Russian neoclassical revival - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Russian 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 a trend in Russian culture

Russian culture

Russian culture is associated with the country of Russia and, sometimes, specifically with ethnic Russians. It has a rich history and can boast a long tradition of excellence in every aspect of the arts, especially when it comes to literature and philosophy, classical music and ballet, architecture...

, mostly pronounced in architecture

Russian architecture

Russian architecture follows a tradition whose roots were established in the Eastern Slavic state of Kievan Rus'. After the fall of Kiev, Russian architectural history continued in the principalities of Vladimir-Suzdal, Novgorod, the succeeding states of the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire,...

, that briefly replaced eclecticism

Eclecticism

Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...

and Art Nouveau

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"...

as the leading architectural style

Architectural style

Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...

between the Revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...

and the outbreak of World War I

World 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...

, coexisting with the Silver Age of Russian Poetry

Silver Age of Russian Poetry

Silver Age is a term traditionally applied by Russian philologists to the first two decades of the 20th century. It was an exceptionally creative period in the history of Russian poetry, on par with the Golden Age a century earlier...

. It is characterized by merger of new technologies (steel frame

Steel frame

Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal -beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame...

and reinforced concrete

Reinforced concrete

Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...

) with moderate application of classical order

Classical order

A classical order is one of the ancient styles of classical architecture, each distinguished by its proportions and characteristic profiles and details, and most readily recognizable by the type of column employed. Three ancient orders of architecture—the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian—originated in...

and the legacy of Russian empire style of the first quarter of 19th century.

Revival school was most active 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...

, less 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...

and other cities. The style was a common choice for luxury country estates, upper-class apartment and office buildings; at the same time it was practically non-existent in church and government architecture. Neoclassical architects born in 1870s, who reached their peak activity in 1905-1914 (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...

, Vladimir Shchuko, Ivan Zholtovsky), later became leading figures in 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...

of 1930s and shaped Soviet architectural education system.

Background

In early 20th century, Russian architecture (at least in Moscow) was dominated by "diverse and protean" Style Moderne, a local adaptation of Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

. This style peaked in 1900-1904, and manifested itself in denial of classical order

Classical order

, flowing curvilinear shapes, floral ornaments and expensive artwork. High costs and exterior novelty limited this style to upper-class mansions, retail stores and middle-class apartment blocks. Many upper-class clients, especially in Saint Petersburg, rejected Style Moderne and insisted on traditional, neoclassical designs fitting their image of old gold

Old Gold

Old gold is a dark yellow, which varies from light olive or olive brown to deep or strong yellow. The widely-accepted color "Old gold" is on the darker rather than the lighter side of this range....

. Art Nouveau never reached the "universal" status: the Church relied on Russian Revival

Russian Revival

The Russian Revival style is the generic term for a number of different movements within Russian architecture that arose in second quarter of the 19th century and was an eclectic melding of pre-Peterine Russian architecture and elements of Byzantine architecture.The Russian Revival style arose...

tradition, while the charities and majority of homeowners used the economical "red brick" eclecticism. Muscovite Neo-Grec

Neo-Grec

Neo-Grec is a term referring to late manifestations of Neoclassicism, early Neo-Renaissance now called the Greek Revival style, which was popularized in architecture, the decorative arts, and in painting during France's Second Empire, or the reign of Napoleon III, a period that lasted...

of 1870s-1880s was nearly forgotten, with a single exclusion of Roman Klein

Roman Klein

Roman Ivanovich Klein , born Robert Julius Klein, was a Russian architect and educator, best known for his Neoclassical Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Klein, an eclectic, was one of the most prolific architects of his period, second only to Fyodor Schechtel...

's Pushkin Museum

Pushkin Museum

The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour....

(1898–1912). Meanwhile, numerous Empire style cathedrals, public buildings and private mansions of Alexandrine period

Alexander I of Russia

Alexander I of Russia , served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania....

that shaped central squares of Russian towns remained a nearly omnipresent, impressive statement of classicism, associated with the glorious age of Napoleonic wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...

and Russian poetry.

