Church complex in honour of Our Lady of the Sign Icon. KRASNODAR, RUSSIA.

Author: Dmitry Ostroumov
Architects: Dmitry Ostroumov, Kristina Vasina, Galina Zhukovskaya
Master Plan Architect: Anna Vidanova
3D Visualising: Evgeny Belyakovich
Krasnodar, Znamensky settlement, 2024

The Our Lady of the Sign Icon church is designed for the central park of the Pervoye Mesto residential development in Krasnodar.

The church and its fenceless grounds are envisioned as the park’s central element, complementing its recreation zones and playgrounds without intruding on its spaciousness.



The project received a Bronze Diploma from the Union of Architects of Russia at the ‘Zodchestvo 2024’ competition.
From the south and east, a series of buildings separates the church grounds from residential buildings, including a parish house, a monumental low-rise bell tower, and commercial premises. A cafe in the park’s south-west corner would overlap with the grounds.

The church would occupy 545 m², the parish house and bell tower 618 m², and the café 118 m².
The 20.57-meter-tall church, developed in a traditional style, alludes to the Neo-Russian Revival and Byzantine styles common in Russia’s southern regions. Its design includes pitched roofs and exposed beams, thus simplifying construction. The central worship hall would be traversed by four large, pendentive ‘sail-arches’ and a traditional ‘light drum’ dome.

The altar apse, round and cut from the westward side to curve inwards, diverges from the traditional semi-circular shape, twisting inwards to emphasise the altar’s sanctity.
The church’s large, open parvis would grant worshippers access to the narthex, the church shop, the cloakroom, the choir galleries, and the main prayer hall. The parvis is designed to have an outlet that would bring holy water from a tank in the narthex directly to street level. Visitors can also take a moment to pray before an Icon placed next to the outlet.

When the church is closed, a small built-in chapel is accessible from the ground level. The chapel contains a mosaic image of the ‘Our Lady of the Sign’ Icon, where the visitors can light candles for health and repose in specially placed outdoor candle holders.
Galleries to the prayer space’s north and south are simultaneously part of the church’s ensemble and separate from the main space. The design envisions them being used for memorial services (panikhidas) and confessions, doubling as pew-fitted ‘quiet zones’ for rest and prayer. The galleries transition into the sacristry and the vestry in the eastern part of the church.

The project includes a lower ‘ground’ level incorporating a lower church’s worship hall, utility and storage spaces, and a staff restroom. It includes a dedicated area that will serve as a changing room for those preparing to receive Baptism, and a collapsible partition containing a portable baptismal font, making the lower church suitable for use as a Baptismal chapel. It can also hold funeral services or a second Liturgy service on major feasts and Sundays, when simultaneous services may need to be held, at different times, on both the upper and the lower levels.
The church includes an elevator for limited-mobility visitors, connecting the street to the ground floor and the basement level. Access to the choir galleries is provided by stairs. All legally mandated fire exits from the ground floor and street levels have been provided for.

The buildings adjacent to the church form a single complex, connected by additional structures. These buildings include the parish house spaces. The first floor of the parish house features a multipurpose hall, a refectory, a kitchen, public restrooms with separate street entrances, internal restrooms, retail spaces, and a guardhouse. An accessible and functional green roof above the retail areas provides access to the gateway belfry.
The buildings are stylistically consonant with the church, yet executed in a contemporary manner, integrating the entire ensemble into the surrounding development.

A standalone café pavilion is planned as a skeleton-frame building, sheathed with timber cladding, providing for an open terrace for use in warm weather.
The ensemble’s colour palette is consistent with the ‘southern’ tones, with an emphasis on the cement-lime mortar coloured plaster (light beige with a pink tint). Using a ‘mazanka’ technique for the plastering would make the brick texture beneath somewhat visible.

The facades can be decorated with natural stone, including stone bas-reliefs, coloured ceramic tiles, smalt and stone mosaics, and coloured glass in the tholobate.

The roofs of the church and its café pavilion would be covered with polymer-coated steel sheets, while the tholobate would be coated in lead. The church's plinth would be panelled with rusticated natural stone.