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Flexibility and Acuteness of Modernity

Luxurious, fluid, large “kokoshniks” and spiral barrel columns, as if made from colorful chewing gum: there seem to be no other mansion like this in Moscow, designed in the “Neo-Russian-Modern” style. And the “Teremok” on Malaya Kaluzhskaya, previously somewhat obscure, has “come alive with new colors” and gained visibility after its restoration for the office of the “architectural ecosystem” as the architects love to call themselves. It’s evident that Julius Borisov and the architects at UNK put their hearts into finding this new office and bringing it up to date. Let’s delve into the paradoxes of this mansion’s history and its plasticity. Spoiler: two versions of modernity meet here, both balancing on the razor’s edge of “what’s current”.

05 September 2024
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UNK architects moved into their new office on Malaya Kaluzhskaya in August 2023, with its grand opening timed to coincide with the start of summer, Julius Borisov’s birthday – the founder of the ecosystem turned 50 – and the company’s 25th anniversary. The celebration was lively: they played the balalaika and treated the guests to red caviar.

For such an exotic Russian-style delicacy, there was – and still is – a fitting reason: UNK set up their office in a neo-Russian mansion from the early 20th century, built in 1911. Once, the head office of UNK was located on rented premises at the “Soyuz” factory, where the Luzhniki Collection residential complex is currently under construction. After that, the team was scattered all across Moscow, searching for “their home” and considering various options. While potential locations varied greatly, it is said that Julius Borisov insisted on a historical mansion. Indeed, modernists often enjoy working in historic buildings.

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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


The mansion is the work of architect Sherwood. And here’s where the confusion begins – though it’s minor and easy to unravel. To their credit, UNK have created a detailed chronology of the mansion’s history – in the dining room, right on the wall, as is now trendy at exhibitions. They’ve also illustrated the mansion’s story with photographs, making the office feel like an exhibition in itself.

So, the confusion! It could arise, for instance, from the fact that the mansion is associated with architect Sherwood, but the project’s author was actually architect Nikolai Dmitrievich Butusov. At the time of the mansion’s completion, Butusov was 47 years old and Sherwood was 44. Both were young architects who had worked in eclecticism, neoclassicism, and modernism, and their biographies likely still await dedicated historians. Moving on: Vladimir Sherwood is not the one who designed the Historical Museum, but his son, Vladimir Vladimirovich, who, for example, created the neoclassical Titov revenue house on Old Square, located at the beginning of Ilinka Street. The Russian Sherwood architects were descendants of an English textile machine mechanic, William Sherwood, and the plot on Malaya Kaluzhskaya, now home to UNK, was the ancestral estate of his descendants. William received the plot after arriving in Moscow in 1809. In Russia, William became Vasily, and he had four sons and one daughter. One son, Ivan, who was born in England, is known for informing Alexander I about the Decembrist uprising, for which Nicholas I later added the title “Verny” (Faithful) to his surname. Another son, Joseph, was the father of Vladimir Sherwood and the grandfather of both sculptor Sergey Vladimirovich and architect Vladimir Vladimirovich. Once you start digging into architect dynasties, you can really get buried...

In 1812, William Sherwood’s house on Malaya Kaluzhskaya burned down during the Moscow fire and was later rebuilt. At some point – though probably not as early as 1813 – the Sherwood house became a wooden “Teremok” executed in a pseudo-Russian style.

The previous, wooden, Sherwoods′ Teremok in 1885; photo on display in the UNK office
Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


In the mid-19th century, the house was surrounded by the Bromley factory. The factory was largely military, producing lathes for barrel turning and grenade casing, as well as ammunition. In Soviet times, it was known as “Krasny Proletariy” (Red Proletarian). Interestingly, Vladimir Sherwood Jr. was one of the architects of the Bromley factory. However, it was Nikolai Butusov who built the stone mansion. Why? We still don’t know.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, at the very least, to point out that UNK chose a location with significant, even familial, architectural history for their “nest”. It’s easy to notice that among the photos on the ground floor, the Sherwood family is placed alongside Julius Borisov’s family and colleagues – continuity is not only acknowledged but also emphasized.