In 1902, two years before Bloody Sunday

Bloody Sunday (1905)

Bloody Sunday was a massacre on in St. Petersburg, Russia, where unarmed, peaceful demonstrators marching to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II were gunned down by the Imperial Guard while approaching the city center and the Winter Palace from several gathering points. The shooting did not...

, when Saint Petersburg was preparing to celebrate its bicentennial anniversary. Alexander Benois, vocal anti-modernist activist of Mir Iskusstva

Mir iskusstva

Mir iskusstva was a Russian magazine and the artistic movement it inspired and embodied, which was a major influence on the Russians who helped revolutionize European art during the first decade of the 20th century. From 1909, many of the miriskusniki also contributed to the Ballets Russes...

group, defended the classical tradition of Saint Petersburg, rejecting both Art Nouveau and "official" Russian Revival, arguing that the classical city must return to its roots. In the same year, Evgeny Baumgarner specifically criticized Otto Wagner

Otto Wagner

Otto Koloman Wagner was an Austrian architect and urban planner, known for his lasting impact on the appearance of his home town Vienna, to which he contributed many landmarks.-Life:...

: "In leaning toward the utilitarian, he falls into an obvious absurdity. Proposing that the contemporary architect "come to terms" with the statement nothing that is not practical can be beautiful, he lowers the architectural art, praised with such feeling, to the level of an applied craft... the theory of Professor Wagner proposes aesthetic suicide. The human soul requires architectonic beauty just as human vision requires good illumination.".

Development

Practicing architects followed Benois; for example, in 1903 Ivan Fomin

Ivan Fomin

, a successful 30 year old enthusiast of Art Nouveau, switched to purely Neoclassical, palladian architecture

Palladian architecture

Palladian architecture is a European style of architecture derived from the designs of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio . The term "Palladian" normally refers to buildings in a style inspired by Palladio's own work; that which is recognised as Palladian architecture today is an evolution of...

and returned from Moscow to Saint Petersburg to practice neoclassicism on its own territory; his studies of early 19th century, culminating in a 1911 exhibition of historical architecture, were followed by a wide public interest to classical art in general. The conceptual statement of neoclassicism - and the term itself - were further developed in 1909 in Apollon magazine by Benois and Sergei Makovsky

Sergei Makovsky

Sergey Konstantinovich Makovsky , a son of the painter Konstantin Makovsky, was a poet, arts critic, and organiser of many art expositions.From 1909 to 1917 he edited and published the Appolon arts magazine in Saint Petersburg.-Further reading:...

.

The new style took over specific niches, starting with nostalgic country estates and upper-class downtown apartment buildings. By 1914 it also became the preferred choice for schools and colleges. In Moscow, all new cinema

Movie theater

A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....

s of the period were built in neoclassical stylem, continuing the old theatrical tradition. Neoclassicists celebrated victory: "Classical tendencies in architecture have replaced the sinuously agitated, 'temperamental', and riotously 'dashing' modernistic efforts of architects like Kekushev

Lev Kekushev

Lev Nikolayevich Kekushev was a Russian architect, notable for his Art Nouveau buildings in Moscow, built in the 1890s and early 1900s in the original, Franco-Belgian variety of this style...

, as well as the simplified structures faced with brilliant walls of yellow brick of architects like Schechtel

Fyodor Schechtel

Fyodor Osipovich Schechtel was a Russian architect, graphic artist and stage designer, the most influential and prolific master of Russian Art Nouveau and late Russian Revival....

." This time, the concept shifted from preservationism to shaping a new, wholesome art, opposed to all diverse styles of 19th century. "There was a difference, but not a leap, and here lies the subtlety of understanding the problem of neoclassicism."

