Background of Melnikov’s House

The house and studio of Konstantin S. Melnikov in Krivoarbatsky Lane in Moscow is believed to be the peak of that renowned architect's creative work.

All over the world the building is known as Melnikov's House - it is properly seen as one of the main symbols of the 20th century architecture and a kind of an icon for the world culture in general.

Photographs taken by Stefanos Christodoulides (March 2010)

Konstantin Melnikov, encouraged by his success and the widespread recognition, designed and built the House in the years of his "Golden Season", in 1927 - 29, and the design has become one of the most triumphant architectural experiments in the history. While working on the House Mr. Melnikov found and utilized the solutions subsequently recognized as revolutionary. The original layout, elegant spatial arrangement and daring engineering techniques brought the world-wide fame to the architect and his creation.

Art critics assess Melnikov's House as one of the best achievements of the Russian architecture and by the design brilliance rank it with Kizhi and Cathedral of Saint Basil the Blessed.

These days Melnikov's House is in danger. Russian Avantgarde Heritage Preservation Foundation endeavors to save the masterpiece and establish the Melnikov's House Museum.

Situation with Melnikov's House

Melnikov's House located at 10 Krivoarbatsky Lane, Moscow, Russia, was built in 1927 - 29. The House in a unique architectural monument and a cultural heritage property of the regional significance. Said status of the house is certified by the Moscow City Soviet Resolution of March 23, 1987 No. 647.

Melnikov's House is a two-story building with a basement; its total area is 257 square meters. It is made of brick, the floors and ceilings are wooden.

At present the rate of the House's wear is assessed as high. There is a threat of the building collapse – due to the complicated geological conditions of the underlying land plot and because of the active construction work started right nearby.

In 1974, after Konstantin Melnikov's death the House was divided between the architect's heirs – his son Viktor Melnikov and his daughter Lyudmila Melnikova.

Russian Avantgarde Foundation holds the title to one-half of Melnikov's House. The title has been acquired from Lyudmila Melnikova's heirs who are interested in establishing the Architect Melnikov's House Museum as soon as possible.

The other half of the building is in the process of inheritance litigation. As a result of the litigation conclusion the title to one-eighth of the House can pass to Elena Melnikova (Melnikov's granddaughter), the title to another one-eighth can pass to Ekaterina Karinskaya (also Melnikov's granddaughter), the title to one-fourth of the building can pass to the Russian State (under certain conditions that are formulated in the will of Viktor Melnikov).

According to that will, the State Museum of the Melnikovs, father and son, should be established in the House. However, the State has never taken any steps towards establishing the Museum due to the unsettled situation with the ownership rights for the whole house and the property.

At present Konstantin Melnikov's granddaughter Ms. Karinskaya resides in the House and is responsible for its preservation and security.

       
Photographs taken by Stefanos Christodoulides (September 2008)

Krivoarbatsky Lane
 

ABOUT MELNIKOV

Konstantin Melnikov (1890 - 1974) is a famous architect, painter and professor, one of the leaders of the avant-garde movement in Moscow.

Konstantin S. Melnikov was born on August, 3, 1890 in the suburbs of Moscow in the Petvosko - Razumovskii district. Stepan I. Melnikov who was a foreman at the Agricultural Academy had five children. The future architect was the fourth child in the family.

After graduating from school in 1903 where he got basic education, Konstantin started studies at the icon-painting studio in Mariina Roscha. But very soon he began to miss his family and went home never to come back to the studio again.

Soon the boy’s life changed drastically. A chance meeting with Vladimir M. Chaplin, who was a famous engineer and scientist, and also the joint owner of V. Zalesski and V. Chaplin company opened new opportunities for the future master. Melnikov got a job and on the very first day Chaplin asked him to paint something. After seeing Konstantin’s paintings he asked the boy if he wanted to continue his studies.

“I simply could not say anything”, said Melnikov afterwards, “I was standing there motionless, staring at the floor. It was a golden day of my life.”

In the autumn of 1905 Konstantin did brilliantly well at all the preliminary exams and was accepted to the General Studies Department of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Melnikov studied there for 12 years, first completing the course of General Studies (1910), than Arts (1914) and Architecture (1917). Through all these years Chaplin fatherly supported the young architect.

