An unusual building for the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific and Technical Expertise and Information in the modernist style was built in 1971 according to the design of Florian Yuryev (author of the coat of arms of the city of Kyiv) and Lev Novikov. The area of the 16-story building of the institute and the adjacent extension with a multifunctional hall (popularly simply called a “flying saucer”) amounted to 17,000 square meters.
Architect Yuryev said that for the ideal acoustics of the hall, everything was measured down to the millimeter, and the plaster was applied in a thin layer so that it would not muffle the sounds. Lighting and acoustic installations were also designed that would make it possible to turn this room into a real color and music theater – music, light and color would be combined here, but the project remained on paper… But a suspended ceiling is attached to the dome of the “plate” covering, and special rotating devices for the ceiling panels provide the ability to change the acoustic settings of the hall…
The building of the institute was built using modern technologies of those years: a frame structure with a curtain wall, the load-bearing walls are the internal walls, everything else is the columns on which it is supported. The architecture of the building was determined by the fact that the Lybid River flows here and the soil is such that it is impossible to build pile structures. Taking into account all the geodetic studies, it was built of a lightweight type. At that time, it was a fairly advanced house: aluminum windows, double-glazed windows, a curtain wall, open-plan interior design. In Soviet times, there was an air conditioning system here, very large air conditioners were in the basement, and in order to cool these blocks, a fountain was built, pipelines were placed on all floors. Hungarian elevators were installed, but they quickly became unusable and had to be replaced with Finnish ones.
As of 2018, the building of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Expertise and Information was leased to the Mandarin Plaza company (Lavina Mall, Blockbuster Mall, Ocean Plaza and others), which plans not only to open a new shopping center “Ocean Mall” at the end of 2018, but also to organically unite it with the building of the institute and the “plate”, having previously completed their external and internal reconstruction. There are also plans to organize a science museum at the institute.
Where is the “plate” on Lybidska?
Antonovicha street, 180