Chaplygina Apartment in Moscow by Blockstudio.

Located in the heart of Moscow’s historical centre, this 75sqm apartment by Blockstudio sought to recreate the atmosphere of the late 19th-century through a dutiful and detail orientated restoration.

“Over the past hundred years, the apartment was made over several times and as a result, nothing of the historic decorations was preserved. But the location itself, the view from the windows and the atmosphere of the district, as well as the client’s expressed wish, encouraged us to develop a design that would provide for restoring the historic content of the time when the building had been built – the 1880s,” explain Blockstudio designers. “Curiously enough, after the project had been completed, the old blueprints of the building’s layout turned up to reveal that our project layout fitted the old one to a tee.”

An important task was to have the interior fitted out with “old-school” double-glazed windows that, unlike any other windows, allow light to reflect as if through a double lens. The doors and stucco were made to original 19th-century drawings. The pattern of the parquet floor is based on a piece of the original parquet floor that was found during the dismantling of the flooring layers.

The clients, a French couple in love with Russia who’ve lived there for quite some time, and the architects agreed this space should be furnished with Russian antique pieces to embody a sense of rich historical quality. Balanced with contemporary light fixtures, the home also plays gallery to the clients’ collection of Russian art.

Based in Moscow, Blockstudio is a team of architects and designers who specialise in low-rise urban public spaces, offices, commercial properties and residential housing. Valuing project implementation from concept stage to on site supervision the studio strives to produce detailed and quality solutions to spatial problems.

Related: A Slice of Paris in Moscow: Apartment of Basta by Blockstudio.

[Images courtesy of Blockstudio. Photography by Mikhail Loskutov.]