Ivan Vladislavovich Zholtovsky
Encyclopedia
Ivan Vladislavovich Zholtovsky was a Russia
n-Soviet architect
and educator. He worked primarily in Moscow
since 1898 till his death. An accomplished master of Renaissance
Revival before the Russian Revolution of 1917
, later he became a key figure of Stalinist architecture
.
(now in Belarus
) November 27, 1867. He joined Academy of Arts
in Saint Petersburg
at the age of 20. Degree studies took 11 years till 1898 – strapped for cash, Ivan used to take long leaves working as apprentice for the Saint Petersburg architectural firms. By the time of graduation, Zholtovsky had a first-rate practical experience in design, technology and project management
. He retained this hands-on approach for the rest of his career, being a construction manager in the original sense of architectural profession. Zholtovsky planned to relocate to Tomsk
after graduation, but eventually received and accepted a quick job offer from Stroganov Art School in Moscow. He became a tutor in architecture just weeks after earning his own diploma – a part-time job that allowed plenty of time for professional practice.
From the very start, he joined the "traditionists" revival group (ретроспективисты, lit. retrospectivists), placing himself against then-dominant Art Nouveau
(Russky Modern). His search for classic excellence took some time, as he was equally affected to Russian classicism
and Italian Renaissance
. While Neoclassical
revival was at this time the second largest school in Russia (in high demand in Saint Petersburg, less so in Moscow), the Renaissance influence was unique to Zholtovsky, and will remain his trademark style until his death.
He travelled to Italy
frequently, recording its architectural legacy. Zholtovsky’s Italian collection is still frequently exhibited, including rare photographs of Venetian
St Mark's Campanile
prior to collapse on July 14, 1902 He spoke fluent Italian, translated Palladio’s Four Books in Russian (and eventually published them in 1938). Notable works of this period:
Practice, educator’s work and outspoken public activity in artistic world earned him the Academic title as soon as 1909. By the time of 1917 Revolution
, when he was reaching the age of 50, Zholtovsky was already considered a master builder, an elder in his profession.
, Revolution of 1917 and Civil War
. In 1918, he and Alexey Shchusev
led Moscow’s only state architectural firm, hiring and training young men like Ilya Golosov
, Panteleimon Golosov
, Konstantin Melnikov
, Nikolai Ladovsky
and Nikolai Kolli
(the 12 disciples, split evenly between constructivism
and traditional art). There were few orders, mostly for repairs or additions of old properties, and very few actually materialized. As construction halted, he concentrated on education and urban planning
studies.
Zholtovsky continued teaching at VKhUTEMAS
. Whether the architectural college in Leningrad (VKhuTEIN) was led by traditionalists, Moscow college (VKhUTEMAS) became a harbor for modernists. Zholtovsky was spared from revolutionary new-vs-old rhetoric: after all, he was the employer to many modernist architects, giving them whatever jobs he could secure (like the pavilions of 1923 All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, a project managed jointly by Zholtovsky and Shchusev).
Together with Shchusev, and relying on his juniors, Zholtovsky supervised the first master plan for redevelopment of Moscow. This work earned him a credit with the Bolshevik
administration. He met with Lenin and was very well received; according to Zholtovsky’s own memoirs (as approved for print in the USSR), Master Plan was commissioned by Lenin himself, who wasn’t exactly competent in architecture and couldn’t recall any past projects of his contractor. Zholtovsky’s plan, as reported to Lenin, relied on shifting urban development into greenfield land
to the south-west of the city. Later, he and Shchusev settled on a less radical growth model with only minor attempt to break away from circular layout by cutting two major avenues through the city core. This plan was discarded by Stalin in 1932.
Works of this period (none survived to date)
When he came back from a long trip to Italy in 1923-1926, New Economic Policy
(NEP) brought considerable relief to architects. Seasoned professionals were in demand again, mostly from state or semi-state companies. For a brief period, architects worked the old fashioned way, with their firms and apprentices. Some of Zholtovsky’s students operated their own projects, some joined the firm. Zholtovsky’s three better-known works of the time are:
In 1931-1932, the State consolidated once mosaic architectural profession. In June, 1931, Central Committee authorized three megaproject
s – reconstruction of Moscow, Moscow Canal
and Moscow Metro
, creating thousands of architectural and engineering jobs under tight state control. A fourth megaproject, Palace of Soviets
, was already in design contest stage. Zholtovsky shared contest prize with Boris Iofan
and Hector Hamilton; Iofan's draft was later selected. Zholtovsky, however, refused to work for Metro, believing that the lowly underground job is not worth his time.
