“It is sad that the vast majority of sketchbook plans and competition entries reproduced in this album were never built. Ivan Leonidov was surely one of the most innovative and humanistic architects to come out of early Russian modernism. His Constructivist-inspired projects embody the same revolutionary spirit as Vladimir Tatlin’s celebrated 1919 tower. In his later buildings, medieval Russian motifs mingle with pyramids, amphitheaters, pagodas, to reflect his love of Eastern and classical cultures. Many of his visions were quixotichis United Nations headquarters, for example, or the Island of Flowers park in the Dnepr Riverbut all are inspirational. Vilified in the 1930s, Leonidov has lately undergone a “rehabilitation” in the Soviet Union.”
From the review of the book Ivan Leonidov
http://www.tu-cottbus.de/theoriederarchitektur/Wolke/eng/Subjects/021/Barabanova/Barabanova.htm
 |
Urban Bodies | |
| Vol. 7, No. 1, (September 2002) |
|
___Yekaterina
Barabanova Yekaterinburg |
Earthly Body in a “Castle of Air” |
Not only once in the human history the human body was regarded as an image of the
sky: both in ancient times, in the Egyptian mythology, and in the Middle Ages,
in the cultures of China and Western Europe, an earthly body was treated as a
map of constellations and a lap where heavenly bodies move. From very old
times, man was believed to be a creature of the cosmos, and at the turn of the
19th-20th centuries this idea had acquired specific
value. Representatives of the Russian school of philosophy, followers of the
cosmic theory, as they look into the future, see the direction of human body
evolution in thinning of the matter. K.E.Tsiolkovsky wrote that human matter, in
the process of its adaptation to life in cosmos, “going through the stages of
cosmic evolution, will acquire the features of light and radiant energy”.[1]
N.Roerich keeps to a similar idea of human evolution: “Gradually, mankind
releases itself from crude forms of the matter, getting all the more inspired,
it finds specific center points (chakras), through which it penetrates into the
multidimensional space of the cosmos, engages in energy exchange with it,
turning cosmic.”[2] Not just a natural, but also an artificial body
obeys the law of the evolution. An architectural body created by human hands,
like a physical body, has several
spheres of meaning. On the one hand, it may be
represented in the form of a space, filled with a substance or some matter
(Slavic “Tel”); on the other, we call a body a space limited with a closed
surface (“Telo”); and finally, the notion of a body carries the meaning of
bareness, nakedness (“Telesh”).[3]
It is easy to trace changes in an architectural body at all three
levels: how the building material evolves (including construction materials ,
interiors, light), how the surface becomes thinner, how transparent, movable
and iridescent it becomes, how acute becomes the understanding of the need for
getting back to the essence of architecture, to its prototype. It is in this
direction that architecture changes at the turn of the 19th-20th
centuries.
A movement of constructivism is born to become an important link in the
succession of world architecture development. Stone buildings “without air or
light”, isolated and gloomy are left in the past. New architecture is born, …
first in the projects of the Vesnin brothers and Ilya Golosov, and later,
reaching the summit in the works of Ivan Leonidov.
New construction materials find application. Glass, metal, ferroconcrete
are the materials of totally different quality, compared to stone and wood.
These are the materials created from liquid substances; solidified liquid
(glass and metal) does not fall off with time like stone, nor does it rot like
wood, but slowly and gradually flows down under gravity. Solidified liquid
takes any form. A building is constructed not from separate pieces (stones,
bricks, logs), but from fragments of a preset architectural form. As distinct
from molecules of a solid substance, the movement of molecules of liquid is
more chaotic, and by learning to put them in order, an architect, while
organizing the volume of a building, simultaneously organized the substance, as
he smelts from liquid the required part of an architectural body.
All
the avant-garde movements in architecture actively use new materials.
Popularity of glass constantly grows: it is used to built whole walls and inlay
with it isolated glass volumes (for example, the Zouev club in Moscow,
architect Golosov); where earlier modernist style admired the plastic
opportunities of ferroconcrete, today an eye feasts on transparent walls and
architectural structured from metal. Solid substance is used to create not the
modernist bionic creatures , but fine crystals able to support the strain of a
vast space around them, to structure and harmonize this space.
Architect I. Leonidov goes even further than his contemporaries: he
attempts building a wall of gas. In a project of a monument to Columbus in
Santo-Domingo submitted to competition, instead of walls, Leonidov puts up a
“strong jet of air providing the necessary insulation”.[4] So an even
more chaotic matter gets ordered, and
human will reduces entropy of the Universe.
The abundance of glass and fine metallic structures able to stand giant
strain fills the architectural body with light. Light is turned to one more
construction material actively used by the artist. “Light and air” is the
demand of the new time. It is the masses of light and air that the matter of
the internal volumes of the building, new interiors are sculptured from air and
light. The principle of “flowing” volumes is taken as the basis of making up an
interior. “If you want to reach the feeling of freedom and space, you must
break open as broadly as you can the volume of the interior,”[5] says
Alexander Vesnin. Internal partitions are removed or replaced with
glass, stairs
are surrounded with ample space, instead of being insulated with the walls of
stairwells; the volume expands at the expense of huge glass windows, glass
walls and extending glass bay windows. An interior may be saturated with
electric light, and with a vertical beam through the glass tower walls cut the
night space (the house of Narkomtyazhprom, architect I. Leonidov); through a
long banded window, internal volume way
absorb the patches of light from the surface of the river (Dneproges, architect
Vesnin et al.), or merge with the street through a giant glass wall. Space
filling the volume of an architectural body flows freely to external space, the
environment. Thus the enclosed internal volume loses its value. The principle of
an ensemble gets dominating, when the building subordinates the space
of air around it and merges with the environment so much as to include it in
its architectural body, being unable to exist without it as an ensemble.