Denial of Art Nouveau

A common concept of Soviet art critics linked neoclassical revival to the social shock of the 1905 revolution; this concept, narrowed to architecture and refined further by W. C. Brumfield

William Craft Brumfield

William Craft Brumfield is a contemporary American historian of Russian architecture, a preservationist and an architectural photographer. Brumfield is currently Professor of Slavic studies at Tulane University....

, treats neoclassicism in 1905-1914 architecture as a professional reaction against Art Nouveau. The society, shaken up by Russian revolution of 1905

Russian Revolution of 1905

"dismissed Art Nouveau as ephemera

Ephemera

Ephemera are transitory written and printed matter not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags, bookmarks, catalogues, greeting cards, letters,...

of fashion" and settled for moderation in architecture. By the end of hostilities, moderate Neoclassicism emerged as an ethically acceptable alternative to extravagance of the past. Prior to 1905, Saint Petersburg architects completed 30 buildings in Neoclassical Revival (about 5% of extant neoclassical buildings). Five years, 1905–1910, added 140 new buildings. By 1910, Saint Petersburg reached an equilibrium between Neoclassical Revival and Art Nouveau (in terms of new buildings launched and completed). Ivan Fomin specifically praised the universal, easy-to-reproduce set of classical rules, consolidating the profession: "When the style was being formed, all the masters in the capital and the provinces worked toward the same end, not fearing to imitate one another. And in this is the guarantee of strength."

By 1914, Revivalists clearly won but their victory was not universal. A large share of intellectuals despised Empire style as a symbol of slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

and militarization

Militarization

Militarization, or militarisation, is the process by which a society organizes itself for military conflict and violence. It is related to militarism, which is an ideology that reflects the level of militarization of a state...

of Alexandrine period. Ilya Repin publicly condemned it as a lust for luxuries of "the filthy Arakcheyev

Aleksey Arakcheyev

Count Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev or Arakcheev was a Russian general and statesman under the reign of Alexander I.He served under Paul I and Alexander I as army leader and artillery inspector respectively. He had a violent temper, but was otherwise a competent artillerist, and is known for his...

period, and all the harshness of living suffered by millions, which are now free" .

Alternative to eclecticism

Contemporary domestic authors dismiss the concept outlined above as an oversimplification. Reaction against Art Nouveau did exist, but was only a secondary, tangential factor behind neoclassical revival. 1902 and 1909 statements by Benois targeted the ideology

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

of eclecticism

Eclecticism

in general. Neoclassicism of early 20th century extended far beyond denial of a rival style, pretending to create a wholesome realm of art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

in all its forms. This viewpoint is indirectly supported by the fact that there was no clear-cut boundary between two styles. Art Nouveau artists, starting with Otto Wagner

Otto Wagner

Otto Koloman Wagner was an Austrian architect and urban planner, known for his lasting impact on the appearance of his home town Vienna, to which he contributed many landmarks.-Life:...

and Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt

Gustav Klimt was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects...

, relied on Greek heritage

Art in Ancient Greece

The arts of ancient Greece have exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries all over the world, particularly in the areas of sculpture and architecture. In the West, the art of the Roman Empire was largely derived from Greek models...

. Neoclassical architects followed the same gesamtkunst approach to interior and exterior finishes and relied on the work of the same craftsmen and factories. Architects (Fyodor Schechtel

Fyodor Schechtel

Fyodor Osipovich Schechtel was a Russian architect, graphic artist and stage designer, the most influential and prolific master of Russian Art Nouveau and late Russian Revival....

) and painters (Mstislav Dobuzhinsky

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky or Dobujinsky was a Russian-Lithuanian artist noted for his cityscapes conveying the explosive growth and decay of the early twentieth-century city....

) created pure examples of both styles. Despite the magazine critique, various forms of Art Nouveau persisted until 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...

, which halted all construction altogether.

