Red Gate architect. The legendary Stalinist skyscraper on the Red Gate. Description and architectural features

Years pass and much becomes history. This applies to both events and various structures. A little more than half a century has passed, and multi-storey buildings built at the turn of the 40s and 50s of the last century, which include Stalin's high-rise buildings, began to be perceived as architectural monuments of Moscow.

One of these unique buildings in the urban structure of the city is a high-rise building located on Red Gate Square.

How the building was erected

The Ministry of Railways, which was entrusted with the construction of this high-rise, announced a competition to create the best project. A total of two works were presented, and the best was recognized as the project belonging to the architect of the ministry A. Dushkin. However, during the work, the approved solution underwent significant changes. Architect B. Mezentsev worked on a further version of the project together with A. Dushkin. The first focused on the planning and design part, the second dealt with the plastic and appearance of the facade.

The construction of the high-rise was distinguished by the enormous complexity of its technology, since a metro station was being built nearby at the same time. The left wing of the building was planned to be erected just above the subway line being laid. A unique technique was developed: a huge pit was dug, the area of ​​which was thousands of square meters. It had no fastenings, but was held together solely by the frozen ground. Then, in the pit, a foundation was erected for the structure of the left wing, into which it was decided to build the lobby of the metro station.

At the same time, next to the pit at the construction site, the foundation and frame of the main high-rise part of the structure were being constructed. Despite all the difficulties and force majeure circumstances, the architects and engineers managed to cope with the difficult task. And in 1952, the construction of the monumental high-rise building was finally completed.

What does a high-rise building look like on Red Gate Square?

The high-rise building was built at the highest point of the Garden Ring, on the site of demolished pre-revolutionary buildings. The building consists of a central building of 24 floors, which is topped with a small hipped structure, and two side parts of different number of floors from 11 to 15 levels. Firewalls separate them from the main high-rise part of the house. The lobby of the Krasnye Vorota metro station is located under one of the buildings.

Despite the fact that the building on Red Gate Square is significantly inferior in height to other Stalinist high-rise buildings, its favorable location neutralizes this difference, and it visually competes even with the 36-story building of Moscow State University itself.

On one of the walls of the building you can see a memorial plaque with a portrait of the great M. Lermontov and an inscription notifying that in this place there used to be a house in which the poet was born.

The interior design of this house is more modest compared to other Stalinist high-rises; the front lobby is decorated rather discreetly with stainless steel.

The Stalin skyscraper is both an administrative and residential building. The side parts house citizens' apartments, and the main building is occupied by administrative, trade union organizations, various corporations, a bank, a restaurant, and shops. The facade of the building is well preserved, but in residential apartments many owners replace wooden window frames with white plastic ones, which introduces dissonance into the overall appearance of the building. Apartments inside the high-rise are also being actively rebuilt, losing their original appearance and cultural value.

Constructivist communal houses, Stalinist high-rise buildings and high-rise buildings of the 1970s are not just residential buildings, but real city symbols. In its “” section, The Village talks about the most famous and unusual houses of the two capitals and their inhabitants. In the new issue, we learned from Muscovite Asya Soskova how life works in one of the seven “Stalinist sisters” - a high-rise building on Red Gate Square. And local historian Denis Romodin spoke about the history of the construction of the building.

Photos

Yasya Vogelgardt

ARCHITECTS: Alexey Dushkin
and Boris Mezentsev

Administrative and residential building on Krasnye Vorota Square

CONSTRUCTION: 1947–1951

HEIGHT: 138 meters

ACCOMMODATION: 270 apartments

Denis Romodin

The high-rise building on Krasnye Vorota Square is located on one of the highest points of the Garden Ring. It was built by 1951 according to the design of architects Alexei Dushkin and Boris Mezentsev and designer Viktor Abramov. This building is actually the main building of the square, not counting the former building of the People's Commissariat of Railways. The entire high-rise complex is U-shaped and consists of a 24-story, 138-meter high-rise part, which was intended for the USSR Ministry of Transport Engineering, and 11-story residential buildings along the edges of it.

In the initial designs, the architectural decoration of the building gravitated towards Russian and Ukrainian baroque. And the side buildings were asymmetrical: the left building was thematically connected to the neighboring former apartment building of the early twentieth century, and the right one had a sloping part at the corner with Kalanchevskaya Street. But then the project was transformed, and the facades acquired a more restrained architectural design. The result was a rather interesting structure. The facades of the high-rise part are not finished with hollow ceramics, like other high-rise buildings, but with natural limestone, which was mined near Kashira in the Belobrodsky quarry. The first floors are lined with red granite. The steles near the main entrance to the administrative part are also made from it - they once had interesting decorative lamps, but in our time they have been lost. The building is completed with a five-pointed star made of steel filled with glass.