When in 1925 Melnikov designed the Soviet pavilion at the Paris Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Art, Vladimir Chaplin wrote to the architect: “I’m happy that I was lucky to notice sacred flame in a slim little boy.”

When Melnikov was studying at the Architecture Department, neoclassical tradition was getting very popular in the Russian architecture. Students were delighted with the works by the leaders of this movement: I. Zholtovsky, I. Fomin and V. Shchuko. As a senior student and during first several years after graduation Melnikov was influenced by Zholtovsky, he took part in his discussions where the master talked about architecture as a sublime form of art. Afterwards Konstantin had very warm memories about these discussions. His graduation thesis and first independent works were made just in the Neoclassical tradition. The project of the Automobile Factory AMO was also made in this style.

But already in the early 1920-s Melnikov began to look for new ways in his art, denying eclecticism and stylization acquired during the years of studies. At that time the new architecture was formed.

At this difficult period for the Soviet Russia Melnikov’s innovatory works were surprising for many people. They did not belong to any art tradition or movement. They were accepted with delight by some people and were not understood or even rejected by others. Such Melnikov’s projects as apartment units “Pila”, Makhorka Pavilion and the Labor Palace were contrastingly different from other architectural works of this period due to their form and style.

These three works marked the great success of the young talented architect and attracted attention of the architectural society. Since than, every Melnikov’s work was innovative in its architectural solution.

The competition project of the Moscow office of the newspaper Leningrad Pravda (1924) is a good example. It was a small five-storey building with a high-rise construction, and four upper floors spinned around the common vertical axis independently of each other.

In 1924 Melnikov also won the competition for the sarcophagus of the Lenin Mausoleum. The sarcophagus designed by Melnikov had an unusual geometrical form.

“The architectural idea of my project, - the architected explained later on, - consisted in a four-faceted extended pyramid cut with two surfaces inclined inside in opposite directions which formed by intersection a dead level diagonal. Thus, the upper glass surface turned out naturally strong against any impact. The developed construction idea eliminated the necessity for framing the joints of the sarcophagus with metal. We got the crystal with starlight play of the inner color sphere.

The sarcophagus designed according to slightly changed Melnikov’s project was constructed in the wooden Mausoleum, and later on it was preserved and used in the stone Mausoleum until WWII.

It was in 1925 that the Soviet architecture was first represented on the international arena, when at the Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes the Soviet pavilion designed by Melnikov made a great stir. Since than it has been considered an important milestone in the development of the modern exhibition architecture.

Melnikov himself supervised the process of his project implementation. As the world recognized master he at that time was commissioned 2 projects: first - to make a project for locating parking lots for the growing number of vehicles in Paris, and second - to design a garage according to the specifications. Melnikov proposed to place parking lots above the bridges over the Seine in the densely built-up district in the center of Paris. This was one of the first world projects of the vertical zoning of the city space in the world architecture. The second project, the garage, was designed as a many-storeyed building, almost cubic, with a complex system of inner ramps.

After his return to Moscow, Melnikov continues to develop projects for garages. In 1926 he built a bus garage using his “direct-flow system” of cars placement. Afterwards he built four more garages for trucks and cars.

The house constructed by Melnikov for his family forms another milestone of his life. For more than eighty years now this building has attracted to Krivoarbatsky Lane in Moscow many of those who are interested in modern architecture.

In 1927 - 1929 Konstantin was experiencing upsurge of creative effort and made seven design projects for workmen’s clubs. All of them were very different in shape, size, and artistic representation. Six of them were implemented - one in Likino-Dulyovo and five in Moscow: Rusakov Workers' Club, Kauchuk Factory Club, the Frunze Factory Club, Burevestnik Factory Club and Svoboda Factory Club.

The early 1920-s witnessed great popularity of romantic symbolism, a new architectural trend. Its followers experimented with dynamic compositions. Melnikov also got involved into the style. However, he was not simply interested in the methods of vivid expression of dynamic features, but also in the opportunity of real movement of the construction elements. He first practiced it on the project of the Leningrad Pravda. His second project was a lighthouse devoted to Christopher Columbus, for the Competition held in 1929.

Melnikov’s monument design represented the lighthouse as an enormous construction consisting of two cones connected at the top. The cones were intersected by almost one third of their height, and the upper one was rotated by the wind with the help of huge triangular wings. The wings were painted different colors (red and black) and their movement changed the color characteristics of the whole monument.