Nevertheless, the architecture of “Teremok” itself is no less interesting. It appeared shortly before World War I and is an example of a fully developed “Neo-Russian” (or “Russian Revival”) style. There is almost nothing left of the pseudo-Russian style – except for the idea of giving this architectural monument a second life, revitalizing and reinterpreting it. This is not a colorful, fragmented, or even red-brick house with a “set-piece” design. It was influenced not only by the Diaghilev Seasons, Bilibin, and Vasnetsov; it represents a certain sum of reinterpreted ideas. Its forms are cohesive, large, and fluid; it’s a high-level example of modernism. You can see that the style here has reached a certain conclusion, standing at the threshold not only of historical upheavals but also of 20th-century art. This isn’t a fake imitation of 17th century chambers – this is a fairy-tale house, a theater house, or a stage set if you will.

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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


Before the restoration, Teremok was, for some reason, painted yellow with green highlights; however, its original color scheme was white with colorful details, much like the nearby Church of St. Nicholas in Khamovniki. The architects at UNK told me that they initially planned to paint the facades entirely white. But during the façade restoration, they discovered the original color scheme and, after consultations with the Department of Cultural Heritage of Moscow, they decided to reproduce it true to the original. As a result, we now see the mansion’s facades as they were originally designed in 1911.

The facades are adorned with lively, colorful details. It must be said that this was a successful outcome: it highlights how positively contemporary this 1911 building is.

To some extent, Butusov’s Teremok even seems postmodern. Just look at the spiral, barrel-like columns on the porch – they look as if they were made from colorful 1980s chewing gum. Hundertwasser also comes to mind.

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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


In short, Teremok stands as an example of modernism that had reached the “revolutionary” boundary and was ready to engage with contemporary art.

This is exactly what happens in the interior, where the architects were given free rein to fully explore the use of white.

“Our interior is like an egg” UNK architects say. And that’s quite accurate: you step inside, and it feels like entering a giant eggshell; images of spaceships (or even paradise?) from the movies come to mind. Everything is white, round, and glowing, and the edges and joints of the forms are often barely distinguishable. You really feel like a chick – it’s tempting to joke that we’ve entered the “egg of contemporary art”, or in this case, architecture. The egg is a metaphor with great potential; it’s enough to recall that in many myths, the world is born from an egg, making it an apt image for architectural creativity, which gives birth to both volume and space “out of nothing”, or at least out of some kind of passive matter.

These numerous “roundings” are part of Butusov’s original architecture but were also added in a few places: for instance, in the curved reception desk in the entrance hall, or in elements like plumbing fixtures, round tables, and circular and disc-shaped lamps. The designers amplified the potential of these curves, particularly with the help of disc lamps, bringing the abstraction of the circle to the forefront.



The whiteness is further emphasized by the lighting, including fixtures built into the floor or the handrail of the staircase leading down. The plasticity of the interior is quite unique: there are many curved surfaces, yet they don’t feel heavy, solid, or even corporeal. On the contrary, thanks to the whiteness and lighting, the structure feels ethereal, almost virtual, like something out of a film or video game, or as if it’s made from a sheet of white paper. In this way, another metaphor comes to mind, replacing the eggshell – the metaphor of a blank sheet, or perhaps a screen, an architectural “canvas” on which, or “within which”, ideas and forms are born.

Light, whiteness, and curving shapes are particularly noticeable on the staircase, where the architects introduced skylights, creating a “crescendo” in the development of the interior’s design.

It’s here, on the staircase, that we suddenly realize there is color in the interior. Color appears on a historical element – the cast-iron railings – and predictably, it’s bright red, UNK’s signature color. However, this red seems to lean towards a somewhat “Soviet” scarlet hue, likely due to the abundance of light streaming in from all sides.

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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


Nevertheless, this accent is quite appropriate and even serves as the structural core of the building. Strictly speaking, a staircase is almost always the core of the building – functionally, symbolically, or both. Here, it seems all the elements come together, including the “shaft” of light: from the natural daylight streaming through the skylights to the delicate glow of the handrail’s lighting, leading down to the basement. As you descend, it might even seem like the light is spilling onto the steps from above, though that’s not the case. But the idea is carried through quite consistently.

