Ilia Golosov’s Work of the 1930s and the Soviet Version of Art Deco

Abstract

This article considers the work of Ilia Golosov (and the Fourth Workshop of Moscow City Council or Soviet) on the design of facades in the context of Art Deco. The article compares Soviet practice with the international scene during the 1920s and 1930s, noting an atmosphere of architectural competition among countries, and the similarity in the stylistic solutions created in both East and West. An analysis of Soviet architecture in the context of the pre-Revolutionary era allows one to locate the origins of facade-design methods of the 1930s and their transformation within the new environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Art Deco
• Soviet architecture
• 1930s
• Soviet Art Deco

Notes

1. See I.A. Azizyan, “Ar deko: dialog, kompromiss, sintez,” in Iskusstvo epokhi modernizma. Stil’ ar-deko 1910–1940 (Moscow: Pinoteka, 2009), 48–58; A.V. Bokov, “Pro ar-deko,” Proekt Rossiia, no 19 (2001), 89–95; I.A. Kazus’, “Otechestvennye konkursy 1920–1930-kh godov—indikatsiia stiliia,” in Arkhitektura stalinskoi epokhi. Opyt istoricheskogo osmysleniia (Moscow: KomKniga, 2010), 80–89; T.G. Malinina, Formula stilia. Ar-deko: Istoki, regional’nye varianti, osobennosti evoliutsii (Moscow: Pinakoteka, 2005), 240, 252; and M.V. Nashchokina and V.L. Khait, “Ar-Deko: genesis i traditsiia,” in Ob arkhitekture, ee istorii i problemakh. Sbornik nauchnykh statei (Moscow: Editorial URSS, 2003), 201–224.

2. American Art Deco represented the confluence of several trends, decorative and ascetic, retrospective and innovative. This allows a broad understanding of the term “Art Deco,” which fundamentally includes the entire generation of 1920s and 1930s, who were distant both from the ideals of historicism (neoclassicism) and from the avant-garde (constructivism).

3. The construction of Langman’s Building for the Council of Labor and Defense (Moscow, 1934) was thus begun close in time to Ivan Zholtovskii’s neo-Palladian building on Mokhovaia Street (Moscow, 1932–34).

4. Begun as early as 1926 by Sergei Serafimov, Kharkov’s Gosprom complex was completely devoid of plasticity, although the symmetry of its volumes (proposed by other participants in the competition) was already a clear indication of the government’s interest in monumentality.

5. The motif of the rectangular frame is to be found in the following buildings: the House of Culture for the Industrial Co-operative (architect Evgenii Levinson, 1931–38); the “Gigant” Cinema (A.I. Gegello, 1934); the residential building for specialists in Leningrad (Vladimir Munts, 1934) in Leningrad; the “Rodina” cinema (Viktor Kalmykov, 1937); the House of Culture for the Pravda Publishing House (N.M. Molokov, 1937); the residential building on the Avenue of the Enthusiasts (V.B. Orlov, 1938); the building for the Chief Administration for Ground Forces, on Frunze Embankment (Lev Rudnev, 1940); and the Spartak Metro Station (now Baumanskaia, Boris Iofan, 1944); as well as in The Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute in Tbilisi (Aleksei Shchusev, 1938); the “Moskva” cinema in Leningrad (Lazar Khidekel, 1936); and the General Stores in Nizhny Novgorod (L.M. Nappelbaum, 1936).

6. These designs include the entrance to the Red Gates (Krasnye Vorota) Metro Station; the “Food Industry” building for the Workers’ Living and Construction Co-operative (Rabochee zhilishchno-stroitel’noe kooperativnoe tovarishchestvo [RZhSKT]); the hotel for the Society of Proletarian Tourism and Excursions (Obshchestvo proletarskogo turizma i ekskursii [OPTE]) in Moscow; the reconstruction of the Central Scientific and Research Institute for the Building Industry; and also the conference hall of the Sverdlov Communist University, Moscow.

