British designer Asif Khan has transformed a Soviet-era cinema in Kazakhstan into Tselinny Middle of Up to date Tradition, updating its concrete construction and 18-metre-tall auditorium.
Opened final month within the metropolis of Almaty, the 6,000-square-metre centre incorporates galleries, workshops, workplace areas and a rooftop restaurant.
The Soviet-era constructing, initially accomplished in 1964, was revived by Khan to function a “new cultural landmark for Central Asia” and a platform for artists within the area.
Its revitalisation included the updating of its modernist-style concrete body and the elimination of piecemeal additions made through the years.
Khan has additionally renewed the constructing’s exterior with an undulating facade composed of metal fins and concrete panels, aiming to counter its present monumental type.
That is complemented by what Khan describes as a “cloudscape” embossed throughout the constructing’s north and south facades, which takes the type of symbols discovered within the work of Soviet artist Evgeny Sidorkin.
“As an alternative of an entrance, there’s a cloud-like threshold, softening the rigidity and management of the Soviet concrete body,” Khan mentioned.
“Its type recollects the second of my first go to to Almaty, once I noticed a cloud hovering over the steppe,” he continued. “The doorway now holds this cloud completely as an virtually formless, dissolving threshold by which individuals enter.”
A single stage has been established all through the centre’s floor ground to create a “floor for public life”, which required the elimination of a set of steps on the constructing’s entrance.
Inside is an open-plan area, created by the elimination of columns and a mezzanine stage that had been inserted into the double-height lobby.
Kazakhstan cafe performs with shifting gentle from morning to nighttime
Wings flanking the central lobby of Tselinny Middle of Up to date Tradition have been added to host galleries, workplaces, workshops and a brand new street-facing cafe designed by native apply NAAW Studio.
Beneath this, a brand new basement stage homes public bathrooms, a cloakroom and a quiet room, alongside back-of-house amenities. A rooftop restaurant crowns the constructing and is backed by views throughout town and mountainous panorama.
Ornamental components preserved by Khan embrace sgraffito – paintings fashioned from scratching a tough floor – which was accomplished by Sidorkin in 1964.
A geological motif runs by the constructing’s inside finishes in a nod to the Almaty area, with a limestone reception desk and earth-toned pigmented concrete that includes within the lobby.
This motif extends to the rear auditorium, the place the unique partitions and roof of its 18-metre-tall concrete quantity have been preserved and up to date with a ribbon of metal and glass home windows that wraps across the floor ground.
Whereas drawing gentle into the area, this ribbon gives entry out and in of the constructing, designed to symbolise the traditional glacial rivers round Almaty.
“A plan was developed to allow the auditorium’s authentic partitions and roof construction to be extensively strengthened and absolutely retained,” mentioned Khan. “The transformation reveals the auditorium’s true scale, stripped of its former seating and ornament.”
Different notable cultural tasks just lately featured on Dezeen embrace SANAA’s Taichung Inexperienced Museumbrary in Taiwan and the Tadao Ando-designed Nationwide Museum of Uzbekistan in Tashkent.
The images is by Laurian Ghinitoiu.