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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


I should note that while the façade’s “Russian Revival” style is very modern, flexible, and streamlined to a high degree of novelty, while the historical decor elements preserved inside are quite traditional and lean towards the 19th century. The cast-iron balusters of the stair railings are beautiful but relatively standard for their time; there’s no modernist fluidity in them, except perhaps a hint of Hoffmann’s “goat legs”. Maybe that’s why they were chosen as the color accent – because their form stands out from the flexible plasticity of the interior?

Another historical element, the relief nervures copied by Butusov from the Terem Palace and adorning the edges of the dome’s vaults in the entrance vestibule, were left white by the UNK architects. As a result, you don’t notice them when entering Teremok, but rather when leaving it.

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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


When you enter, you first see two mirrors vis-a-vis, a familiar but always striking way to expand the space, and a photograph of the “Akademik” business center at the end of the corridor beneath the cylindrical vault.

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    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK
  • zooming
    The UNK office, Sherwood Mansion. 2024
    Copyright: Photo © Sergey Volokitin / provided by UNK


This photograph is quite appropriate here. It not only directly shows that you’ve entered the architects’ office, but it also subtly introduces the incoming visitor to its conceptual structure. The office is built around UNK’s milestone projects – and Julius Borisov constantly emphasizes that his mission is to work with unique objects – thus, the navigation is organized on a “project-to-project” basis. Each meeting room has a name: “Saturday,” “Akademik”, “Atom”, “Orbital”. All of this is reflected on signs, which are everywhere, embossed and also white.

Color is present here not just as the scarlet accent of the railings. Since UNK has significant experience in designing office and public interiors, they followed modern trends in their own office as well: downstairs, in addition to a dining area, there is a public space with an amphitheater, and on all floors, starting from the entrance, there are cozy recesses for private conversations. Throughout, the pristine white is complemented by the natural greenery of plants from the “winter garden”, light wood accents, and fabric of similar hues on the sofas. The sofas don’t clash with the main theme; instead, they blend into the evenly glowing space and enhance it. In their curious “neutral” way, the sofas also enliven the inner space of the mansion.



Ultimately, the choice of the mansion turned out to be a good one.

And not only because the architects gained possession of a flashy-looking and interesting monument of Moscow architecture, which they restored, and which you feel more and more like visiting like an exciting guided tour of both history and modernity. And not even because they now also have a luxurious courtyard where the summer presentation of the new office took place, and inside there is not only a workspace but also a public area with an amphitheater and a large screen for lectures, a dining area with a kitchen, and many cozy “corners” for conversations, as is customary in modern office interiors. There is more to it than that!

In addition to all of the “common decencies” of the modern office that are perhaps worthy of mentioning, yet are hardly worthy of any excessive praise, the key aspect of this project is the intriguing dialogue between understanding architectural form as such and the search for modern identity. This building, back in its time, was at the forefront of novelty, designed in the spirit of Russian Revival, which was one of the trending styles back then. Needless to say, after coming full circle, the architectural agenda (or at least one of its agendas) has once again returned to questions of identity. Today, for those who dare to engage in such experiments, this search is even more relevant than it was a hundred years ago, but it takes place within a contemporary paradigm. In Julius Borisov’s projects, such experiments haven’t been noticed yet, but in their new office, UNK architects provide a more nuanced answer to the same question: by settling into a historic mansion in the “Neo-Russ” style, they conceptualized its interiors as ultra-modern, while still creating a clear stylistic connection between the building’s interiors and façades. Being here, you can feel that there are 112 years between them, yet they are like kindred spirits, continuing the same theme of flexible novelty, whiteness, and cohesive form. And that’s when it becomes clear how much our times have in common. It dawns on you that the theme that was set over a century ago continues to evolve even now.

In other words, you realize at this point that there is a certain mystery embedded in the very word combination “modern architecture”. It shouldn’t be taken too literally.

