Yakov voloshin

apartment of the architect Jacob Voloshin Jacob Voloshin

Passing the gallery

A photo: George Shablovsky

Material prepared: Dmitry Kopylov

Project author: Яков Волошин

Magazine: N10 (55) 2001

Perhaps the most colorful, bright, eye-catching objects in the apartment of the Petersburg architect Jacob Voloshin are the African-style armchairs, covered with zebra. But this is only the first feeling. - When I thought about how I wanted to see my dwelling, then the only right decision seemed to be an intuitive, if you will, desire to create a neutral space. And this was necessary to achieve under mutually exclusive conditions. I conceived the hall a long time ago as a corner of Japan and China. The living room did not seem to be pan-European, but directionally Italian. The East is traditionally associated with wisdom, patience and tolerance, and Italy for all of us is an example of an architectural fairy tale in which the titans lived and worked, creating masterpieces unsurpassed in art. Color plays a huge role in my house. The hallway is darkish, but radiates an internal, kind of "heavy" glow, characteristic of Buddhist temples. I myself did not expect that rattan furniture, “wooden” carpet, the frame of a Philippine mirror would saturate the room with a soft twilight twilight. This feeling is reinforced by the statues of cranes reflected in the mirror and stylized human figures ... I deliberately adhered to traditional oriental asceticism in the hallway interior, adding only three prints with Japanese characters and bonsai tree, which, I believe, bring the spirit of philosophical contemplation. The living room is all light. I really like light, almost white furniture. I like the pure color of the golden ornament - the color that so many in Italian cathedrals. It seemed to me that the clock in the form of the sun, figurines of cupids, made in the Catholic cathedral manner, would add a joyful, uncluttered shine to the whole room. The East, with its ancient wisdom of knowing life, and the young Italian Renaissance - I wanted to achieve a balance between two worlds, two cultures, equally dear to me. It is difficult to judge whether an equilibrium is achieved in space, and whether the East neutralizes the West, and vice versa. It is important otherwise: Yakov Voloshin created what he wanted, an atmosphere in which he was comfortable. If we take into account the natural aspiration of any person to the unity of style, then in the case of Voloshin the author’s instinct did not let the author down: East and West, these two parts of the eternal opposition do not antagonize, do not contradict each other, as in real life, but smoothly "flow "each other, coexist in a single aesthetic space.

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