The Amber Arrow

Five buildings that form a smooth curve along the Peterburgskoye highway serve as a distinctive front of the Expoforum complex. These are a business centre, the Hilton and Hampton by Hilton hotels, and a convention centre, where a long passage begins, leading to the pavilions. “The complex being situated almost outside of town, near the airport, it was essential to make the façades colourful and easy to recognize, so that they would be well perceivable from far points” – one of the authors of the design, the SPEECH bureau leader Sergey Tchoban explains.  The five façades are visually joint together to form a single smooth curve, although in fact they are separate items, each with its independent function. It is primarily the colour that provides for this sense of unity: all the façades of the complex have a golden shade that triggers textbook associations both with the Amber Room and with the mellow autumn at the same time. The buildings are coated with three-dimensional ceramic panels made of extrudable ceramics.

It is only the full glass façade of the conventional centre that interrupts this line. According to the design, it was to be spanned with a 30-meter-high goldish apron in the form of a sail, which would have visually emphasised the whole complex. It was decided not to construct the apron by the opening of Expoforum, but, according to Evgeny Gerasimov, there is a hope that this spectacular element will take the place appointed to it through the second stage of construction.