After the carrot came the stick: in April 1932 another Party ruling outlawed all independent artistic unions; they were replaced with state-controlled Union of Soviet architects (July 1932) and Academy of Architecture (1933).
Independent architects had to join state projects, switch to bureaucratic jobs (Victor Vesnin) or quit (like Melnikov
did). Reconstruction of Moscow project was set up as 10 state architectural workshops, roughly corresponding to the radial sectors of the city. Zholtovsky was invited to lead Workshop No.1; like other old architects (Shchusev, Vladimir Shchuko, Ivan Fomin
), he fitted perfectly in Stalin’s system. His educational work was in high esteem: in 1935 and 1937 Politbureau appointed him to speak on education at the forthcoming Congress of Architects (this Congress was delayed twice, and each time list of speakers was approved at the very top).
His pre-war works range from seaside resort
s to industrial freezers, although his actual personal input to each project, with a few exceptions, is not clear. His most influential, undisputed work, highly praised by officials, was completed in 1934, right across the Kremlin
. An apartment house at Mokhovaya Street
, originally House of Engineers and Technicians (Дом ИТР) is still known as Zholtovsky House.
In 1940, already 73 years old, Zholtovsky accepts the chair of Moscow Architectural Institute (MArchI). Zholtovsky stayed in Moscow throughout World War II
, managing MArchI and engaged in various consultancies; when time came to repair the damage of war, he was too old to take serious out-of-town jobs. He bid for expansion of Mossovet
headquarters, making 18 proposals (1939–1945,); all failed, and the job was awarded to Dmitry Chechulin
. In summer 1945, the state instituted Zholtovsky School and Workshop, where he would work till his death.
In the same 1945, Zholtovsky workshop completed a controversial House of Lions, in Yermolayevsky lane - a luxurious downtown residence for Red Army
Marshals
, styled as an early 19th century estate. Reverence to top brass backfired very soon. Zholtovsky issued his students an exercise to design Country residence of a Marshal of Soviet Union. Immediately, political accusations poured in; November 2, 1945 Zholtovsky received a formal order to discard completed student projects, reverse their grades, and issue a new, politically correct
, assignment.
After 1945, Zholtovsky personally designed only three apartment houses in Moscow (including an expansion of his 1935 NKVD
building on Smolenskaya Square). The best known, a 1949 Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya building is an interesting illustration of Zholtovsky’s shift from elite to the masses, an attempt to bring mass construction to the levels of quality expected of Stalinist architecture and his own Renaissance style
. All apartments in this building are relatively small, with two rooms yet with plenty storage space. Floor plan
s deliberately discouraged conversion of small-family units to overcrowded multi-family kommunalki
(kitchen is accessible only through the family rooms). Zholtovsky's favorite flat walls (no bay window
s, no setbacks) and modest application of Florentine canon fit the purpose quite well.
In 1948, 80 year old Zholtovsky became the subject of a witch-hunt
once again. With no apparent reason, small-time critics slammed his works and his role in education. Zholtovsky lost the chair of MArchI. In February 1949, a "professional round table" branded his Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya House as formalist
, condemned Zholtovsky’s educational efforts, and virtually excommunicated him from practice for a year. Suddenly, fortune turned around, and in March, 1950 Zholtovsky was awarded Stalin Prize, second class – for the same building that was ostracized a year before. By 1952, critics praised it as the way to build.
at the age of 92. As soon as he died, his widow, pianist Olga Arenskaya, was evicted from the house (in 48 hours,) his art and antiques collection was dispersed. His widow survived Zholtovsky one year.
Zholtovsky's creed was that architecture and construction process are indivisible; separation of architect from construction management
reduces art to draftsmanship. Yet at the same time his work on reducing construction costs and evaluating new technologies in 1950s spelled the demise of profession in the USSR. This work, pushed forward in January 1951 by Nikita Khrushchev
(then City of Moscow party boss
), paved the road for a switch from masonry to prefab concrete in later 1950s. Zholtovsky workshop proposed various prefab concrete drafts, mixing new technologies with stalinist exterior; this line of architecture never materialized: Khruschev announced his war with "architectural excesses" in November 1955, just when the concrete industry acquired enough capacity for mass construction. Zholtovsky's last apartment block
(Prospect Mira, 184) was stripped of "redundancies", and in ten years that followed, architecture separated from construction management and folded down to city planning and engineering.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n-Soviet architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
and educator. He worked primarily in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
since 1898 till his death. An accomplished master of Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
Revival before the Russian Revolution of 1917
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, later he became a key figure of Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture , also referred to as Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of the Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev condemned "excesses" of the past...