7. The staircase of the Grand Palais at the Paris Exhibition (architect Charles Letrosne, 1925); the Daily Telegraph building in London (John Burnet, 1927); The Medical Department of Birmingham University (Scott Wilson,1938); the Parliament in Helsinki (Johan Sirén, 1926); The Museum of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf (Wilhelm Kreis, 1925); the Museum of Hygiene in Dresden (Peter Kulka,1927); and József Vágó’s designs for the Competition for the United Nations in Geneva (1927)—the designs for the Library and Secretariat (1928) and the Assembly building (1929). The device of the rectangular frame was widely used in Italian architecture as seen in the entrance portal for the Central Railway Station (Ulisse Stacchini, 1912–31) and the Palace of Justice (Marcello Piacentini, 1933), both in Milan; the Post Office in Palermo (Angiolo Mazzoni, 1928); and also buildings of the 1920s–30s in Asciano, Bella, Latina, Pordenone, Ravenna, Forli, Cesenatico, and elsewhere.

8. These comprise the designs for the Academy of Communal Economy and the hotel for the Society of Proletarian Tourism and Excursions (OPTE hotel) in Moscow, as well as for the House of Soviets in Stalinsk (now Novokuznetsk).

9. Instead of the coffered window, Golosov invented windows that are like an expanse of large rustic walls.

10. The image of the Roman Massimi Palace can be discerned in Golosov’s designs for various buildings, including the hostel of the Sverdlov Institute (now part of the Russian State University of the Humanities [Rossiskii gosudarstvennii gumanitarnyi universitet, RGGU]); and the residential buildings of the Third Workshop of the Moscow Soviet (supervised by neoclassic architect Ivan Fomin); as well as buildings on the Arbat (1933), Garden Ring (1934), and Krasnoselskaia (1937).

11. Actually, similar approaches can be found in designs by European architects, as for example in the Zoological Institute in Nancy (Jacques André, 1932). In fact, the idea of multiplying coffered windows and using them to organize the whole facade was first proposed by József Vágó in his competition entries for the Chicago Tribune (1922) and the League of Nations (1927).

12. Compare, for instance, the angular stacked colonnade of Golosov’s building on the Garden Ring with the residential building for the Likhachev Factory in Moscow as a rare example of the late avant-garde (architect Ignatii Milinis, 1936).

13. These projects are the Minsk theater, the Palace of Culture at Arkhangelsk, and the residential building for Central Administration for Road Transport (Tsudotrans—Tsentral’noe upravlenie dorozhnogo transporta) in Moscow.

14. See V.I. Loktev, Stil’-pritvorshschik, stil’-poliglot: opyt teoreticheskogo osmysleniia vyrazitel’nosti Ar Deko. Iskusstvo epokhi modernizma stil’ ar deko 1910–1940-e gody (Moscow: Pinakoteka, 2009), 37.

15. Such projects include the Theater for the Moscow Regional Committee of Trade Unions (Teatr imeni Moskovskogo oblastnogo Soveta professional’nykh soiuzov [MOSPS], 1932); the headquarters of the Book Marketing Association of State Publishers (Kinotorgovoe od’edinenie gosudarstvennykh izdanii [KOGIZ]); a residential building for the Central Administration for Road Transport (Tsudotrans—Tsentral’noe upravlenie dorozhnogo transporta); and the reconstruction of the Central Scientific and Research Institute for the Building Industry.

16. These designs are the residential houses on Iauzskii Boulevard (1934) and the Garden Ring (1934), the premises of the Trade Union High School (1938), and the State Academy of Communal Economy (1938).

17. The neo-Egyptian order (as in the interior of the theater in Rostov-on-Don, 1932) emerged the interest in the archaic tradition, and at the same time the appeal to its rethinking in the era of 1910-20’s (as in Hans Poelzig’s Grosses Schauspielhaus, Berlin, 1919, destroyed).

