Chilonzor Metro Station (Chilanzar)

Almost all stations of the first phase of the Tashkent metro are column-based: two rows of supports, a flat ceiling, and the hall reads like a grid. Chilanzar is structured differently. It is a single-span vaulted station, and its vault is assembled from arches twelve meters wide each. The difference was explained even before the opening by the designer himself. In November 1975, Pravda Vostoka published the series Meet the Station, and Georgy Ivanovich Oganesov, chief engineer of the Tashmetroproekt institute, talked about Chilanzar. Unlike column-type stations, he said, this one is a single-span vaulted one, its vault consists of twelve-meter arches, and the ends of the arches and inserts between them are filled with traditional ceramics with national ornamentation. The ceramics here carry a color load: emphasizing the line of the vault, it enhances the feeling of height and space. Next is a detail that shows to what extent everything was thought out. At other stations, lights were hidden: in the ribs of slabs, in cornices, in crossbars. Here, on the contrary, instead of hidden light, cast golden metal chandeliers were hung in the hall. And their light, Oganesov explained, is also calculated to visually increase the height of the station, which is already much higher than that of column-type stations. The color palette is chosen just as calculated. Emerald, light blue, and blue tones predominate in the interior decoration, emphasized by yellow and terracotta. The reason given in the newspaper is simple and completely Tashkent: these colors bring a sense of freshness. For a city where summer temperatures exceed forty degrees, coolness is not a metaphor, but what people go underground for. Ceramic panels on the vaults are dedicated to the life, culture, and labor of the Uzbek people, as this program is described by the magazine Construction and Architecture of Uzbekistan in 1977. The station is located in Chilanzar, the largest residential area of the city, built in the sixties; the name, as the newspaper noted, directly indicates its geographical position. The newspaper essay ended with a phrase that today is read with some surprise - metro stations are no longer written about this way: the Chilanzar station, besides amenities, will bring us joy as a talented work of architecture, and even a brief stay in this hall of the underground palace will evoke the most pleasant emotions.

The Tashkent Metro was built by the entire country. A 1977 magazine article lists the cities whose design institutes and art combines worked on the first phase: Tashkent, Moscow, Kharkov, Baku, Riga, Samarkand. Pavel Semyonov, manager of the Tashmetrostroy trust, added Leningrad and Kiev to this list - skilled metro builders were sent from there to Tashkent, and in total twenty subcontracting organizations participated in the construction of the first section. Chilanzar is the most vivid example of this division of labor. It was designed by Muscovites: the authors are architects of the Metgiprontrans institute A. F. Strelkov (head), I. G. Petukhova, and V. P. Kachurinets. Neighboring stations were done by Tashkent institutes - Tashmetroproekt, Tashgiprogor, TashNIIPIgenplan, TashZNIIEP, UzNIIPI of Urban Planning, and each station turned out with its own character; the common guideline, formulated in the magazine as follows, was to find an individual solution for each station and at the same time achieve horizontal ensemble unity of the entire line. At the construction site, Chilanzar was ahead of the others. In June 1976, the newspaper reported that finishing work was underway at five stations instead of three according to obligations, and at Chilanzar it would begin no later than August. On October 29, 1977, a week before the launch - the first segment of the line was opened on November 6, Pravda Vostoka published photographs by Glauberson and Sirotkin with the caption: the Chilanzar station is already ready to accept the first trains and their passengers. Actually, the very first train in the Tashkent metro arrived right here. On July 28, 1977, a test passenger train ran along the completed section between Sabir Rakhimov station and Chilanzar - a 2105-meter-long stretch. Three months remained before the opening of the entire line.