Moscow nights: an exuberant interior, of solid wood, transforms a dull PoMo night-club in Moscow.The Cocon-Club has one of the weirdest interiors in Moscow, which is saying quite a lot these days, when you can find the most strange, disgusting and wild places in the world there. In a mid '90s PoMo building, the Cocon, a great three-storey artefact See artifact. , writhes and bulges to accommodate warm, comforting spaces that provide a sense of security and calm in what can often be a very alarming city. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Once past the dumb exterior, you are welcomed by a huge mass of blond timber that seems to have been gnawed out of solid wood by a strange termite termite or white ant, common name for a soft-bodied social insect of the order Isoptera. Termites are easily distinguished from ants by comparison of the base of the abdomen, which is broadly joined to the thorax in termites; in ants, there is partnership between Aalto and Gehry, with Antonio Gaudi hovering hov·er intr.v. hov·ered, hov·er·ing, hov·ers 1. To remain floating, suspended, or fluttering in the air: gulls hovering over the waves. 2. somewhere overhead. The volume is generated from comparatively simple plan diagrams, in which circles nuzzle nuz·zle v. nuz·zled, nuz·zling, nuz·zles v.tr. 1. To rub or push against gently with or as if with the nose or snout: stroked and nuzzled the kitten. 2. each other to form mythic shell- or womb-like spaces. Architects Vladimir Kuzmin and Vladislav Savinkin decided to carve the internal volumes out of wood rather than plastic or plaster because of wood's relative ease of working and its empathic em·path·ic adj. Of, relating to, or characterized by empathy. Adj. 1. empathic - showing empathy or ready comprehension of others' states; "a sensitive and empathetic school counselor" empathetic qualities. First, they built a one to ten scale model: a large object, which allowed them to work out the nuances of the form, and its spaces and lighting. Then, its shapes and apertures were formed by multiplying the computer-assisted design drawings by 10 to make templates for cutting out layers of thick plywood plywood, manufactured board composed of an odd number of thin sheets of wood glued together under pressure with grains of the successive layers at right angles. Laminated wood differs from plywood in that the grains of its sheets are parallel. that were imposed one above another. The final, almost slippery smooth form, was achieved with an amazing a·maze v. a·mazed, a·maz·ing, a·maz·es v.tr. 1. To affect with great wonder; astonish. See Synonyms at surprise. 2. Obsolete To bewilder; perplex. v.intr. amount of hard work with planes, rasps and sandpaper--Russia still has an economy in which fine hand labour can be afforded on a large scale. Ironically, the labourers are scarcely likely to be able to afford the prices charged by the Cocon-Club, but their efforts have produced one of the most extraordinary and securely cheerful places in the city. A.M. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Architects Vladimir Kuzmin and Vladislav Savinkin Project team Tatiana Tcheliapina, Dmitri Khromov, Anna Logacheva, Anna Novoselskaja, Eugenia Tikhonova Photographs Andrey Yagubsky, Alexey Naroditsky, Kirill Ovchinnikov, Vitaly Nefedov [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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