Church "Ark"

The "Ark" Church is the temple of the community of the Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith in the settlement of Pontonny (part of the Kolpinsky District of Saint Petersburg). Architects Igor Pavlovich Shmelyov and Bentsion Borisovich Fabritsky. A rare monument of Soviet postmodernism.

The building, designed in the late 1970s as a Museum of the Ust-Izhora Plywood Plant (according to other sources — as a club), was later completed as an evangelical church. Construction began in 1981, but during Perestroika, the building process was halted. In 1994, the building was handed over to the local Protestant community, which completed construction in 2010, although interior finishing work continued later.

The project is compared to Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp Chapel, sometimes to the Novgorod Drama Theater building, Soviet and Yugoslav architectural experiments (Monument to the Revolution in Moslavina, Stone Flower, etc.). To locals, the church resembles an explosion or a family of mushrooms. According to the architect Igor Shmelyov himself, with the vertical structures he wanted to symbolically embody pontoon boats, inspired by legends of the pontoon company of Peter I stationed in this area, as well as the history of the Izhora factories, which supplied materials for the Road of Life. During the design, he actively used the principle of the "golden ratio," adhering to his original concept of harmony.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Церковь_«Ковчег»_(Петербург)