However, the most interesting thing happened during the construction of the complex. The high-rise building was erected simultaneously with the construction of the second exit from the Krasnye Vorota metro station, located in the left wing of the building. For the first time in our country, quicksand soils were artificially frozen: calcium chloride brine circulated in pipes placed in wells, the temperature of which ranged from minus 20 to minus 26 degrees Celsius. The foundation of the future high-rise was specially built at an angle - unique engineering calculations were carried out. This was due to the usual laws of physics: the freezing liquid increased in volume. As a result, the installation of the columns of the central part of the high-rise was carried out with a given counter-tilt, but after the soil thawed, the building stood in a vertical position.

Asya Soskova, works at a communications agency:“I’ve been renting this apartment for nine years. In 2006, there weren’t very many good apartments; I looked at a bunch of terrible options in different parts of Moscow and was completely desperate. And then I remembered that my former colleague, who had left Moscow a few months earlier, had left an apartment somewhere in the center. I didn’t really hope for anything, but when I contacted the landlady, it turned out that the apartment was never rented out because the landlady couldn’t find tenants she liked.

This is a historical building, and despite the fact that this apartment does not belong to me, I am very pleased that I do not live in a faceless building. Friends always come to visit me with joy - and those who are visiting for the first time are also curious. Beautiful stairs, old doors, very intelligent neighbors. High ceilings, of course! You get used to it so quickly that now you want to live only with such people. At the same time, the layout of the apartment is not very convenient: a narrow long corridor, a small narrow kitchen with a window on the side, but I don’t pay attention to this. I like living here. I love spending time at home, I feel good and comfortable here. I live on the fourth floor, the windows overlook the courtyard, there is a kindergarten inside the courtyard. There is almost no noise from the street, only children's voices. You don’t even feel like you’re living right next to Sadovoy. I have a small but very pleasant balcony, where in the summer I grow flowers and also have breakfast and dinner.

Conveniently, the metro is right in the house. I leave the entrance, turn the corner - and that’s it. In any case, this is the center, that is, it is close to everything both by metro and by car. Recently, it has become convenient to use a taxi. Although the area, to be honest, is controversial: the proximity of three train stations has an effect. There are no normal grocery stores within walking distance. There is a 24-hour service right in the house, but there I only buy the essentials. Recently a small decent supermarket opened on Orlikov Lane. There is now no parking at the nearest ABC of Taste, and it’s a bit far on foot. Although I go there in extreme cases. But it’s very pleasant to walk in the Basmannye Street area, Bauman’s garden is nearby. Lefortovo Park is half an hour away by bike. I hardly spend time in my area, although I dream, like everyone else, that it would be, for example, like on the Patricks: I went out and immediately you got good coffee and fresh bread. However, this is on the same Pokrovka.

By the way, parking here has a very interesting story. Street along the house (Krasnovorotsky passage - Ed.) It seems to be included in the list of paid ones - it should have been like this since December 25 last year. But, fortunately, she didn’t. Therefore, in the evening there is always somewhere to leave the car. True, a couple of months ago my car was towed right from the entrance, because it turned out to be standing on the sidewalk, although this was not the case. And a couple of days later, quite by chance, a space became available in a guarded parking lot near the house for an acceptable 3 thousand rubles a month, so now I leave the car there.

Several years ago, I fought to have an illegally installed barrier removed, and the elders of the house and entrances hated me for it. Like everywhere else, we also have active residents, but it seems to me that they act in their own interests, and not in public ones. We say hello to our neighbors in the building and chat in the elevator. I have very noisy guests and music, but no one has ever complained. Maybe it's all about the thick walls and floors. The granddaughter of the architect Dushkin lives in our house and sometimes conducts excursions here. They also often film movies here: the last time I encountered a bunch of wires, lighting and a film crew right out of my door - they were filming on my stairs. They also often film in the yard, especially in the summer.

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The history of the capital's Red Gate Square - the memory of military and construction victories of Russia

Square near the Krasnye Vorota metro station (Photo: Konstantin Kokoshkin / Global Look)

Red Gate Square is one of the most famous city toponyms, which arose long before Moscow formed within its current borders. Its history dates back to 1709, when Emperor Peter I ordered the construction of a triumphal gate on Myasnitskaya Street near Zemlyanoy Gorod (today's Zemlyanoy Val) in honor of the victory of Russian troops in the Battle of Poltava. It was these low (less than 10 m) wooden gates that became the first triumphal arch in Russia, which was completely rebuilt several times over the course of just over two hundred years.

