My favorite modern building is located on Liza Chaikina Street, it is not the most obvious on the Petrogradskaya side. Once upon a time there was a private cinema “Assembly”, built by the architect Korzukhin in 1913. Then, in 1918, the 1st Proletarian Theater moved there, although with a completely bourgeois program: dances on streamers, films with Vera Kholodnaya and other “seekers pearl”. Later the building was occupied by the cultural center of the Svetoch factory, located next door. The main accent of the façade has always been the arch, beautiful in its hesitation, in the Moorish style. It survived even after the building was rebuilt in 1969. Now here is the Boris Eifman Dance Academy, and the new architecture not only did not swallow this arch, but somehow legalized it, preserving the old facade and reinforcing it with a additional shot, in which, they say, a QR code with quotes about ballet is hidden.
I see so much perfection and visual harmony in this façade that I always try to plan my route so I can pass by it. This is the case when I totally agree with the jury of the “Architecture Oscar” WAF (World Architecture Festival, one of the main architecture competitions in the world. – Note BURO.), which awarded the prize to Studio 44 (a St. Petersburg architectural bureau. – Note . BURO.), who designed this building. And at that time my festival colleague Georgy Snezhkin was working at Studio 44 and was involved in the project. I found out about this recently and now Georgy is, in a sense, my idol.
