2020 | Building Peace through Heritage
The Corinthian order used in both buildings , in a modern building is far from canons . And this is more likely not even a warrant , but simply very thin pillars of circular cross section without a hint of thinning with massive “ capitals ”. The base with the main entrance to the building is too lightweight , not tectonically verified . The building is crowned by a hemispherical dome , which is excessively massive for three-quarter Corinthian columns on an attic drum to withstand . The proportions of the windows are compressed and approach in shape to an elongated square , which creates the effect of a flattened facade . It seems that the building was built on draft sketches . Against the backdrop of the historical buildings of Mufke , this building looks ridiculous and absurd ( Figure 4 ).
At first glance , it might seem that we are too biased in evaluating these examples , because the vast majority of Saratov residents and non-resident tourists consider these buildings to be “ beautiful ”. It turns out that such a low level of architecture meets the unpretentious demands of citizens ! And developers take advantage of this and prefer not to invest extra money in the work of professional architects , justifying themselves with the famous Russian expression “ And people like it !”.
Saratov architect Vladimir Virich describes the situation in such a way : “ It ’ s more important for today ’ s builders to build more and sell faster , but there ’ s no time , money or desire for all kinds of curls . A good example : the developer came , said : we need a beautiful house . We draw him a house with stained-glass windows , columns , various stucco moldings , a drawing in the style of Russian classicism , in a word . The developer is delighted , but as soon as he gets down to business , he removes all this . Because all this requires time and skilled workers , whose services are very expensive .”
In an effort to save money , developers sometimes reach the point of absurdity . There is a project , albeit not of the highest quality , but what turned out as a result of its implementation is far from being called architecture .
Take at least two completely new Saratov objects . In the design documentation they are presented as buildings in the style that developed in the late XIX - early XX centuries , i . e . essentially having the features of classicism . What do we see ?
The first object on Komsomolskaya St ., 42 / 1- simply cries out of mediocrity and bad taste , more like the worst examples of artisanal reproduction of “ antiquity ” with a lurid sculpture and a ‘ skewed ” roof . The second example is located on Kutyakova St , 13 ( Figure 7 ). As can be seen from the facade design , the realized object absolutely does not correspond to the architects ’ idea , representing a primitive ‘ something ” in the worst traditions of the Lego designer or pixel-based video games of the 90s .
Fig 6 - ( left ) Komsomolskaya St ., 42 / 1 ( project and realization ); ( right ) Kutyakova St ., 13 ( project and realization )
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