The first transformation of the gate is associated with the name of Empress Catherine I - in 1724, on her orders, a new one, also wooden, was erected on the site of Peter the Great's Arch. Ten years later, the building burned down and was restored during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna.

Russian empire. Moscow. The Red Gate, built according to the design of the architect Dmitry Ukhtomsky in the mid-18th century (from materials of the USSR Architectural Museum). Reproduction of TASS Photo Chronicle (Photo: TASS Photo Chronicle)

In 1753-1757, the gate was again destroyed as a result of a strong fire. An enlarged copy of them (the building was 26 m higher than the previous one), but recreated in stone by the chief architect of Moscow, Dmitry Ukhtomsky, he also developed a design for a new square, in the center of which stood a baroque triumphal arch. At the same time, the name “Red”, that is, beautiful, was assigned to the triumphal gates.

Old Moscow. Red Gate, architect D.V. Ukhtomsky. /Reproduction of TASS Photo Chronicle, 1954 (Photo: TASS Photo Chronicle)

The bright red gates were decorated with stucco, gold capitals, bronze figures depicting the coats of arms of the provinces of the Russian Empire, as well as eight statues that personified Courage, Loyalty, Abundance, Wakefulness, Economy, Constancy, Mercury and Grace. The arch was crowned with a portrait of Elizabeth Petrovna and a bronze statue of a trumpeting angel.

Red Gate. 1902 (Photo: TASS Photo Chronicle)

In the 19th century, they tried to demolish the Red Gate three times, but each time they had defenders. The fate of the Ukhtomsky building was decided by the Bolsheviks, who decided to demolish the arch that was preventing the passage of trams. In 1927, during the redevelopment of Moscow according to the design of Lazar Kaganovich, the Red Gate was dismantled and was preserved only in the name of the square.

Lermontovskaya metro station (now Krasnye Vorota). 1985 (Photo: Oleg Ivanov / TASS Photo Chronicle)

Under this square in May 1935, as part of the first section of the Sokolnicheskaya line of the Moscow metro, the Krasnye Vorota station (in 1962-1986 - Lermontovskaya) was opened, for which the architect Ivan Fomin and the designer Alexander Denishchenko received the Grand Prix in 1937 World Exhibition in Paris. Both the vaulted hall of the station, made of red marble, and its southern vestibule, designed by the architect Nikolai Ladovsky, refer to the image of the triumphal gates of Ukhtomsky.

Sadovo-Chernogryazskaya street. View of the high-rise building at the Red Gate. 1961 (Photo: Naum Granovsky/TASS Photo Chronicle)

In 1952, one of the seven Stalinist high-rises was built nearby on the square, created according to the design of the chief architect of the Central Architectural Workshop of the Ministry of Railways, Alexei Dushkin. The choice was not random: the high-rise building was partly owned by the Ministry of Railways (MRT), whose employees subsequently settled in the residential part of the building. The initial project of Dushkin and his co-author Boris Mezentsev bore little resemblance to what we see now, says the architect’s granddaughter, historian and professor at Moscow Architectural Institute Natalya Dushkina.

Instead of the pointed spire that crowned all Stalin's high-rise buildings, it was planned to install a helmet-shaped dome here - this is what Stalin ordered. As a result, the house looked like a tight-fisted hero in armor and a helmet - an homage to the Russian warrior who had won the war that had just ended. However, this idea was later abandoned due to the technical complexity of the plan - the “helmet” turned out to be too heavy for the fragile structure of the building. Moreover, its construction at some point was close to collapse in the literal sense of the word.

Southern entrance to the Krasnye Vorota metro station (Photo: Nikolay Galkin/TASS)

Unlike six other high-rise buildings, the Dushkinsky building was connected to the metro: the building rises directly above the Krasnye Vorota station, which until 1952 had only one, southern exit. Dushkin insisted on building a second exit on the opposite side of the Garden Ring. There was a very heavy frame of the building above the inclined descent into the metro; blocking Kalanchevskaya Street for construction meant paralyzing traffic along the main city route.

High-rise building on Red Gate Square (Photo: Vasily Shitov/TASS)

Then Dushkin, together with design engineer Viktor Abramov, proposed freezing the soil and building the building frame with a counter-tilt to the left of 16 centimeters. According to their calculations, when the ground thaws, the building will gradually lower, as a result of which the frame will straighten. No one in the world did anything like this then (and no one has done it since). The experiment was completed successfully, the only thing the architects miscalculated was the timing: instead of the planned two or three years, it took almost ten to level the high-rise.