.
Early years
Ivan Zholtovsky was born in PinskPinsk
Pinsk , a town in Belarus, in the Polesia region, traversed by the river Pripyat, at the confluence of the Strumen and Pina rivers. The region was known as the Marsh of Pinsk. It is a fertile agricultural center. It lies south-west of Minsk. The population is about 130,000...
(now in Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
) November 27, 1867. He joined Academy of Arts
Imperial Academy of Arts
The Russian Academy of Arts, informally known as the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, was founded in 1757 by Ivan Shuvalov under the name Academy of the Three Noblest Arts. Catherine the Great renamed it the Imperial Academy of Arts and commissioned a new building, completed 25 years later in 1789...
in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
at the age of 20. Degree studies took 11 years till 1898 – strapped for cash, Ivan used to take long leaves working as apprentice for the Saint Petersburg architectural firms. By the time of graduation, Zholtovsky had a first-rate practical experience in design, technology and project management
Project management
Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, and managing resources to achieve specific goals. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end , undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives, typically to bring about beneficial change or added value...
. He retained this hands-on approach for the rest of his career, being a construction manager in the original sense of architectural profession. Zholtovsky planned to relocate to Tomsk
Tomsk
Tomsk is a city and the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast, Russia, located on the Tom River. One of the oldest towns in Siberia, Tomsk celebrated its 400th anniversary in 2004...
after graduation, but eventually received and accepted a quick job offer from Stroganov Art School in Moscow. He became a tutor in architecture just weeks after earning his own diploma – a part-time job that allowed plenty of time for professional practice.
The Renaissance Man, 1900-1917
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
(Russky Modern). His search for classic excellence took some time, as he was equally affected to Russian classicism
Empire (style)
The Empire style, , sometimes considered the second phase of Neoclassicism, is an early-19th-century design movement in architecture, furniture, other decorative arts, and the visual arts followed in Europe and America until around 1830, although in the U. S. it continued in popularity in...
and Italian Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. While Neoclassical
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
revival was at this time the second largest school in Russia (in high demand in Saint Petersburg, less so in Moscow), the Renaissance influence was unique to Zholtovsky, and will remain his trademark style until his death.
He travelled to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
frequently, recording its architectural legacy. Zholtovsky’s Italian collection is still frequently exhibited, including rare photographs of Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
St Mark's Campanile
St Mark's Campanile
St Mark's Campanile is the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy, located in the Piazza San Marco. It is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city....
prior to collapse on July 14, 1902 He spoke fluent Italian, translated Palladio’s Four Books in Russian (and eventually published them in 1938). Notable works of this period:
- Tarasov House (Moscow, completed 1912) based on Palladio’s Palazzo Tiene in VicenzaVicenzaVicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
and, marginally, the Doge's Palace in Venice, is his best known pre-Revolutionary work. - Racetrack Society House (Moscow, 1903; he would return to Racetrack project half a century later)
- Nosov House (Moscow, 1908)
- Rupert Park House (Lipki, Moscow OblastMoscow OblastMoscow Oblast , or Podmoskovye , is a federal subject of Russia . Its area, at , is relatively small compared to other federal subjects, but it is one of the most densely populated regions in the country and, with the 2010 population of 7,092,941, is the second most populous federal subject...
, 1908; later one of Stalin's residences, now part of Children's Oncology Institute - Ivan Konovalov's factory with hospital, nursery and living quarters (Bonyachki estate, near KineshmaKineshmaKineshma is the second largest town in Ivanovo Oblast, Russia, which sprawls for along the Volga River. Population: -History:Kineshma was first noticed as a posad in 1429. In 1504, Ivan III gave it to Prince Feodor Belsky, who escaped to Moscow from Lithuania and married Ivan's niece...
, 1912, with V.D.Adamovich)
Practice, educator’s work and outspoken public activity in artistic world earned him the Academic title as soon as 1909. By the time of 1917 Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
, when he was reaching the age of 50, Zholtovsky was already considered a master builder, an elder in his profession.
