New Ivanivka House of Culture in Chernihiv
Project Type: Public Infrastructure /Remodeling
After the excellent reception of our projects for the city of Irpin, we were contacted by Chernihiv, a devastated city in the northeast of Ukraine, constantly attacked and tortured by the advance of the Russian army since March 2022.
The request of the Chernihiv Construction Management and Urban Consultancy to reformulate this administrative building in the center of the town of Ivanivka into a Cultural Center is, in addition to a structural and humanitarian demand, an enormous emotional challenge, to rescue strength, soul and dignity of the inhabitants of their regions.
Built in 1956, this building was almost completely destroyed. Windows and facades were damaged by rockets and fire from Russian troops, as well as the roof and interior walls. The current building houses the town's library.
Imagen: The Memory Square
Imagen: Wintergarden of the New Ivanivka House of Culture
Project premises
The Place
Building made from the Soviet Union Era, very characteristic and of great emotional charge in the collective memory of the village area, embodying all the concepts and characteristics spatial and stylistic aspects of Stalinist construction.
This volume is built on a single level and is structured with a brutal system of thik walls that compartmentalize its spaces and programs, constituting a segmented and discontinuous space, which, due to its over-structuring, prevents the entry of natural light and the conception of interior space program and its different areas, as a continuous and compact unitary space, complicating the development of its experience and losing the possibility to gain more space to add new programs and spaces.
Forced facade and Labyrinthine space
Its main façades attempts to build a forced neoclassical style, full of cladding and eclectic decorative details, without achieving a spatial and urban dialogue with the scale and significance of the rural village of Ivanivka.
Inside, it is an overstructured, labyrinthine, twisted space in terms of natural light, hyper compartmentalized, designed with a logic that prevents the free meeting and interaction of people inside; a true space of control and social supervision, faithful representative of the Soviet Union Era.
The project develops an architectural reformulation to transform this over-structured and necessarily neoclassical Soviet space into a new space, full of natural light, freedom and spatiality, visual and programmatic continuity, which favors the free gathering of the people who will inhabit it.
The strategy to approach this project is based on the conservation of the thick brick walls of the current building as structural supports for new glazed and warm elements that unify the space and house a new and modern program.
In this way it is intended to change the emotional image of the building but without forgetting its past, being the venue for numerous events and visits.
Architectural Proposal
Contrast Elements and Materials
The way to highlight a building with an old character is to contrast it with other totally different elements.
In this way, a visual difference is intended between the brick of the walls of the current building in contrast to other materials, such as glass as a source of light and transparency, giving the feeling of continuity and freedom; and wood as a sustainable material that provides a warm and welcoming environment, contrasting with the current building in ruins.
Preserve Elements and Materials
Preserving the façade and the supporting walls that remain standing within the ruins of the building not only allows structural and material savings in terms of its eventual demolition and construction costs, but also allows the preservation of the memories of the town, since it is understood as a powerful element visual for this one.
Also, in this building, there are several symbols that mark its Soviet origin, and recall part of the horrors experienced by that sinister era. Our proposal erases these symbols, freeing the building from its heavy and negative symbolic load, replacing them with the integration of natural light, transparency, fluidity and programmatic interconnection, as a new symbolism of spatial liberation.
At night, when the lights of the cultural center are turned on, the old walls light up, like a museum that takes care of these walls full of history inside its brilliant showcases.
Insideout
To achieve the previously explained effects, large longitudinal flat sides of continuous tempered glass are used, fastened with glass ribs and a spider anchoring system, as well as a structural system of laminated wood. These innovative plans draw the perimeter of the building through which the nature of the environment filters in, building a new experience of spatial and programmatic freedom inside.
Being in the new interior of the building will give you the sheltered and quiet feeling of being in the park without actually being there.
Imagen: Access Hall of the New Ivanivka House of Culture
A New Level
On the shoulders of the walls that were left standing, it is possible to build a second level, a new habitable roof where the old and undervalued current roof is transformed into a very important space to generate new social relationships and encourage sharing between different cultural areas: a wintergarden. This is accessible from the each new program of the building, forming a new public space on the Main Theater Hall, which allows enjoying a new cafeteria area on that level, where all this new level has been conquered.
Transition zones: From noise to silence
The current anatomy of the building suggests a concentric composition subdivided into 3 large strips, whose two outer strips, being less protected by interior walls, function as transition spaces for noisy programs and circulation (offices, cafeteria, coworking, stairs and bridges).
These strips are contained by two triple-height glazed cubicles that fluidly connect the two levels of the project. This new transparent interior organization allows to connect all the programs in the new building without interrupting the fluidity and spatial continuity of different areas.
The central strip, on the other hand, being contained within brick walls, allows for quieter and more containment programs (such as the Winter Garden or the theater).
Likewise, noisy programs are planned for the first level (ballet or music room), leaving those that require greater silence (library or classes) on the second level.
Transition zones: From Noise to Silence
The current anatomy of the building suggests a concentric composition subdivided into 3 large strips, whose two outer strips, being less protected by interior walls, function as transition spaces for noisy programs and circulation (offices, cafeteria, coworking, stairs and bridges).
These strips are contained by two triple-height glazed cubicles that fluidly connect the two levels of the project. This new transparent interior organization allows to connect all the programs in the new building without interrupting the fluidity and spatial continuity of different areas.
The central strip, on the other hand, being contained within brick walls, allows for quieter and more containment programs (such as the Winter Garden or the theater).
Likewise, noisy programs are planned for the first level (ballet or music room), leaving those that require greater silence (library or classes) on the second level.
