Architecture responds to numerous factors: context, client, end user, circumstances. These coalesce into a complex web of constraints—and one soon discovers that the choice of approaches is not actually that broad. The selected method of engaging with reality ultimately leads to a rather precise and distinctive solution.
But many years are sure to pass before this solution comes to fruition in large-scale architecture. The process of realisation and adaptation is energy-consuming and fraught with unexpected obstacles. Interiors, however, provide a field for rapid experimentation. They offer greater freedom, on an economic level among others, since these projects are not designed to last a lifetime and are not particularly difficult to alter. The result is an immediate, direct statement that yields instant results—a kind of creative play, an aesthetic laboratory: invent, create, enjoy. For the client, this experience is no less thrilling than for the architect.
Wowhaus interiors are exciting and memorable, partly because we endeavour to express our own ideas and tastes rather than follow trends. We invite people to embark on a journey together, to share a space of experiences, where the scenography informs the interior—one that will always be a coherent narrative, even if composed of just three words.
The Strelka Bar in the heart of Moscow, with its warm colours, dark vintage and quasi-vintage furniture, and instantly iconic riverside views, references everything from academic interiors to Scandinavian design and British pub culture—in essence, it looks as though it has always been there. Therefore, it attracts the most diverse clientele—from students at the Institute of Design, Media and Architecture to millionaires, socialites, and artists.
Whereas at Strelka we were composing a narrative from scratch, pretending it had evolved there over decades, at the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre we had to deal with the accumulated layers of different eras. To transform an old cinema into a contemporary theatrical venue, we proposed retaining authentic decorations without disguising their true age. The new elements are deliberately neutral and never overshadow the historic details.
The TsDL (Writers’ House) restaurant in Moscow, by contrast, is a good example of radical experiments in a historic setting. No structural alterations were possible here without damaging a listed building, so we resorted to artistic interventions: contemporary decorative panels in the Oak Hall temper the grandeur of the nineteenth-century interior. Sometimes, conversely, one must apply traditional panelling to modernist spaces. Either way, this work results in original, diverse narratives that remain clear and distinctive.
Oleg Shapiro: “In terms of aesthetic and social preferences, we are a rather cohesive collective, and these choices naturally influence our work’s final outcome. Social preferences primarily concern lifestyle and tempo, social circles, as well as tastes in art, architecture, and travels.”