Advisor to Bolsheviks, 1917-1926
Zholtovsky stayed in Moscow throughout the course of World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Revolution of 1917 and Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. In 1918, he and Alexey Shchusev
Alexey Shchusev
Alexey Viktorovich Shchusev ), 1873, Chişinău—24 May 1949, Moscow) was an acclaimed Russian and Soviet architect whose works may be regarded as a bridge connecting Revivalist architecture of Imperial Russia with Stalin's Empire Style....
led Moscow’s only state architectural firm, hiring and training young men like Ilya Golosov
Ilya Golosov
Ilya Alexandrovich Golosov was a Russian Soviet architect. A leader of Constructivism in 1925-1931, Ilya Golosov later developed his own style of early stalinist architecture known as postconstructivism...
, Panteleimon Golosov
Panteleimon Golosov
Panteleimon Alexandrovich Golosov was a Russian Constructivist architect and brother of Ilya Golosov.-Career:Golosov graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture in 1911. From 1918 he taught at the State Free Artist Studios , then at VKhUTEMAS and at the Moscow...
, Konstantin Melnikov
Konstantin Melnikov
Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov was a Russian architect and painter. His architectural work, compressed into a single decade , placed Melnikov on the front end of 1920s avant-garde architecture...
, Nikolai Ladovsky
Nikolai Ladovsky
Nikolai Alexandrovich Ladovsky was a Russian avant-garde architect and educator, leader of the rationalist movement in 1920s architecture, an approach emphasizing human perception of space and shape...
and Nikolai Kolli
Nikolai Kolli
Nikolai Dzhemsovich Kolli was a Russian Constructivist architect and city planner.Born in Moscow, Kolli studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and then at Vkhutemas...
(the 12 disciples, split evenly between constructivism
Constructivist architecture
Constructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced...
and traditional art). There were few orders, mostly for repairs or additions of old properties, and very few actually materialized. As construction halted, he concentrated on education and urban planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
studies.
Zholtovsky continued teaching at VKhUTEMAS
VKhUTEMAS
Vkhutemas ) was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas. The workshops were established by a decree from Vladimir Lenin with the intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of the highest qualifications for...
. Whether the architectural college in Leningrad (VKhuTEIN) was led by traditionalists, Moscow college (VKhUTEMAS) became a harbor for modernists. Zholtovsky was spared from revolutionary new-vs-old rhetoric: after all, he was the employer to many modernist architects, giving them whatever jobs he could secure (like the pavilions of 1923 All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, a project managed jointly by Zholtovsky and Shchusev).
Together with Shchusev, and relying on his juniors, Zholtovsky supervised the first master plan for redevelopment of Moscow. This work earned him a credit with the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
administration. He met with Lenin and was very well received; according to Zholtovsky’s own memoirs (as approved for print in the USSR), Master Plan was commissioned by Lenin himself, who wasn’t exactly competent in architecture and couldn’t recall any past projects of his contractor. Zholtovsky’s plan, as reported to Lenin, relied on shifting urban development into greenfield land
Greenfield land
Greenfield land is a term used to describe undeveloped land in a city or rural area either used for agriculture, landscape design, or left to naturally evolve...
to the south-west of the city. Later, he and Shchusev settled on a less radical growth model with only minor attempt to break away from circular layout by cutting two major avenues through the city core. This plan was discarded by Stalin in 1932.
Works of this period (none survived to date)
- Novaya Moskva master development planDevelopment PlanA development plan is an aspect of town and country planning in the United Kingdom comprising a set of documents that set out the local authority's policies and proposals for the development and use of land in their area...
(1918–1923, lead planner Alexey Shchusev) - All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition - general layout and management (with Alexey Shchusev), entrance gates (1923)
- AMOZavod Imeni LikhachevaZavod imeni Likhachova, more commonly called ZIL is a major Russian truck and heavy equipment manufacturer, which also produced armored cars for most Soviet leaders, as well as buses, armored fighting vehicles, and aerosani...
workers' low-rise community (with Melnikov, 1923) - Soviet pavilion at Milano exhibition (1925–26)
Practice again, 1926-1932
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
(NEP) brought considerable relief to architects. Seasoned professionals were in demand again, mostly from state or semi-state companies. For a brief period, architects worked the old fashioned way, with their firms and apprentices. Some of Zholtovsky’s students operated their own projects, some joined the firm. Zholtovsky’s three better-known works of the time are:
- State Bank expansion at Neglinnaya Street (Moscow, completed 1929)
- House of Soviets (MakhachkalaMakhachkala-Twin towns/sister cities:Makhachkala is twinned with: Sfax, Tunisia Siping, China Spokane, United States Vladikavkaz, Russia Yalova, Turkey Ndola, Zambia-See also:*...
