Individual project, brilliant renovation

House 124 on Mira Avenue is a very interesting building. It is long, consists of several buildings that stretch along the avenue, bending onto Kibalchicha Street and Malomoskovskaya Street. The main array along Mira Avenue, as well as several buildings inside the courtyard, were built from 1933 to 1938, and it was called the “residential complex of the People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry.” And much later, already in the fifties, building 18 appeared on Kibalchicha Street, buildings 10 and 17 on Malomoskovskaya Street, and several more buildings in the courtyard of the “residential plant”.

The projects of these new buildings were developed back then, in the 30s, but were not implemented. For example, Max Gunger, the author of the building 17 project, was repressed.

Building 17 is an eight-story building built in 1955. For seven decades, it has become very dilapidated and worn out. In 2022, a major overhaul has finally begun here. The main task of the specialists of the Capital Repair Fund was to preserve the historical appearance of the building.

– We have developed a unique project for the work and selected materials, we decided to use the most advanced technologies, – said Vladimir Kozhichenkov, Deputy General Director of the Capital Repair Fund of Moscow. – For convenience, work on the restoration of the facade was divided into several stages. First, the specialists washed the planes of accumulated dirt, sealed the seams and locally repaired the brickwork. Then they applied modern antifungal protection in places of getting wet. At the final stage, hydrophobization was carried out, which will reliably protect the walls from the aggressive influence of precipitation. All architectural elements were restored to their former beauty: rectangular brackets and the crowning cornice were repaired, wreath-shaped bas-reliefs were restored. Also, specialists carried out work on the installation of a new entrance door of the main facade, during the production of which they tried to reproduce the historical pattern of its predecessor as much as possible.

The house has many interesting, distinguishing details. The upper three floors are separated by a wide cornice with denticles – an ornament in the form of small rectangular ledges, similar to a row of teeth. The balconies on the street-facing façade are open and fenced off with an elegant metal grille. The interwindow openings of the upper floors are decorated with panels – recessed frames. In the niches of the panels you can see the leaves of acanthus or “bear’s paw” – an indispensable attribute of ancient architecture, as well as classicism and neoclassicism. And at the very top between them are wreaths. The top cornice is decorated with rectangular brackets.

Maya PCHOLKINA.

Based on materials “My House Moscow”