Architect: Totan Kuzembaev
Location: Moskovskaya Oblast, Russia
Project Year: 2003-2004
Photographs: Courtesy of Totan Kuzembaev
Architect Totan Kuzembaev, one of the brightest representatives of the so-called Soviet Paper Architecture of 1980’s, managed to find a real customer only in the late 1990’s, when he met Alexander Ezhkov, the owner of the Resort Pirogovo – a closed elite settlement of 100 hectares, located 20 km north-east from the border of Moscow (Moscow Ring Road) in Ostashkovskoe highway, on the shore of the artificial Klyazma water storage. The Resort was founded in 1960 on the initiative of Nikita Khrushchev. In 2002, the new private owners decided to make a full reconstruction of the Resort. The master plan and the development rules were designed by an architect Eugene Asse. The best architects of Moscow are involved in the construction of the Resort, but most of the buildings here are designed by Totan Kuzembaev.
Red Guest Houses are the first and perhaps the most famous of them. They have won a lot of prizes in Russia, and a special award of the Dedalo Minosse international prize for commissioning a building in 2008. This Italian award is given to both the customer and the architect; so this time the architect Totan Kuzembaev played the role of Daedalus and the General Director of Pirogovo Sergey Maslov acted as Minos. Finally, in October 2009, Red Houses were among the five nominees for the prestigious Building Awards 2009 – the only Russian award in the field of development, which estimates the development company’s contribution to the project.
According to Totan’s memories, when the area began to develop it was a dump that has emerged from a vacation waste. The forest, fields, beaches were filthy with bottles, boxes, cellophane, the ground covered with wounds from the endless fireplaces, broken and cut trees: there used to be about 1,5 thousand tourists per day here in summer. Today the land is cleaned and treated, and the gradually built buildings of unique architecture transmit the general idea: environmental friendliness, cleanness, creativity.
Red GuestHouses are lightweight wooden cabinets standing on high legs, with large semi-circular balconies facing the water. Totan tells about them: “A man always wants to climb higher; after he has climbed, he wants to sit there; and when he has sat down, he would like to have a roof over his head”.
In addition to deep respect for the natural environment, Kuzembaev’s architecture comes out of two things: worship of Russian Constructivism and masterly skills in handling traditional Russian material – wood: timber in his hands becomes very avant-garde, but without losing its traditional qualities – warmth and softness.
The Red Houses have no foundations, they stand on thin legs, as if taking care not to mash the grass that grows beneath them and looking around through the large window and from the huge balcony. This architecture shows clearly that the main value here is not the house itself – it is the nature: the place where the house is situated and the scenery one can observe out of it.
At the same time small area of the inner space are allocated in a very functional way, so that the rest is wholesome and the connection to the nature is maintained at any time.
Totan is sometimes reproached for his Red Houses looking similar to those of Bernard Tschumi in the La Villette park. His reaction is quite indignant: “Well, what have we taken from Tschumi? Red colour, or what? Except the colour our objects have nothing similar to Tschumi’s. He has created a lot of decorative things that have no function at all. We have purely functional objects. And who says the red colour was invented by Tschumi? Long ago our constructivists painted red too”.
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- floor plan
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- elevation 01
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- elevations 02
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- sections
On the outside, these remind me of lifeguard houses dotted along the beaches where I grew up in Southern California. On the inside, they remind me of my relatives’ digs in Sweden. The marriage is a little strange.
е-бэйби, е!!!!!!
Наши здесь!!!!!!
трепещите европейцы!!!!!!
this is one and only reason you are here
Like it!
Old school constructivism revisited without the deconstruction nonsense of the late eighties early nineties and the contemporary gymnastics of Morphosis, coop himmelblau, Zaha, etc.
looks fun
Наконец то!!!!!! РОССИЯ вперед
Its like living in a Bernard Tschumi Parc de la Villette “Folie”: http://sobrefrancia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/villette-2.jpg
La villette + Lifeguard house
Tschumi had taken this froms from russian constructivism beginning of the XX cent.
totaly I like this project….oldschool…e.eee.
