Detail of the project ed. 2024

the-church-of-skete-in-the-name-of-the-kazan-icon-of-the-moth­­er-of-god / Montenegro

Design­er	Andrey Anisi­mov
Loca­tion	186756, Repub­lic of Kare­lia, Sor­tavala dis­trict, Valaam island
Nation	Rus­sia
Design Team	Author of the project, chief archi­tect and work man­ag­er — archi­tect Andrey Anisimov Archi­tects: A. Men­sho­va, O. Petrashko, S. Kanterin. Artists: O. Roma­nenko, A. Ver­di, D. Lazarev, O. Petrashko. Archi­tec­tur­al bureau “me.Ander” D.O.O. Tivat. Montenegro.
Year	2019
Pho­to credits	Pho­to archive from the col­lec­tion of Andrey Anisimov

Pho­to external

Project descrip­tion

The skete is locat­ed on the far cape of the island of Valaam in Lake Lado­ga in north­ern Rus­sia, in Kare­lia. A mono­lith­ic stone slab emerges from the water to a small height and the site for the skete is locat­ed on a nar­row strip between the lake and the forest.
The build­ings of the skete were com­plete­ly lost dur­ing the Sovi­et peri­od and now it was decid­ed to restore the monastery, but not to repeat the archi­tec­ture of the pre­vi­ous build­ings, but to cre­ate new build­ings, not even in their his­tor­i­cal place.
A project was devel­oped for the entire skete, includ­ing the church, monas­tic cells, guest hous­es and oth­er build­ings, but due to lack of funds, only the church was built. The design of the church, as well as the entire com­plex, is made in the spir­it of tra­di­tion­al stone archi­tec­ture of the Russ­ian North. Sim­ple shapes, slop­ing walls, a small amount of decor.
But the ped­i­ments of the vestibules and the apse of the altar are dec­o­rat­ed with ele­gant stone carv­ings and icons.
The roofs rise like steps to the cen­tral part of the tem­ple — to the dome.
The tem­ple is crowned with a tra­di­tion­al dome for Ortho­dox archi­tec­ture, made of wood­en struc­tures and cov­ered with an aspen ploughshare.
The suc­cess­ful choice of the loca­tion of the tem­ple, its lacon­ic forms, nat­ur­al mate­ri­als and tra­di­tion­al meth­ods of lay­ing walls allowed the build­ing to blend organ­i­cal­ly into the sur­round­ing landscape.
The inte­ri­or of the church is very restrained, which dis­tin­guish­es it from most mod­ern Russ­ian church­es. A low stone bar­ri­er and two icons with full-length fig­ures of Jesus Christ and the Vir­gin Mary sep­a­rate the altar from the place for worshipers.
There is anoth­er icon case near the wall — a trip­tych. The sac­ri­fi­cial table of the altar is carved from a sin­gle stone slab. A throne with a stone cross com­pletes the com­po­si­tion of the altar space. In the lacon­ic carved decor you can see cross­es made of lead.
There are only two images on the vaults — Christ Pan­to­cra­tor in the cen­tral dome and the Vir­gin Mary in the altar vault.
An impor­tant part of the artis­tic solu­tion is the font com­po­si­tions on the walls in the altar.
The authors designed and man­u­fac­tured stained glass win­dows, all the uten­sils, fur­ni­ture, light­ing and even vest­ments for the clergy.

Explana­to­ry report of the project
Down­load report

Pho­to internal

Tech­ni­cal drawings

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