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Quattro Corti Business Centre
Quattro Corti Business Centre
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Quattro Corti Business Centre
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After almost two centuries, Piuarch is the first italian architecture’s firm returning to project and build in the city of Peter the Great. The Quattro Corti Business Centre is located in the city centre of Saint Petersburg, over an area of 5,000 square metres, a stone’s throw from the Hermitage and the Nevsky Prospect. The total built up area of the building is 23,500m2, distributed over six storeys above ground level and three below ground.Inside, in addition to twenty thousand square metres of premises that have been destined to office space, a twenty-two room Boutique Hotel has been created as well as Mansarda Restaurant. Run by Ginza Project, gurus of St Petersburg’s restaurant scene, Mansarda has a breath-taking view over St Isaac’s cathedral.In 2006 the group won the competition announced by Galaxy LLC to renovate and rebuild an area in the heart of the former imperial capital. Many cultural and historical references have inspired Piuarch’s design, starting with the Hall of Mirrors in the Great Palace of Peterhof to the work of Kazimir Malevich. So the project starts with special attention dedicated to the surrounding context and the city’s tradition in town planning, without foregoing a contemporary, architectonic form of expression, a feature of Piuarch’s works, known on an international scale thanks to the projects created for Dolce&GabbanaThe name Quattro Corti comes from the four courtyards that have been obtained in the volume to give light to the premises overlooking them. The colours that characterise these four courtyards are gold, green, pale blue and red, inspired by the sumptuous colours of the facades of St Petersburg’s historical residences. The facades are all transparent, with mirrored reflecting glass made in the four colours. The glass panels follow a variety of inclinations and rotate at an angle to the edge of the façade; the result is an evocative fragmentation of the reflections in the mirror glass and a kaleidoscopic effect animated by the sun’s light as it changes throughout the day“We wanted to create a building that was entirely ‘introverted’ explains Germàn Fuenmayor, one of Piuarch’s partners, “where each courtyard would be brought to life with light and colour, creating venues that are alive and which surprise visitors. At the same time, the literary reference made to the courtyards of St Petersburg’s palaces is powerful, places full of life as portrayed in the stories of Dostoevsky and Gogol”. The entrance of the golden courtyard houses a hanging sculpture, the red courtyard a copper volume, the blue courtyard a pool of water, whilst in the green courtyard it is the vegetation that steals the scene. All of the surfaces have been covered with white Italian travertine, the same as used in the Kazan Cathedral on Nevsky.On the top floor, the two buildings have been linked together with a metal roof at different angles, which reconnects the asymmetrical sloping parts of the roofs with a continuous form. There is a great deal of Italian influence in the construction of the building as well, which involved a real team effort between Russian and Italian companies. These included Interpark for the motorised car parks, Stahlbau Pichler for the facades, IGuzzini and Telmotor S.p.a. / TecnoDelta S.p.a. for the lighting, Lualdi for the doors and fixtures, Marmi Due Ci for all the marble used in the building, InteriorPlus for the interior furnishings and furniture of the hotel. By the same token, all the materials used were Italian.“We are happy to be the first foreigners to have managed to create modern architecture in the historical city centre following the Russian Revolution. We have delivered everything in line with the budget and deadlines. Our idea, which is what appealed to the principal, Artem Shakhnazarov of Galaxy, was to bring contemporary European architecture into a highly historical context” as one of Piuarch’s founders, architect Francesco Fresa explainsMANSARDA RESTAURANTThe Mansarda Restaurant is located on the top floor of the Quattro Corti complex. Developed by Piuarch both for its structure and interior design, it adds a real touch of glamour to the Business Centre. This panoramic restaurant, with large windows opening out onto breath-taking views of the cathedral of Sant’Isacco, the city and the glass facades of the courtyards, reveals a surprising interior space. The ceiling is a particular feature, thanks to the geometric design of the grey oak beams, whose angles evoke attic rooms, whilst also expressing the shape of the roof itself. “We used natural materials such as oak and teak and introduced surprising elements, as if salvaged from an old attic apartment, such as the spoons and glasses used to form partitions and decorate the interior. The overall effect is a synthesis of the elegance and modernity of the restaurant and the beautiful view over the old town,” explains Francesco Fresa, partner of Piuarch.Mansarda is run by Ginza Project, the catering gurus of Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The restaurant has 255 covers, 75 of which are on the panoramic terrace, and it covers an area of 1050 m2, with open access to the offices and to the public exterior of the complex