TWO BROTHERS (A. Gerasimenko, archi.ru, 05-08-2008)

A modern city, no matter where it is located in Europe, America or Asia, is multi-layered, each epoch it has experienced contributes to its appearance. In Russia, once the estate houses were replaced by squares with Lenin’s monuments and communal houses, now they are replaced by landmark buildings of “market” modernity – huge shopping centers, malls, as they are called in America, the ancestor of their typology. A relatively new trend is to make them part of multifunctional complexes, combining with public spaces – shops, cafes, cinemas, and also – with office towers and hotels. It must be admitted that now this typology is a hit, Moscow architects and developers are actively developing it. The workshop of A. Asadov for the DVI Group commissioned two projects for shopping centers combined into one ensemble with an office tower for Tyumen and Lipetsk. Both complexes claim to be the new city dominant, a kind of “lighthouse”, visible from afar from everywhere and attracting residents.
In terms of typology – and even in color – the complexes are similar, and architectural solutions differ.
The complex in Tyumen is part of an extensive concept for the reconstruction of the territory of the former plant, which was also proposed by the architects of the A. Asadov workshop. In addition to the commercial and office building, there should be a large sports complex with an aquapark and several residential towers rising from the artificial roof landscape of another one-story volume. The implementation of this concept begins with the project of the shopping center.
Its main part is a lengthy one-story volume, at the end of which a huge screen-bridge winds up like a snake, partially raised on its feet and diving under the tower with offices. The V-shaped office building rises above the whole complex and the surrounding buildings. The drawing of its facades resembles for a moment the ajar theater curtain, where the curved bridge had time to slip – as if in order to get behind the curtains of this whole performance. In front of the mentioned screen-bridge, the authors proposed to arrange a small square and an amphitheater – the venue for city holidays. The new square was conceived in such a way as to “resonate” with the interiors of the complex, the design of which — curved streets with shifted shops — imitates for visitors the feeling of movement in the old city when you do not know what is waiting for around the bend. According to the architects, the city external and internal interact with each other, creating a semblance of community. And from the outside, the complex looks pointed, mobile, harshly energetic, as if it consists of copper-glass strips merging into buildings with the help of some unknown hidden mechanism.
The architectural solution of the retail and office complex for Lipetsk is different – here the building looks like a submarine with streamlined and layered surfaces. The “boat” emerges in the urban space, and the high-rise tower serves as a “periscope”, rising higher to see everything around.
In order to visually combine the retail space and the office tower, the architects covered them with a common roof of a fluid form that “embraces” the building from above, and somewhere on the side. A warm orange color resembles copper, and rounding corners emphasize this metallic similarity – being wrapped in such a shell, the gigantic complex looks quite compact, in any case – solid. “Wrapper” is stratified in places, as if it was cut into ribbons, and the overall striation of colors supports this game. According to Andrei Asadov, the local legend helped architects in developing the silhouette of the complex – “it is known that there is a huge metallurgical plant in Lipetsk. We imagined that our coating was a piece of metal that was rolled and wrapped around the building. ”
Considering the rather extensive roof area, the architects tried to find useful use of it, arranging platforms for open cafes and additional green areas. The bundled up main volume breaks through a spectacular visor in front of the entrance – it is pulled out far and literally cuts the parking area into two parts, inviting potential visitors.
I must say that both complexes use the theme of the metal in combination with glass. This metal, brown-orange, creates a common color between them, but it also determines the difference. In Tyumen, glass facades are covered with stripes resembling a sculpture carved from rusty iron (a very popular and expensive material). It is characterized by sharp corners, wide slits, a touch of romantic brutality. In Lipetsk, metal parts imitating metal look more like copper — flexible, pliable, warm. Comparison, of course, is more than arbitrary – but still it allows us to make a presentation about the “difference of characters” of these similar buildings.
Multifunctional complex in the modern city is an important public space, it can be said, it is a city in the city. In two projects of multifunctional centers, the workshop of A. Asadov made an attempt to create just such an integral urban education, which would become the new dominant of the cities of Tyumen and Lipetsk.