SMOLENSKY club-style building is located on 1st Smolenskiy Lane. The church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker in Shchepy is located just across, and the new complex was to host the parish clergy’s house of authentic design. This necessity to combine classic language of architecture with a contemporary style gave birth to the architectural and planning character of the building. We intentionally avoided any neutral solutions at the interface of Classic and Modern, but put our stake at the contrast between the two functions. The public center is compositionally designed as a residential complex wing, though it looks like an existing building (typical Moscow mansion), while the major space is evidently designed nowadays.
The site is trapezoid it its plan, and is built up around the perimeter to form a cour d’honneur. To balance this form austerity, the architects employ setback compositions of the main space: the number of stories in the building reduces with the frontage line approach. The facades are designed with a white grid of natural stone with its vertical and horizontal lines thickening and thinning. On the principal front the Jurassic stone surfaces are decorated with ornament which is here and there prevailed by fine rustication. This pattern is also widely employed for the public zones design.