Neoclassical projects in Saint Peterburg emerged when Art Nouveau was still in its infancy, years before the 1902 magazine campaign. Russian Ethnographic Museum was laid down in 1900, Petrovskaya Embankment in 1901, the Public Library in 1896.

Importance of clients and their tastes, elevated in the traditional concept, is also disputed. Architects were not simple contractors: many were also wealthy property developers, betting their own money (Roman Klein

Roman Klein

, Nikita Lazarev

Nikita Lazarev

Nikita Gerasimovich Lazarev was a Russian civil engineer, contractor, real estate developer and Neoclassical architect, notable for his 1906 Mindovsky House in Khamovniki District of Moscow...

, Ernst Nirnsee). They were part of a wider movement in arts, led by writers and painters who, unlike architects, were not bound by investors. The artists themselves changed the tastes of general public.

Contemporaries clearly identified revival of empire style as a part of a larger trend seeking the way out of apparently unsolvable crisis of fin de siècle

Fin de siècle

Fin de siècle is French for "end of the century". The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning...

; Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

and decadence

Decadence

Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle. Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"...

in general were perceived as the least of threats. As Nikolai Berdyaev

Nikolai Berdyaev

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev was a Russian religious and political philosopher.-Early life and education:Berdyaev was born in Kiev into an aristocratic military family. He spent a solitary childhood at home, where his father's library allowed him to read widely...

stated in 1910, "Modern age joins the ranks of Goethe ... a clear reaction against mounting catastrophes

Disaster

A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...

- the catastrophe of Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

and his Übermensch

Übermensch

The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....

, the catastrophe of Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

and his socialist

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

judgement day, and the catastrophe of falling into abyss of decadence."

Reposession of simplicity

Depending on the function of the building, purity of the style varied from refined Palladian legacy in luxury mansions to superficial, shallow decorations of utilitarian apartment blocks. All these buildings share one feature: "Repossession of Simplicity. Geometry of basic shapes, clean surfaces... returned the integrity and monumentality that was lost in second half of 19th century" ("Обретение простоты... геометризация объемов, очищение плоскости возвращали архитектуре черты слитности, монументальности, утраченные во второй половине 19 века").

Pure revival of Empire style was limited to temporary exhibition projects and suburban and country mansions, where abundant land allowed low but wide symmetrical layouts. Rarely, as in the case of Vtorov's mansion

Spaso House

Spaso House is a listed Neoclassical Revival building at No. 10 Spasopeskovskaya Square in Moscow. It was originally built in 1913 as the mansion of the textile industrialist Nikolay Vtorov. Since 1933 it has been the residence of the U.S...

, the same approach was reproduced in downtown residences or in public buildings (Museum of Ethnography in Saint Petersburg). Typical Saint Petersburg construction projects of that period already passed the 5-story mark, unheard of in early 19th century, and needed careful adaptation of neoclassical spirit to the new scale. Early attempts of mechanical, superfluous attacthment of columns and portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

s to ordinary apartment blocks failed; by 1912 the problem was resolved, most notably by Vladimir Shchuko. His Markov Apartments suggested two ways of handling the scale: either use of giant order

Giant order

In Classical architecture, a giant order is an order whose columns or pilasters span two stories...

, with pilaster

Pilaster

A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....

s running the whole height of the building, or adaptation of earlier palladian

Palladian architecture

motives; both relied on expensive natural stone finishes and modern structural engineering. The result "combined classical elements in a monumental design that is neither historical nor modern. Shchuko developed a style appropriate for contemporary urban architecture, one that provided material evidence of the classical values."

Fragmentation of the movement

The new trend, favored by investors, naturally attracted opportunistic

Opportunism

-General definition:Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles. Opportunist actions are expedient actions guided primarily by self-interested motives. The term can be applied to individuals, groups,...

practitioners of other styles; the move was simplified by the fact that all graduates of professional schools had formal classical training (more prominent in Imperial 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...

and the Moscow School

Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture was one of the largest educational institutions in Russia. The school was formed by the 1865 merger of a private art college, established in Moscow in 1832, and the Palace School of Architecture, established in 1749 by Dmitry Ukhtomsky. By...