The destruction of old Moscow did not begin today, although today the last ones - and therefore the most valuable ones - are being barbarously destroyed! - historical monuments. The Bolsheviks did the most to destroy Moscow, dreaming of wiping the first capital of Russia from the face of the earth and in its place building a utopian City of the communist Sun. And the first victim, on June 3, 1927, was the Red Gate - the Triumphal Arch, built by decree of Emperor Peter the Great in honor of the victory in the Battle of Poltava.

Actually, the first arch was wooden, and in 1753 the gate burned down. And then the Senate ordered the construction of a new gate in this same place - stone, but in the same form. The work of restoring the triumphal Red Gate was entrusted to the sculptor and architect D. V. Ukhtomsky. The outstanding Russian architect developed a project for a new square, placing a triumphal gate in its center on a hill. Unlike wooden ones, the new gate was a tetrahedral volumetric structure, designed for all-round visibility from all sides of the square. The gate was painted in marble, gilded and decorated with 8 gilded statues symbolizing Courage, Loyalty, Abundance, Wakefulness, Economy, Constancy, Mercury and Grace. At the top of the gate was a bronze statue of Fame (Fama), holding a palm branch and a trumpet.

For its beauty and grace, according to ancient Russian custom, Muscovites nicknamed it the Red Gate (in addition, the road to Krasnoe Selo passed through the arch - the gate stood across the current traffic on the Garden Ring).

During the great Moscow fire in 1812, the gate was burned. True, they were later restored.

The Lermontov house is visible next to the arch.

The last time the Red Gate was repaired was already under Soviet rule, in 1926. And at the end of the same year they were included in the list compiled by the municipal services department of the Moscow City Council, among the buildings to be demolished! The motivation was standard at that time: “... due to the narrow space for transport.”

It turns out that it was here that the cyclopean avenue of the Palace of Soviets was supposed to pass, which cut the city from the stadium supposed to be in Izmailovo through Stromynka, Komsomolskaya Square and further - through the odd side of 25th October Street (formerly Nikolskaya), doomed to demolition, through the almost completely destroyed Volkhonka and Ostozhenka on Komsomolsky Prospekt and South-West.

The Moscow public rose to defend the city landmark. The architect A.V. spoke in favor of preserving the Red Gate. Shchusev, artist A.M. Vasnetsov, academician, secretary of the USSR Academy of Sciences S.F. Oldenburg, Moscow Architectural Society. On January 10, 1927, the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR appealed to the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee with a request to suspend the demolition resolution. The letter said that the Red Gate “is the only one of its kind not only in the All-Union, but also on a global scale... The Mossovet’s indication of an obstacle to traffic... seems unconvincing, since the center of the square is always not used.”

On April 6, the Moscow Department of Public Education sent a request to the Moscow City Council to include the Red Gate “in the list of registered monuments.” On April 16, the answer came: “...There is no need to include the Red Gate in the list of monuments.”

Soon the gate was demolished.

Some decorative decorations of the Red Gate have been preserved in the branch of the Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchusev (former Donskoy Monastery) and in the Museum of the History of Moscow. Drawings of the gates drawn up in 1932 by the architect S.F. have survived to this day. Kulagin based on previously performed measurements. Alas, this is all that has survived from the magnificent monument of Baroque architecture - the famous Red Gate.”

The same fate befell the Church of the Three Saints at the Red Gate in 1928. In 1814, M.Yu. Lermontov was baptized in this church. The court poet Demyan Bedny joyfully wrote:

"Nikola's cross was knocked down -
It became so bright around!
Hello, new Moscow,
New Moscow - crossless!

The house where Lermontov was born was also demolished - in its place a high-rise administrative and residential building was built, on the lower floor of which the northern exit from the Krasnye Vorota metro station was built. The main exit from the Krasnye Vorota metro station was built in 1935 by architect N.A. Ladovsky exactly on the site of the dismantled Red Gate.

The name of this square recalls the triumphal gates that were erected here in 1709 on the occasion of the meeting of Russian troops returning after the Poltava victory.

The Arc de Triomphe then delighted Muscovites so much with its beauty that it was nicknamed the Red (beautiful) Gate, although officially it was called the Triumphal Gate on Myasnitskaya Street near Zemlyanoy Gorod.