05 September 2024

Headlines now
​A Brick Shell
In the process of designing a clubhouse situated among pine trees in a prestigious suburban area near Moscow, the architectural firm “A.Len” did the façade design part. The combination of different types of brick and masonry correlates with the volumetric and plastique solutions, further enhanced by the inclusion of wood-painted fragments and metal “glazing”.
Word Forms
ATRIUM architects love ambitious challenges, and for the firm’s thirtieth anniversary, they boldly play a game of words with an exhibition that dives deep into a self-created vocabulary. They immerse their projects – especially art installations – into this glossary, as if plunging into a current of their own. You feel as if you’re flowing through the veins of pure art, immersed in a universe of vertical cities, educational spaces – of which the architects are true masters – and the cultural codes of various locations. But what truly captivates is the bold statement that Vera Butko and Anton Nadtochy make, both through their work and this exhibition: architecture, above all, is art – the art of working with form and space.
Flexibility and Acuteness of Modernity
Luxurious, fluid, large “kokoshniks” and spiral barrel columns, as if made from colorful chewing gum: there seem to be no other mansion like this in Moscow, designed in the “Neo-Russian-Modern” style. And the “Teremok” on Malaya Kaluzhskaya, previously somewhat obscure, has “come alive with new colors” and gained visibility after its restoration for the office of the “architectural ecosystem” as the architects love to call themselves. It’s evident that Julius Borisov and the architects at UNK put their hearts into finding this new office and bringing it up to date. Let’s delve into the paradoxes of this mansion’s history and its plasticity. Spoiler: two versions of modernity meet here, both balancing on the razor’s edge of “what’s current”.
Yuri Vissarionov: “A modular house does not belong to the land”
It belongs to space, or to the air... It turns out that 3D printing is more effective when combined with a modular approach: the house is built in a workshop and then adapted to the site, including on uneven terrain. Yuri Vissarionov shares his latest experience in designing tourist complexes, both in central Russia and in the south. These include houseboats, homes printed from lightweight concrete using a 3D printer, and, of course, frame houses.
​Moscow’s First
“The quality of education largely depends on the quality of the educational environment”. This principle of the last decade has been realized by Sergey Skuratov in the project for the First Moscow Gymnasium on Rostovskaya Embankment in the Khamovniki district. The building seamlessly integrates into the complex urban landscape, responding both to the pedestrian flow of the city and the quiet alleyways. It skillfully takes advantage of the height differences and aligns with modern trends in educational space design. Let’s take a closer look.
Looking at the Water
The site of Villa Sonata stretches from the road to the water’s edge, offering its own shoreline, pier, and a picturesque river panorama. To reveal these sweeping views, Roman Leonidov “cut” the façade diagonally parallel to the river, thus getting two main axes for the house and, consequently, “two heads”. The internal core – two double-height spaces, a living room and a conservatory, with a “bridge” above them – makes the house both “transparent” and filled with light.
The White Wing
Well, it’s not exactly white. It’s more of a beige, white-stone structure that plays with the color of limestone – smoother surfaces are lighter, while rougher ones are darker. This wing unites various elements: it absorbs and interprets the surrounding themes. It responds to everything, yet maintains a cohesive expression – a challenging task! – while also incorporating recognizable features of its own, such as the dynamic cuts at the bottom, top, and middle.
Urban Dunes
The XSA Ramps team designed and built a three-part sports hub for a park in Rostov-on-Don, welcoming people of all ages and fitness levels. The skate plaza, pump track, and playground are all meticulously crafted with details that attract a diverse range of visitors. The technical execution of the shapes and slopes transforms this space into a kind of sculptural composition.
Proportional Growth
The project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential area has been announced. The buildings are situated on an elongated plot – almost a “ray” that shoots out from the center of the area towards the river. Their layout reflects both a response to Moscow’s architectural preferences over the past 15 years, shifting “from blocks to towers”, and an interpretation of the neighboring business park designed by SOM. Additionally, the best apartments here are not located at the very top but closer to the middle, forming a glowing “waistline”.
The “Staircase” Building