, lesser in Byzantine-oriented Institute of civil engineering). The growing Neoclassical community spun off separate revivalist groups with their own stylistic codes.

Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

revival, the earliest of these schools, was popularized by Mir Iskusstva

Mir iskusstva

and flourished in Saint Petersburg, notably in the Peter the Great school building designed by Alexander Dmitriev in collaboration with Alexander Benois and Mir Iskusstva

Mir iskusstva

artists. This municipal project began in 1902, and the city specifically requested baroque style to commemorate its founder

Peter I of Russia

Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...

; final drafts were approved only in 1908. In the same year the city held an international exhibition, designed in Petrine baroque

Petrine Baroque

Petrine Baroque is a name applied by art historians to a style of Baroque architecture and decoration favoured by Peter the Great and employed to design buildings in the newly-founded Russian capital, Saint Petersburg, under this monarch and his immediate successors.Unlike contemporaneous Naryshkin...

. Baroque trend in graphic arts was popularized by Lev Ilyin

Lev Ilyin

Lev Aleksandrovich Ilyin ) was a Russian architect.Between 1925-1938 Lev Ilyin was the main architect of Leningrad , and an author of the overall map of Leningrad and material in the sphere of town-planning....

and Nikolay Lanceray

Nikolay Lanceray

Nikolay Lanceray was a Russian architect, preservationist, illustrator of books and historian of neoclassical art, biographer of Charles Cameron, Vincenzo Brenna and Andreyan Zakharov...

.

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 was practiced by Ivan Zholtovsky in Moscow and Marian Lyalevich, Marian Peretiatkovich and Vladimir Shchuko in Saint Petersburg. Their first statements of neo-Renaissance were completed in 1910-1912. Peretiatkovich died prematurely and did not leave a lasting following, while Zholtovsky created his own professional school that persisted from 1918 to his death in 1959. However, in 1905-1914 he completed only a few neo-Renaissance buildings; the bulk of his work of this period belong to pure neoclassicism. On the contrary, amount of neo-Renaissance projects in 1910s Saint Petersburg was large enough to become a lasting trend; works of Schuko and Lyalevich were instantly copied by lesser-known followers. Alexander Benois and Georgy Lukomsky, now disillusioned by superfluous copying of empire style motives, welcomed the "stern tastes of Italian architects."

Modernized neoclassicism, not related to Russian heritage or its Palladian roots, was exemlified in the new building of Embassy of Germany

Embassy of Germany in Saint Petersburg

The Embassy of Germany in Saint Petersburg was the diplomatic mission of the German Empire to the Russian Empire in Saint Petersburg. After the relocation by the Bolsheviks of the Soviet capital from Petrograd to Moscow, it served as a consulate of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany...

in Saint Isaac's Square, designed by Peter Behrens

Peter Behrens

Peter Behrens was a German architect and designer. He was important for the modernist movement, as several of the movements leading names worked for him when they were young.-Biography:Behrens attended the Christianeum Hamburg from September 1877 until Easter 1882...

in 1911 and completed by Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....

in 1912. The red granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

building combined heavy-set, simplified shape with 14 giant columns, and was unusually functional, well lit and ventilated inside. Contemporaries detested its style as Teutonic architecture
Teutons
The Teutons or Teutones were mentioned as a Germanic tribe by Greek and Roman authors, notably Strabo and Marcus Velleius Paterculus and normally in close connection with the Cimbri, whose ethnicity is contested between Gauls and Germani...

, but quarter of a century later it perfectly fitted in the concept of both stalinist

Stalinist architecture

and nazi architecture

Nazi architecture

Nazi architecture was an architectural plan which played a role in the Nazi party's plans to create a cultural and spiritual rebirth in Germany as part of the Third Reich....