“My dear Sir, - a member of the expert team at the competition for Columbus monument wrote to Melnikov, - I would like to tell you that your modern and inspirational project attracted more attention than any other at the Exhibition in Madrid. But the jury believed it would be too risky to award it with the first price.

The third Melnikov’s project created with the idea of real volume movement in the general architectural composition was the competition project of the Moscow theatre MOSPS.

“For dynamic change of scenes of theatrical performances – commented Melnikov on his project in 1931 in his explanatory notes, - as well as for greater variety of those scenes I designed stages with horizontal rotation, a stage with the water devices and the swimming pool… Thus, we get a great variety of theatrical acts, dynamic scene change, substitute of one scene with others which creates impressing effect bordering on the unreal…”

In 1933 Mossovet founded Architectural Workshops – there were ten designing workshops and ten planning workshops. Almost all important Soviet architects were involved into managing of these workshops. Melnikov was the leader of the seventh Mossovet Architecture Planning Workshop.

In 1938 the workshop was closed but they implemented several projects worth mentioning. These are the project for the development of Kotelnicheskaya and Goncharnaya embankments, Inturist car garage and Gosplan car garage (both were realized), the apartment house for the Izvestia newspaper employees, the Labor and Culture Palace in Tashkent, the Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 World Exposition in Paris and the famous Narkomtyazhprom building.

In 1933 an exhibition devoted to Meknikov was held in Milano within the framework of the famous Triennale of Decorative Arts and Architecture. There were only 11 world famous architects, participating in this exhibition and Melnikov was the only Russian one to be invited. At this time he was highly estimated in Western countries and in the Soviet Union he sank into oblivion. He wasn’t allowed to go to his own exhibition in Italy, and in the USSR he was suffering from misunderstanding.

The most important quality of any architectural work for Melnikov consisted in its artistic originality. It was natural for him to think that if an architect was working on a new project that meant that he was creating a new work of art, and only in this case he could be considered the author of this work. He simply didn’t understand how it was possible to create a new project by using ideas that had been suggested before by somebody else.

His artistic method wasn’t understood by his colleagues and critics. During these years Melnikov didn’t received any commissions, neither had he an opportunity to teach. After WWII he practically didn’t participate in the actual architectural life, at this time he lectured at “non-architectural” colleges – Moscow Engineering Institute, Saratov Road Transport Institute, the All-Soviet External Education Engineering Institute.

In 1954 he took part in two competitions for the Pantheon of the prominent Soviet figures and the monument to the 300th anniversary of the Russian-Ukrainian Unity. By this time he had already lost any hope that his artistic concept would be appreciated by his contemporaries. When he decided to participate in these competitions he tried to remember for these projects what he had learned at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and to resort to his skills to work and create in different styles. Though Melnikov’s works were not mere stylization, in general the did not stand out of other works submitted for the competition. Strictly speaking, the true Melnikov didn’t take part in these competitions: even though made by Melnikov these projects didn’t belong to him.

But already in 1958 the next competition for the Palace of Soviets saw the real Melnikov participating in it. Based on the same architectural concept as his Palace of Soviets of 1932, the design was characterized by even greater radicality. It was really a brilliant work but it wasn’t received very warmly and when it became known who the architect was, the project was criticized even more.

In 1962, Melnikov took his own initiative to participate, without being commissioned, in the close competition for the USSR Pavilion for the World Exposition in New York. He designed the monument which seemed to soar “taking-off” from the big pedestal. It was the “swan-song” of one of the greatest architects of the XXth century, who after decades of oblivion demonstrated that his talent was still fresh as many years before.

In 1967 Melnikov took part in the open competition for the children’s cinema on Arbat Street. He got involved into this project because the site for the building was located close to his own house. Melnikov knew this district very well and wanted to put one more original work of art to the old vicinity. Many people admitted that Melnikov’s project was the most interesting at the competition but the architect was only rewarded with an honorable mention. The architect was very offended and never again participated in any competition. He spent last years of his life working on his autobiography trying to trace and understand his development as an artist and his own place in the modern architecture.

Melnikov died on November, 28, 1974. He lived to be 84. The great architect was buried in Vvedenskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

www.melnikovhouse.com