In designing the “Details” residential complex in New Moscow, Rais Baishev spiced up the now-popular Moscow theme of a “courtyard” building with an idea drawn from the surrealist drawings by Maurits Escher. He envisioned the stepped silhouettes and descending slopes as a metaphysical mega-staircase, creating a key void within the courtyard that gave the project an internal “spine”. This concept is felt both in the building’s silhouette and on its façades.
Projection of the Quarter
No one doubted that the building that Vladimir Plotkin designed as part of the “Garden Quarters” would be the most modernist of all. And it turned out just that way: while adhering to the common design code, the building successfully combines brick and white stone, rhythmically responding to the neighboring building designed by Ostozhenka, yet tactfully and persistently making a few statements of its own. This includes the projection of the ideal urban development composition “14–9–6”, which can be found right next door, mathematical calculations, including those for various types of terraces (and perhaps the only reminder of the Soviet past of the Kauchuk rubber factory!), and the white “cross-stitch” pattern of the façade grid.
Domus Aurea
In this issue, we examine the “Tessinsky-1” house, designed by Sergey Skuratov and completed in 2023. Located in the middle of the Serebryanicheskaya Embankment district, at the intersection of its main streets, this house assumes a sort of “nodal” role: it not only responds to everything around it and preserves many memories of the former EMA factory within itself, but it weaves all this into a newly directed pattern, reconciling bright “gold” and dark-colored brick, largely with the help of the new, modern-yet-archaic Columba brick, which, come to think about it, is the most precious element here.
The Chimney of Nikola-Lenivets
In this issue, we are examining the “Obelisk House” designed by KATARSIS and built for the Arkhstoyanie 2023 festival. However, it was only finished later on, and this is why we are examining it now. It seems to us that after the “Obelisk House” appeared in Nikola-Lenivets, a dialogue and a few inner connections appeared between the temporary structures built here. These houses no longer look like “accidental neighbors”, more of which below.
​Periscope by the Bay
The jury awarded the second place in the competition for a public and cultural center in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the companies GORA (“Mountain”) and M4. In the consortium’s proposal, the building resembles a sperm whale with a calf swimming next to it or a periscope, whose lenses capture the most spectacular views from the surrounding landscape.
From Arcs to Dolmens
While working on the competition project for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, ASADOV Architects prioritized the value of the natural and urban environment, aiming to preserve the balance of the location while minimizing the resemblance of the volume that they designed to a “traditional building”. The task was challenging, and the architects created three versions, one of which having been developed after the competition, where their main proposal took third place. However, the point of interest here is not the competition result but the continuity of creative thinking.
Hide and Seek
The ID Moskovskiy house, designed by Stepan Liphart in St. Petersburg, in the courtyards near Moskovskiy Avenue beyond the Obvodny Canal and recently completed, is notable for several reasons. Firstly, it has been realized with considerable accuracy, which is particularly significant as this is the first building where the architect was responsible not only for the facades but also for the layouts, allowing for better integration between the two. On the other hand, this building is interesting as an example of the “germination” of new architecture in the city: it draws on the best examples from the neighborhood and becomes an improved and developed sum of ideas found by the architect in the surrounding context.
The Big Twelve
Yesterday, the winners of the Moscow Mayor’s Architecture Award were announced and honored. Let’s take a look at what was awarded and, in some cases, even critique this esteemed award. After all, there is always room for improvement, right?
Above the Golden Horn
The residential complex “Philosophy” designed by T+T architects in Vladivostok, is one of the new projects in the “Golubinaya Pad” area, changing its development philosophy (pun intended) from single houses to a comprehensive approach. The buildings are organized along public streets, varying in height and format, with one house even executed in gallery typology, featuring a cantilever leaning on an art object.
Nuanced Alternative
How can you rhyme a square and space? Easily! But to do so, you need to rhyme everything you can possibly think of: weave everything together, like in a tensegrity structure, and find your own optics too. The new exhibition at GES-2 does just that, offering its visitor a new perspective on the history of art spanning 150 years, infused with the hope for endless multiplicity of worlds and art histories. Read on to see how this is achieved and how the exhibition design by Evgeny Ace contributes to it.