18. For instance, the “ship” dormer tomb of the baker Eurysaces appears in the building for the Dynamo society, the courtyard of the Lenin Library, the entrance of Chistye Prudy (formerly Kirovskaia) Metro station, and the interior of the Elektrozavodskaia Metro station.

19. The geometricization of classical motifs, the rejection of the classical canon, and the search for new, imaginative forms were not only pursued by Golosov, but also by Italian architects of the 1920s–30s. In Italy, the neo-Mannerist buildings of the Art Deco period used Eurysaces the Baker’s mausoleum and the Pia Gate in Rome as national sources for geometrization. Within an international context, the unusual plasticity of Roman monuments demonstrated the force of a similar aesthetic of compromise. In the 1920s–30s, it encouraged attempts to fuse historicism and avant-garde experimentation, and was therefore very widely adopted. A Russian example of this trend was Golosov’s use of neo-Mannerist details.

20. High circular arches (defining the corner in the residential building on Iauzskii Boulevard and in the pre-revolutionary house of Ivan Kuznetsov) were used by Golosov in several designs during the 1930s. They were proposed for the Soviet Telegraph Agency (Telegrafnoe agentstvo sovetskogo soiuza [TASS]) building; the Workers’ Living and Construction Cooperative (RZhSKT) building for the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and International Trade; and the building for the Society for Proletarian Tourism and Excursions (OPTE) in Moscow, and also the House of Culture in Arkhangelsk, the hotel at Stalinsk (now Novokuznetsk) and was realized in the colossal residential district of Nizhniy Novgorod (1936).

21. A significant example of this is the residential building for the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry on Moscow’s Garden Ring (architect Dmitrii Bulgakov, 1935).

22. In Leningrad, the form of the balcony of the Semenov house was used by various architects: Evgenii Levinson in his designs for a residential building on Karpovka, 1931–34 and for the Leningrad Soviet’s Palace of Culture, 1931–38); Andrei Ohl (for a residential house on Tkachei street, 1936); and D. Bulgakov (for a house on Moscow’s Garden Ring, 1935).

23. This also relates to Vágó’s entry for the Chicago Tribune competition (1922), and to Perret’s designs for the Moscow Palace of Soviets (1932), the Trocadero in Paris (1933), and his various buildings at the turn of the 1920s–30s. Above all, the Perret’s style had an impact on the members of Golosov’s Fourth Workshop.

24. In the mid-1930s, Golosov produced a whole series of marvelous and powerful designs: the Palace of the Soviets (1932); The Theater of the Moscow Regional Committee of Trade Unions (Teatr imeni Moskovskogo oblastnogo Soveta professional’nykh soyuzov [MOSPS], 1932); the Minsk Theater (1934); the House of Books (Dom knigi, 1934); the Building for the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS, 1934); and Moscow Airport (1938). Under Golosov’s direction, the architects of the Fourth Workshop of the Moscow Soviet during the same period produced various projects: The Headquarters for the Book Trade Association of state Publishing Houses (KOGIZ; architects P. Antonov, A. Zhuravlev, and M. Khomutov); the OPTE hotel in Moscow (D. Bulgakov); buildings in Moscow for the Workers Residential Building Cooperative (RZhSKT) for food industry employees and for the staff of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade (I.L. Markuze); a residential building for the Central Board for Road Transport (Tsudotrans), the Palace of Culture in Akrkhangelsk, and a hotel and the House of the Soviets in Stalinsk (now Novokuznetsk; architects V.M. Kusakov and A.T. Kapustin); the reconstruction of the Central Scientific Research Insitute for the Building Industry (G.K. Yakovlev); the administrative building for the factory “Radiopribor” (Radio Instruments; architects S.A. Kozlov and A.S. Alimov); and a lecture hall for the Sverdlov Communist University (K.I. Dzhus).