Page 79 - AIT1121_E-Paper

076-079_AIT1121_HT_4S_VOX_ub (hs)_Layout 1 22.10.2021 15:29 Seite 079
Explosionszeichnung Stockwerke 2–4 • Exploded view level +2–+4
Entwurf • Design VOX Architects, RU-Moskau
Bauherr • Client X-FIT, RU-Jekaterinburg
Standort • Location RU-Jekaterinburg
Nutzfläche • Floor space 4.200 m 2
Fotos • Photos Sergey Ananiev
Mehr Infos auf Seite • More info on page 142
SPORTS CLUB
IN YEKATERINBURG
An extraordinary sports club including a swimming pool
on the third floor was built in Ekaterinburg, Russia, accor-
ding to plans by the Moscow-based architectural firm
VOX Architects. Vibrant colours, basic geometric shapes,
mirrors and light characterise the interior, which is inspi-
red by constructivism and suprematism. A maximum spa-
tial effect was achieved with few, minimalist means.
T he Russian metropolis of Ekaterinburg is located in the Ural
Mountains on the border between Asia and Europe. The city was
founded in the early eighteenth century as a modern factory town
around a central ironworks. This heritage as a working-class city also
shaped Ekaterinburg architecturally well into the twentieth century.
In the nineteen-twenties and nineteen-thirties, fo r example, nume-
rous buildings in the style of Russian Constructivism were built here
– workers’ clubs, commune houses and Chekist housing estates in
what were then avant-garde, new, geometric forms. In parallel, Eka-
terinburg developed into a centre of the formally related art of Supre-
matism. VOX Architects explicitly refer to this line of the city’s history
with their X-Fit sports club. The five-storey fitness centre with a floor
area of almost 4,200 square metres is located in Clever Park, a new
residential and business district on the banks of the Isset River, to the
south-east of the city centre. The reference to the two great Russian
art movements of the first half of the twentieth century is by no
means as far-fetched as one might think at first. The artists and archi-
tects of modernism were concerned with transformation. Through the
radical dissolution of the existing and the transition to a new order,
the Soviet “New Man” was to emerge. Transformation, in turn, is also
what visitors to fitness and sports clubs like the X-Fit are looking for
today. It is about a new, improved version of one’s own self, even if
this primarily involves a physical transformation. The implementation
was carried out fully in the spirit of Constructivism and Suprematism
with strict, geometric basic forms – circle, square and triangle – in
bold, bright colours. In addition, there are mirrored walls and strips
of light. VOX Architects used these to create dramatic visual effects,
optical illusions and perspective tricks that seem to dissolve the sim-
ple spatial cubes, causing the interior to vibrate and ani mating the vi-
sitors to be dynamic. With every movement, the interior changes and
forms, colours and light recombine anew. The goal of constant trans-
formation has been achieved!
AIT 11.2021 • 079