Pushinsky cinema Competition
Disclaimer: this project was designed in 2011, before the invasion of Ukraine.
Competition: design a new façade for the Pushinsky cinema.
INTRODUCTION
Architecture has always been on the move, from its origin on it transcends disciplines and borders. The exploration of the intermediate space between different disciplines is at the heart of innovation and creation. This intermediate domain is not only a space between items, disciplines or destinations, it is a source of inspiration and could be distinguished and appreciated for its own merits. It is a strong human desire to explore this -ever partly known domain and tell stories and show images about the adventures experienced in it.
It was this desire which led to the invention of the cinema. One of the first ‘road movies’ ever recorded was about a very short trip: a nude descending a staircase, made by Eadward Muybridge and published in ‘The Human Figure in Motion’, completed in 1885. He was the maker of a machine called the Zoöpractiscope. This machine in fact marks an intermediate stage from photography towards motion pictures and therefore simultaneously the beginning of cinematography.
His classic sequence of pictures of a ‘nude descending a staircase’ inspired artists from all over Europe. In 1912 Marcel Duchamp made a painting with the same title and Francis Bacon based other work on Muybridges material.
CONCEPT
As a theme for the design of the new façade of the cinema on Pushkinsky square, this proposal celebrates the exploration of the intermedial domain. Therefore, in this design the first road movie ever, an intermediate in itself, is transformed to architecture and will be permanently screened in a mixed-media-wide-screen ‘blockbusting’ production.
The actors involved are transformed by the adventures they experience in Russia, scripted by the architect. The ‘nude’ and the ‘stair’ are stretched, extruded, copied and mirrored, they escape from their discipline (cinema) and show up in the domain of architecture and sculpture.
The setting is Moscow, famous for its iconographic towers of the Kremlin admired by the same masses who attend the cinema on Pushkinsky square. So the shape of the façade finds its origin in the curvature of the onion shape. The curve was inverted and it escaped from its endless circular trajectory.. leaving as a trace the new façade on Pushkinsky square. The nude is subtracted out of the new façade, the stair is punched into it, erasing the curved screen below its line in a final fight between space and form…
This event transformed the scene and makes the lobby a festive place for the public to celebrate and witness new cinematographic experiences in an playful but cosmopolitan, architectural setting.
RAMP
A new ramp is introduced to connect the cinema entrance with the road infrastructure and to accommodate theatrical arrival opportunities for movie stars during festivals and premières. A part of the huge stair towards the park is changed to make space for this element. Driving a too far stretched limo on this ramp becomes an adventure in itself…
MATERIALS
For the panels of the façade, the ambition is to develop an experimental ceramic material, modelled on moulds, made with rapid manufacturing devices. The moulds dissolve during the baking of the porcelain (we can fall back to aluminium if this material is too ambitious). The supportive structure inside will be steel. The lobby on the side elevation is circumscribed by monumental vertical elements, covered with glass-fibre reinforced cast concrete elements, moulded in laser cut castingmoulds.
For the structural glazed façade, Duponts Safety Glass Interlayer fulfils the safety requirements.
LED-SCREEN façade
To fulfil the need for advertising, but avoiding to cover the cinema complex by billboards or separate screens as seen on the recent pictures, a part of the façade has an integrated systems of LED lights reflecting their light locally in golf ball shaped dents on the façade at an approx 75 mm dimension interval. The front side of the reflector is covered with an electronic ink module, making it visible in daylight conditions.
Trailers and advertising can be screened on this area which is localized at the two rounded corners of the building.
The rest of the façade has the same surface -but without the LED modules- giving it a sensible embossed appearance.