Blinds for Ice
An ice arena has been constructed in Domodedovo based on a project by Yuri Vissarionov Architects. To prevent the long façade, a technical requirement for winter sports facilities, from appearing monotonous, the architects proposed the use of suspended structures with multidirectional slats. This design protects the ice from direct sunlight while giving the wall texture and detail.
Frozen Magma
A competition for the creation of a public and cultural center was held in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Three architectural companies made it to the final, and we consider it important to share about the work of each. Let’s start with the winner – the consortium led by Wowhaus.
Campus within a Day
In this article, we talk about what the participants of Genplan Institute of Moscow’s hackathon were doing at the MosComArchitecture booth at the “ArchMoscow” exhibition. We also discuss who won the prize and why, and what can be done with the territory of a small university on the outskirts of Moscow.
Vertical Civilization
Genpro considered the development of the vertical city concept and made it the theme of their pavilion at the “ArchMoscow” exhibition.
Marina Yegorova: “We think in terms of hectares, not square meters”
The career path of architect Marina Yegorova is quite impressive: MARHI, SPEECH, MosComArchitectura, the Genplan Institute of Moscow, and then her own architectural company. Its name Empate, which refers to the words “to draw” in Portuguese and “to empathize” in English, should not be misleading with its softness, as the firm freely works on different scales, including Integrated Territorial Development projects. We talked with Marina about various topics: urban planning experience, female leadership style, and even the love of architects for yachting.
Andrey Chuikov: “Optimum balance is achieved through economics”
The Yekaterinburg-based architectural company CNTR is in its mature stage: crystallization of principles, systematization, and standardization helped it make a qualitative leap, enhance competencies, and secure large contracts without sacrificing the aesthetic component. The head of the company, Andrey Chuikov, told us about building a business model and the bonuses that additional education in financial management provides for an architect.
The Fulcrum
Ostozhenka Architects have designed two astonishing towers practically on the edge of a slope above the Oka River in Nizhny Novgorod. These towers stand on 10-meter-tall weathered steel “legs”, with each floor offering panoramic views of the river and the city; all public spaces, including corridors, receive plenty of natural light. Here, we see a multitude of solutions that are unconventional for the residential routine of our day and age. Meanwhile, although these towers hark back to the typological explorations of the seventies, they are completely reinvented in a contemporary key. We admire Veren Group as the client – this is exactly how a “unique product” should be made – and we tell you exactly how our towers are arranged.
Crystal is Watching You
Right now, Museum Night has kicked off at the Museum of Architecture, featuring a fresh new addition – the “Crystal of Perception”, an installation by Sergey Kuznetsov, Ivan Grekov, and the KROST company, set up in the courtyard. It shimmers with light, it sings, it reacts to the approach of people, and who knows what else it can do.
The Secret Briton
The house is called “Little France”. Its composition follows the classical St. Petersburg style, with a palace-like courtyard. The decor is on the brink of Egyptian lotuses, neo-Greek acroteria, and classic 1930s “gears”; the recessed piers are Gothic, while the silhouette of the central part of the house is British. It’s quite interesting to examine all these details, attempting to understand which architectural direction they belong to. At the same time, however, the house fits like a glove in the context of the 20th line of St. Petersburg’s Vasilievsky Island; its elongated wings hold up the façade quite well.
The Wrap-Up
The competition project proposed by Treivas for the first 2021 competition for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025 concludes our series of publications on pavilion projects that will not be implemented. This particular proposal stands out for its detailed explanations and the idea of ecological responsibility: both the facades and the exhibition inside were intended to utilize recycled materials.
Birds and Streams
For the competition to design the Omsk airport, DNK ag formed a consortium, inviting VOX architects and Sila Sveta. Their project focuses on intersections, journeys, and flights – both of people and birds – as Omsk is known as a “transfer point” for bird migrations. The educational component is also carefully considered, and the building itself is filled with light, which seems to deconstruct the copper circle of the central entrance portal, spreading it into fantastic hyper-spatial “slices”.