apartment with a total area of ​​100 m2 Varvara Zelenetsky

Passing the gallery

A photo: Sergey Morgunov, Ekaterina Morgunov

Text: Nadezhda Nadimova

Stylist: Anna Subbotina

Architect: Varvara Zelenetskaya, Konstantin Ivanov

Magazine: N5 (83) 2004

For the architect Varvara Zelenetsky, modern with its integrity, refined decoration and plastic freedom of form has always been a model of perfect style. Suddenly, she herself had the opportunity to create an interior in modern style. “Going to the first meeting with customers,” says Varvara, “I decided to myself: they would like minimalism or high-tech. In fact, who would have thought that young people who bought an apartment in a newly rebuilt house would prefer modern styles to all modern ? Anyway, their choice coincided with my aspirations, which ensured mutual understanding in the future ... At first it was decided to abandon too intricate decorative forms (which are abundant in modern art.) Therefore, while working on the project, my colleague and I pushed off restrained varieties of style, for example, the strict, graphic nature of the decor against the light walls is a motive borrowed from Macintosh, the most rational of all the “modern” architects, as for the arches of a specific, slightly flattened form and high cornice in the living room, many people recognize quote from Van de Velde. In the pattern of stained glass windows and walls there is a characteristic floral pattern for modernist style, but nowhere does it become too "violent." Everything is reduced to dim, made literally in one line drawing. Subtle tonal gradations of light walls (from ivory to light ocher), light play of light and shade due to a combination of different textures (for example, smooth painted walls, and next to a slightly rough surface of almost the same color wallpaper) give the interior a velvety, “moire” color, a little shade faded, yellowed, in the words of Gumilyov, "non-gilded olden time". By the way, following the given style (and the wishes of the customers), I really never used gilding or imitation of gold anywhere. Accessories, lamps, accessories - all in copper-brass tones with a touch of noble patina. As a result, having passed the way from the general concept to the development of the smallest details, it seems, it was possible to create not a museum, but a living interior. And here the big role was played by the owners of the apartment, who were striving to make the style of the beginning of the century not just a spectacular decoration, but to some extent a style of their own life.Varvara Zelenetskaya: "It would be desirable not just to use elements of modernity, but to create an interior in which everything, including paintings on the walls and cutlery, would correspond to a given aesthetics, where ancient objects would not hesitate to their age, and modern respectfully occupied a place in the second row.