inaccurate. We liked the idea that flashed somewhere in the middle of a conversation: here is the Russian interior of the coming epoch, when we will all part with our old complexes, unreasonable ambitions, infantilism and finally be able to base our life on reasonable and cultural principles. Here is the interior of an internally free, mature person with fully formed ideas about the world and about yourself. Both people and things here become what they really are, acquire peace and dignity.
Passing the gallery 
