New materials regarding research in the fields of architecture and urban construction are being presented. The authors also focus on the history of the creation of little-known buildings of interest, on the development of local architectural traditions, on new attributions, and introduce recently discovered archive materials. A number of papers are dedicated to the issues of architectural and urban planning development of historical towns and cities or study the formation of architectural ensembles. The edition also includes papers that are devoted to theoretical historical-architectural problems, to biographies of architects, or analyze artistic approaches and concepts.
Issue 59 (2013)
I. E. Pechenkin, L. V. Saigina.
Ivan Kuznetsov as an Architect-Artist of National Style
The authors of the paper study the artistic heritage of a little-known Moscow architect of the early 20th century – Ivan Sergeyevich Kuznetsov, concentrating their attention on his works in the local national style. I. S. Kuznetsov, if we compare him with his contemporary colleagues, may be noted for an enormously wide palette of his stylistic preferences, so that the notion of “national style” in his case was connected with a broad variety of sources for inspiration – from the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin to Ukrainian wooden church architecture of the 18th century. Being a disciple of F.O. Schekhtel and L.N. Benois, this master was subject to their influence for a long period of time, which can be sometimes seen in direct copying of certain compositional schemes. It is difficult to characterize I. S. Kuznetsov as a creator of architectural masterpieces. However, his buildings always had an original trait – a touching eclecticism of a retrospective image, which is quite unusual for the architecture of the Neorussian style.
Keywords
I. S. Kuznetsov, Moscow architecture, Neorussian style, architectural competitions, apartment house, L. N. Benois, Moscow architectural school, F. O. Shekhtel, architectural restoration, 20th century.