. A similar trend, although not as radical, was emerging among Moscow architects.

War, revolution and post-war development

The last examples of neoclassical revival were laid down shortly before the outbreak of World War I

World War I

. Independent developers in Moscow started a number of unconnected large housing projects; advent of the elevator

Elevator

An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...

allowed them to reach 9-story mark. These buildings, usually called cloudbreakers usually appeared outside of the Garden Ring

Garden Ring

The Garden Ring, also known as the "B" Ring , is a circular avenue around the central Moscow, its course corresponding to what used to be the city ramparts surrounding Zemlyanoy Gorod in the 17th century....

: the city restricted highrise construction in the historical center, including the ban on Ivan Mashkov

Ivan Mashkov

Ivan Pavlovich Mashkov was a Russian architect and preservationist, notable for surveying and restoration of Dormition Cathedral of Moscow Kremlin, Novodevichy Convent and other medieval buildings. His best known extant building is Sokol luxury Art Nouveau apartment building in Kuznetsky Most...

's 13-story tower in Tverskaya Square that could become Moscow's first skyscraper

Skyscraper

A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...

. In Saint Petersburg, Ivan Fomin and Fyodor Lidwal started redevelopment of Goloday Island

Goloday Island

Dekabristov Island , known before 1926 as Goloday Island is an island in Vasileostrovsky District of Saint Petersburg, Russia, to the north of Vasilievsky Island, separated from it by Smolenka River ....

- a residential park spanning over one square kilometer, the largest single project of the period. It materialized only in part; Moscow projects were mostly complete during the war, while some remained unfinished into the 1920s.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917

Russian Revolution of 1917

the movement lost its leaders in literature (Ivan Bunin) and fine arts (Benois, Dobuzhinsky) to emigration. Some of the architects, especially those based in Saint Petersburg or having a foreign citizenship (Fyodor Lidwal, Noy Seligson) emigrated too; some disappeared in the fog of war

Fog of war

The fog of war is a term used to describe the uncertainty in situation awareness experienced by participants in military operations. The term seeks to capture the uncertainty regarding own capability, adversary capability, and adversary intent during an engagement, operation, or campaign...

like Ernst Nirnsee. However, the influential architects who shaped the neoclassical movement (Fomin, Ivan Kuznetsov, Mayat, Schuko, Rerberg, Zholtovsky) remained in Soviet Russia

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....

and quickly restored their role as leaders of the profession. Zholtovsky, who was at the helm of 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...

architectural school in 1918-1922, temporarily emigrated 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...

after a revolt of modernist students ousted him from his chair; Zholtovsky returned in 1926, and was immediately awarded with a string of new projects - both Renaissance and constructivist

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...

. Other neoclassicists of his generation also had to modernize their art to some extent, and had successful practice in the second half of 1920s, producing high-profile buildings (Rerberg's Central Telegraph, Fomin's Dinamo Building in Moscow).

Most of urban neoclassical buildings of 1905-1914 survived the Soviet period quite well - they were, in fact, the most recently constructed pre-revolution

Russian Revolution of 1917

buildings, and despite inadequate maintenance their initial quality was high enough to stand unaltered for nearly a century. Many have lost original interiors; in the decade following World War II

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...

some of Moscow apartment buildings were built up (adding two or three stories was a common and inexpensive solution to the housing shortage), but their external styling survived. Another wave of reconstruction that started in 1990s and continues to date, have caused numerous facadist

Facadism

Façadism is the practice of demolishing a building but leaving its facade intact for the purposes of building new structures in it or around it....

rebuilds. Pure, unaltered examples of the style are nevertheless quite common. Nationalized country estates, on the contrary, did not fare just as well. Their new functions (ranging from almshouse

Almshouse

Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

s to military headquarters) sooner or later called for alteration and expansion; new owners had no incentive to preserve the original buildings. Frequently they were abandoned and left to decay - especially after the World War II depopulated the countryside.

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