, 1927) - First Electrical powerplant (MoGES-1) expansion (Moscow, 1927)
Workshop No.1, 1932-1941
Megaproject
A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project. Megaprojects are typically defined as costing more than US$1 billion and attracting a lot of public attention because of substantial impacts on communities, environment, and budgets. Megaprojects can also be defined as "initiatives that...
s – reconstruction of Moscow, Moscow Canal
Moscow Canal
The Moscow Canal , named the Moscow-Volga Canal until the year 1947, is a canal that connects the Moskva River with the main transportation artery of European Russia, the Volga River. It is located in Moscow itself and in the Moscow Oblast...
and Moscow Metro
Moscow Metro
The Moscow Metro is a rapid transit system serving Moscow and the neighbouring town of Krasnogorsk. Opened in 1935 with one line and 13 stations, it was the first underground railway system in the Soviet Union. As of 2011, the Moscow Metro has 182 stations and its route length is . The system is...
, creating thousands of architectural and engineering jobs under tight state control. A fourth megaproject, Palace of Soviets
Palace of Soviets
The Palace of the Soviets was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour...
, was already in design contest stage. Zholtovsky shared contest prize with Boris Iofan
Boris Iofan
Boris Mihailovich Iofan was a Russian Soviet architect, known for his Stalinist architecture buildings like 1931 House on Embankment and the 1931-1933 winning draft of the Palace of Soviets.- Background :...
and Hector Hamilton; Iofan's draft was later selected. Zholtovsky, however, refused to work for Metro, believing that the lowly underground job is not worth his time.
After the carrot came the stick: in April 1932 another Party ruling outlawed all independent artistic unions; they were replaced with state-controlled Union of Soviet architects (July 1932) and Academy of Architecture (1933).
Independent architects had to join state projects, switch to bureaucratic jobs (Victor Vesnin) or quit (like Melnikov
Konstantin Melnikov
Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov was a Russian architect and painter. His architectural work, compressed into a single decade , placed Melnikov on the front end of 1920s avant-garde architecture...
did). Reconstruction of Moscow project was set up as 10 state architectural workshops, roughly corresponding to the radial sectors of the city. Zholtovsky was invited to lead Workshop No.1; like other old architects (Shchusev, Vladimir Shchuko, Ivan Fomin
Ivan Fomin
Ivan Aleksandrovich Fomin was a Russian architect and educator. He began his career in 1899 in Moscow, working in the Art Nouveau style. After relocating to Saint Petersburg in 1905, he became an established master of the Neoclassical Revival movement...
), he fitted perfectly in Stalin’s system. His educational work was in high esteem: in 1935 and 1937 Politbureau appointed him to speak on education at the forthcoming Congress of Architects (this Congress was delayed twice, and each time list of speakers was approved at the very top).
His pre-war works range from seaside resort
Seaside resort
A seaside resort is a resort, or resort town, located on the coast. Where a beach is the primary focus for tourists, it may be called a beach resort.- Overview :...
s to industrial freezers, although his actual personal input to each project, with a few exceptions, is not clear. His most influential, undisputed work, highly praised by officials, was completed in 1934, right across the Kremlin
Kremlin
A kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
. An apartment house at Mokhovaya Street
Mokhovaya Street
Mokhovaya Street, is a one-way street in central Moscow, Russia, a part of Moscow's innermost ring road - Central Squares of Moscow. In 1961-1990 it formed part of Karl Marx Avenue...
, originally House of Engineers and Technicians (Дом ИТР) is still known as Zholtovsky House.
War and postwar years, 1945-1959
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, managing MArchI and engaged in various consultancies; when time came to repair the damage of war, he was too old to take serious out-of-town jobs. He bid for expansion of Mossovet
Mossovet
Mossovet , an abbreviation of Moscow Soviet of People's Deputies, was the informal name of *parallel, shadow city administration of Moscow, Russia run by left-wing parties in 1917*city administration of Moscow in Soviet period...
headquarters, making 18 proposals (1939–1945,); all failed, and the job was awarded to Dmitry Chechulin
Dmitry Chechulin
Dmitry Nikolaevich Chechulin - was a Russian Soviet architect, city planner, author, and leading figure of Stalinist architecture.- Life :...
. In summer 1945, the state instituted Zholtovsky School and Workshop, where he would work till his death.
