Modern studio in Stalin's house: apartment of designer Anna Sazhinova
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17 Mar 2023
The apartment of Anna Sazhinova, co—founder of the Archpole studio, is a good example of how you can turn an old Stalinka into a modern studio with a bathroom in the kitchen and a bed in the living room
There is a real studio light hanging in the apartment, which rides on rails on the ceiling — the hostess likes to take pictures.
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
The apartment is located in a historic house — an old "Stalinka" with high ceilings and a bay window overlooking the Moscow River. By the way, it was here that the very first Archpole office was located and the first projects and objects of the bureau were created, which this year is already 15 years old. In 2010, the "two-bedroom apartment" became cramped for the studio's stormy creative activity, the studio office moved to a new room, and Anna finally decided to redevelop.
Anna plans to attach a cornice with Japanese printed curtains to the beam under the ceiling at the entrance to the apartment, with the help of which it will be possible to zone the room.
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
To begin with, the designer demolished all the walls and turned a two-room apartment into a spacious studio. "For the first time, the idea of open and free redevelopment appeared and was partially implemented back then, but only last year I returned to work on the space: I revised and thought out the concept, and implemented it," says Anna.
Today it is a large, bright, multifunctional space with built—in furniture, a large number of living plants and the only isolated room — a bathroom. The only room has everything you need for life: a bedroom, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a dressing room, a study and even a bathroom (yes, the bathtub is also here and occupies a corner between the kitchen and the entrance to the toilet).
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
The studio has a symmetrical layout: a door in the center, a bay window opposite it, two French balconies on the sides. At the entrance to the apartment there is a storage room and a dressing room, along the wall to the left of the entrance there are built—in wardrobes for clothes, books and household items, to the right of the entrance there is a kitchen and a bath (both on wheels).
The bathroom and the kitchen are assembled into a single composition of black metal with a coating of black micro-cement. The exhaust pipe is another original detail that is worth paying attention to.
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
"The source of inspiration for the kitchen and bath were mobile trolleys. It seems as if you can take a bath and roll it out to the middle of the room or to the window"
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
Fragments of old brickwork are specially left on the walls, and traces of the previous layout are on the ceiling. "The house is old, 1950s, has seen a lot of things in its lifetime. When we removed the walls, it turned out that in each room the ceilings were plastered at different levels. It was a pity to level them and sew them up with drywall, and I decided to leave this memory of the history of the apartment — as a tattoo for memory or a scar. Of course, the height differences complicated the work, but they brought their own trick to the interior," says the hostess.
The bed can be fenced off from the rest of the space with a mirror screen.
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
"I like to live in an open space. Such a layout implies a certain exhibitionism — you can't hide anywhere. This philosophy is close to me..."
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
During the renovation, historical details that disappeared over the years of the house's existence were returned to the interior: wooden window frames, cast-iron batteries. Unfortunately, neither the Stalinist stucco on the ceiling nor the wooden parquet have been preserved — instead of it, the apartment now has a modern self-leveling floor, which was made by friends of Archpole company DBSG.
"I didn't get any historical heritage. At the start of the project, I had a modern renovation, inherited from the previous owners: plastic windows, standard batteries, the balcony in the kitchen was converted into a window, and a storage room for cans of tomatoes was organized under it… I wanted to preserve the historical context, so I replaced the windows, restored the balcony and found cast-iron batteries similar to those that were here originally. I think they are very beautiful, like a kind of art," explains Anna.
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
There are a lot of non-standard solutions in the apartment, which could hardly be found in a design project created for an outsider client, and not for himself. And indeed, few people would dare to live in an apartment without a single partition. "Of course, if there are children, the walls can start growing again. It's good that the markings on the ceiling have been preserved," Anna laughs.
In an open space where everything is in sight, storage should be as carefully thought out as possible. The apartment has a lot of drawers, cabinets, dressers, allowing you to maintain visual order and not overload the space with unnecessary things.
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
And living plants help to create comfort and let color into the monochrome interior — there are a huge number of them here! They have even allocated a separate shelf for them, which Archpole customers usually buy for books, and it copes perfectly with the new mission.
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
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Natalia Gradusova / archpole.ru
The apartment is after redevelopment.
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archpole.ru