Ну какая ж это Россия
Triumph of the nationalism in the discussion – W.T.F
about the architecture:
formalism – W.T.F
rhetoric – W.T.F
for the moderators w.t.f = what the function :)
inside doesn’t follow outside..
staro kak mir :( ni sagu vpered posle MELNIKOVA
Your profile picture is disgusting.
A column in the middle of the porch bisecting the view? That could not have cost-effectively engineered out? The overhang could not have been cantilevered?
Red Guest Houses. http://bit.ly/a7oOaJ
Иххааа!!!итить!рад видеть
It reminds me not Bernard Tschumi work, and not Lifeguard houses, but Steven Holl’s Y-HOUSE:
http://stevenholl.com/project-detail.php?type=houses&id=44
eхactly so! Y-house prifoundly inspired Russian architects in early 2000s! See also Svetlana Golovina’s Lis’a Nora
http://www.dcgroup.ru/vimg/6bd0b47bb17695ba1eb95cc587b4f349
http://www.infosport.ru/press/images/shooting/02.06.06/0195_l.jpg
for those who doesn’t understand russian:
even the comments of russian people are overfilled with imperialistic emotions. Come on! Who needs those: get ready, we are here! shake with fear Europeans, Russia’s coming!
it’s an architectural website for people with attitude, for f**k sake, nobody is interested in your national pride! Just be creative and forget your inferiority complex
That is because there are very few Russian contemporary projects in the web.
Это потому что русских проектов в интернете мало, а не из-за имперских амбиций.
dear vaidas b,
it seems you mean all of us?
Vaidas говоришь тебя зовут? Прибалтика? Думаю да. Ну так послушай милейший человек. Если бы тебя самого не мучил этот злосчастный комплекс неполноценности, которым, к сожалению, страдают многие жители из данного региона бывших республик СССР (ну имеется ввиду нацистские парады, разделение людей на граждан и не граждан, ну и другие “мелкие” пакости), ты бы не стал писать подобные комментарии.
PS Просто у нас так проявляется радость.
PPS Я думаю если бы Вы написали бы что-нибудь вроде Э-э-э-ссссс-ттт-оооооооооо-нииияяяяяяяя впереееееееееееееееееддд! Все просто улыбнулись, но пенится как вы не стали бы.
Господи, какой позор. Ну почему ты решил, что он эстонец? Русские, родные мои, давайте тут коментарии писать только об архитектуре. Это все-таки архитектурный сайт, а не футбольный стадион.
2 urko. Решил из личного опыта. Ответил адекватно комментарию. По поводу какие комментарии писать… хм – не говорите что мне делать и я не скажу вам куда идти.
100% Y-HOYSE Steven Holl. I did a “copy” of Y-House once, but back when I was in Architecture School :-))
Although, I had the courtesy -as a young student- to “copy” only the plan, not the building itself!-))
men, if Steven Holl’s project wasn’t red, all of you people wouldn’t remembered it to bring it up as a comparison, the only thing that “triggered your comparison avid memory” was the color.
The Parc La Villete on the other hand, is pretty similar, to the point of being already discussed in the article itself.
But I agree that it was Bernard Tschumi’s that took hint from Russian deconstructivism, and not the other way around.
Either case, it’s a nice project from Russia, I just don’t think it’s suited to be repeated to make cookie-cutter chalets, it would look far better as an isolated private cabin.
Nice project.
@wsby.
Staro ale jaro.
I like it because it is nice and red.
sullka,
compare totan’s and steven’s sashes. neither buildings, nor plans, but details are similar. it can be also said style.
What’s the problem. Ok this is a readaptation. Ok, those are just simple homes, not simple forms in the park. And what is the problem, if Tschumi choose too use red. Anyway, good work Russia.
Brilliant Red Guest Houses, Russia, totan Kuzembaev http://bit.ly/9G0UXD at @archdaily #architecture
Will you guys be able to accommadate 6 of us From the 24 July to the 6 August 2010 . And could you explain exactly where about are you guys?