Until the end of the 17th century, here, on both sides of Zemlyanoy Val (now the Garden Ring), there were vegetable garden settlements. Inside the city there is a palace garden settlement with the Church of Charitonia in Ogorodniki, outside, behind the rampart, there are the gardens of the Ascension Monastery. The nearest passage tower of Skorodoma (wooden walls with towers built in the 16th century around Zemlyanoy Gorod) was located in the area of ​​Staraya Basmannaya, but local residents paved a direct path here by breaking through the so-called breach gates. And already Peter I traveled to Preobrazhenskoye and Nemetskaya Sloboda along a new road: through Nikolskaya, Myasnitskaya and the prolomny gate along the street, which was called Novaya Basmannaya. At the same time, the garden settlement ceased to be such, because Officers of amusing and soldier regiments settled here and turned into the Captain's.

On December 21, 1709, the victorious Russian army solemnly entered Moscow. The procession stretched for several miles, in the middle was Peter I himself, next to him were Field Marshal Menshikov and the commander of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, Prince Dolgoruky. All along the way, the troops were greeted by ordinary people, throwing branches and wreaths, and the procession itself passed under seven arches, “the height and splendor of which,” according to the memoirs of the Dane Yu. Just, was impossible to describe. The arches were decorated with gold, emblematic paintings, covered with inscriptions.

Moscow merchants erected the triumphal arch on Zemlyanoy Val at their own expense. In 1721 and 1727, the wooden gates were renewed. And in 1742, on the occasion of the coronation (the ceremonial cortege from Lefortovo to the Kremlin was supposed to pass through the arch), they were rebuilt according to the design of the architect M. Zemtsov. The theme for 1742 is a celebration of knowledge, arts, industry and commerce. However, in the dry May of 1748, the gate burned down. And in December 1752, the architect D.V. Ukhtomsky was instructed to install “the same gate again and in the same place.” He placed the arch already made of stone, like marble. However, according to researchers, the gates became red (in color) later, already in the 19th century, when the ancient meaning of the word began to be forgotten. This is exactly how they greeted the revolution; they were restored and whitewashed in 1926 and almost immediately demolished by decree of the Moscow City Council, “due to the narrowness of the space for transport.” At the same time, the nearby Church of the Three Saints was demolished.

True, they tried to demolish the gate in the 19th century. Thus, it is known that in the 1860s, the “Commission on the Benefits and Needs of Public” under the Moscow City Duma secretly sold the gates for scrapping to the post office official Milyaev for 1,500 rubles, but as soon as this became known, the sale was prohibited. In 1873, the commission once again tried to raise the issue of scrapping, but the Duma again rejected this proposal. There was no further attack on the gate.

But the current square is not only remembered for the Red Gate. On the night of October 2 to 3 (from the 14th to the 15th according to the new style) 1814, in the unpreserved house of Major General Tolya at the Red Gate, he was born. “On October 2nd, in the house of the late Major General and Cavalier Fyodor Nikolaevich Tol, a son, Mikhail, was born to the living captain Yuri Petrovich Lermontov. Archpriest Nikolai Petrov prayed with sexton Yakov Fedorov. Baptized on the same October 11th day.” M.Yu.’s grandmother insisted on coming to Moscow back in August 1814. Lermontova - Elizaveta Alekseevna Arsenyeva, because I was very worried about the health of my daughter Maria Mikhailovna. The baby was baptized in the Church of the Three Saints at the Red Gate (demolished in 1928), but according to other sources, right in the house. It is believed that the Lermontov family spent the winter in Moscow, and in April 1815 moved to the estate of E. A. Arsenyeva - the village of Tarkhany, Chembarsky district, Penza province.

The house where the poet was born was demolished at the very end of the 1930s with the words “we have people more famous than Lermontov.” The memorial plaque, installed on the centenary of the poet’s birth, is now kept in the house-museum of M.Yu. Lermontov, in 1964 a new memorial plaque will appear on the high-rise nearby, now marking only the place, and in 1965 a monument to the poet will be erected in the park (the same one about which Kosoy from the film “Gentlemen of Fortune” says the immortal: “Who will plant him?” ? He’s a monument!”) by sculptor I.D. Brodsky.

In 1933-1934, the architect, while designing, embodied the memories of the arch; the ground vestibule also reminds us of what was lost.

In 1941, in connection with the centenary of the poet’s death, the Red Gate Square was renamed Lermontovskaya, but the townspeople still called the square the Red Gate. As a result, the name Lermontovskaya went to the square and the square outside the Garden Ring, and the squares on the inside, near the metro lobby, returned to their previous name in 1994. There are no houses in this area.