In the same 1945, Zholtovsky workshop completed a controversial House of Lions, in Yermolayevsky lane - a luxurious downtown residence for Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
Marshals
Marshal of the Soviet Union
Marshal of the Soviet Union was the de facto highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ....
, styled as an early 19th century estate. Reverence to top brass backfired very soon. Zholtovsky issued his students an exercise to design Country residence of a Marshal of Soviet Union. Immediately, political accusations poured in; November 2, 1945 Zholtovsky received a formal order to discard completed student projects, reverse their grades, and issue a new, politically correct
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
, assignment.
After 1945, Zholtovsky personally designed only three apartment houses in Moscow (including an expansion of his 1935 NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
building on Smolenskaya Square). The best known, a 1949 Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya building is an interesting illustration of Zholtovsky’s shift from elite to the masses, an attempt to bring mass construction to the levels of quality expected of Stalinist architecture and his own Renaissance style
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...
. All apartments in this building are relatively small, with two rooms yet with plenty storage space. Floor plan
Floor plan
In architecture and building engineering, a floor plan, or floorplan, is a diagram, usually to scale, showing a view from above of the relationships between rooms, spaces and other physical features at one level of a structure....
s deliberately discouraged conversion of small-family units to overcrowded multi-family kommunalki
Kommunalka
A communal apartment or kommunalka appeared in the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as a product of the “new collective vision of the future” and as a response to the housing crisis in urban areas. A communal apartment typically consisted of an apartment shared between two to...
(kitchen is accessible only through the family rooms). Zholtovsky's favorite flat walls (no bay window
Bay window
A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room, either square or polygonal in plan. The angles most commonly used on the inside corners of the bay are 90, 135 and 150 degrees. Bay windows are often associated with Victorian architecture...
s, no setbacks) and modest application of Florentine canon fit the purpose quite well.
In 1948, 80 year old Zholtovsky became the subject of a witch-hunt
Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...
once again. With no apparent reason, small-time critics slammed his works and his role in education. Zholtovsky lost the chair of MArchI. In February 1949, a "professional round table" branded his Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya House as formalist
Formalism (art)
In art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...
, condemned Zholtovsky’s educational efforts, and virtually excommunicated him from practice for a year. Suddenly, fortune turned around, and in March, 1950 Zholtovsky was awarded Stalin Prize, second class – for the same building that was ostracized a year before. By 1952, critics praised it as the way to build.
Death and legacy
Zholtovsky was married twice and left no children. Since 1920 he lived in a 19th-century Stankevich House in Voznesensky lane. He died of pneumoniaPneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
at the age of 92. As soon as he died, his widow, pianist Olga Arenskaya, was evicted from the house (in 48 hours,) his art and antiques collection was dispersed. His widow survived Zholtovsky one year.
Zholtovsky's creed was that architecture and construction process are indivisible; separation of architect from construction management
Construction management
Construction Project Management is the overall planning, coordination and control of a project from inception to completion aimed at meeting a client’s requirements in order to produce a functionally and financially viable project that will be complete mingement is project management that applies...
reduces art to draftsmanship. Yet at the same time his work on reducing construction costs and evaluating new technologies in 1950s spelled the demise of profession in the USSR. This work, pushed forward in January 1951 by Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
(then City of Moscow party boss
Political boss
A boss, in politics, is a person who wields the power over a particular political region or constituency. Bosses may dictate voting patterns, control appointments, and wield considerable influence in other political processes. They do not necessarily hold public office themselves...
), paved the road for a switch from masonry to prefab concrete in later 1950s. Zholtovsky workshop proposed various prefab concrete drafts, mixing new technologies with stalinist exterior; this line of architecture never materialized: Khruschev announced his war with "architectural excesses" in November 1955, just when the concrete industry acquired enough capacity for mass construction. Zholtovsky's last apartment block
Tower block
A tower block, high-rise, apartment tower, office tower, apartment block, or block of flats, is a tall building or structure used as a residential and/or office building...
(Prospect Mira, 184) was stripped of "redundancies", and in ten years that followed, architecture separated from construction management and folded down to city planning and engineering.
Memorable quotes
- "Imagine a heavy cloud advances towards you. How would you feel? Can you render this in architecture? …
Michelangelo MichelangeloMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...
– - "Architect is not a draftsman, neither an artist. He is a master builder."
- "First make clear what you’re going to do. Then how. Here’s your method: first make clear what to do, make it certain, then do it."
- "Don't mistake beauty and wealth"