Like capsules, architectural volumes are wrapped in a thin shell of
enclosure. Often a body is named by its enclosure. What happens to an
architectural enclosure, when it thins out? We already mentioned the principle
of an ensemble; at the enclosure level, this principle manifests itself in the
following manner. First the enclosure starts to adhere more close to the
building frame; the main spaces get clearer outlines, become more expressive;
all parts of the body get to be traced more clearly. Gradually, there come
forth the more acutely perceptible and important centers organizing the rest of
the volume, the whole of the remaining body.
Enclosure
covers internal space, sticks closely to the volumes.
In the Vesnin brothers’ project of the Theater of mass
musical action in Kharkov, a huge shield outlines the space of the auditorium,
a separate “fold” of the enclosure fits close to the foyer, with a light canopy
it encircles the entrance, thus making easily readable all functional volumes.
In the same manner an enclosure covers the association rooms, the
entrance-hall, the foyer, the museum block
in the building of the Central House of the Society of former political
convicts in Moscow (architect I.Golosov). The next stage is setting off
separate functional zones into bodies isolated with closed surfaces; they
communicate through special passages (both the project of the Lenin Library in
Moscow submitted to competition, architects Vesnin brothers; and the House of
the Soviets in Rostov-on-Don, architect I.Golosov). However, the highest
achievement of constructivism was
the discovery of a specific
principle of erecting a building by Ivan Leonidov, when each function was implemented in a
separate structure, isolated from others and presenting an active point.
Some of those centers, arranged in a harmonious order, are able to keep strained
the vast spaces around themselves. The three towers of Narkomtyazhprom of
Leonidov look like a beam of light rays condensing the space of the Red Square in themselves, presenting the dominant and the accent
of the center of Moscow.
The same principle is used by Leonidov in the project
of the Lenin Institute in Moscow on the Leninskiye hills. The glass sphere of
the auditorium freely “hovers over the plane”, next to it rises the vertical
parallelepiped of the book depository, and one-storey blocks, with smaller
auditoriums and studies for research work rest nearby. The compositional
solution of the library building utilizes the principle of a “winding-up spiral
of a galaxy". With a center and “arms”, the library building presents a giant
space with active points at locations of the rooms proper. Thus, the enclosure
of an architectural body itself
becomes blurred and disappears, the eye is unable to
spot it, but there appear the harmoniously arranged crystals of buildings,
attracting the tension of the surrounding space. The building becomes an
ensemble, a system of commensurate and mutually subordinated structures,
resembling in plan showing a solar system with single bodies of planets, living
their own life, and simultaneously living the life of
the entire unit.
Nuclei straining space emerge and organize the
sometimes invisible air masses, the elements, from which before one would seek
protection under stone shelters, and which now become part of an architectural
body.
Getting thinner, the surface of the forming (Vesnin,
Golosov), or the already insulated (Leonidov) centers lives undergoes incredible
strain, which makes it mobile, “live”, iridescent. Similar to the varying
thickness of a line coming from under the pen of a calligrapher, which creates
an unbelievably “live” pattern of a letter, so the incessantly varying
thickness of the walls, the play of material textures make movable the
architectural body. A surface may move around (cylinders and protruding bay
windows), or directly, abruptly, straightforward (angles at joints of
ferroconcrete slabs, blind walls cut through with rectangles of windows). It
may glitter like metal, or disappear in a glass surface. In the Zouev club, the
building surface dips in the apertures of balcony openings, it pulls in space,
it attaches itself tenaciously to the environment. Thin lines of metal
structures, their open-work patterns make
their attachment to the environment even more complicated; they are like multiple
recesses, flutes and bulges in the body of a key: only with this complex,
accurate and strict set of the finest elements one can penetrate the labyrinth
of a keyhole and open the unknown space.
Leonidov employs more additional metal “strings”,
antennae, supports and braces. Like a network of communications, hard threads
twine around space. The bow-strings of structures tension up, and the whole
volume, the whole of the architectural body tightens up and flutters (e.g., the
project of the Lenin Institute on the Leninskiye hills, the project of a monument to
Columbus in Santo-Domingo submitted to competition, a project of a club of a
new social type).
The feeling of
nakedness of an architectural body becomes more acute. Ornaments disappear from
façades (architects need neither plasterwork, nor fretwork reliefs and
decorations of windows or doors). An architectural body gets free from multiple
coats, under which architecture proper is sought for. There gets exposed the
gist of architecture – architectonics, i.e., the laws of spatial construction.
An architect tries to make these laws visible to viewers. Thus the appearance
of a phenomenon of architectural centrism, when environment is organized according
to the laws of spatial construction, and not human whim and fantasy. The keen
desire of an artist to grasp the essence of architecture makes it turn to a
prototype, an archetype, to architecture in its primordial form.
Architecture grow from an altar and a
temple. The first living structures remain the building achievements, rather
than architectural, for a long time. Fixing of a sacral point (center), the
clearly readable horizontals and
verticals impart, in their combination, an amazing property to an architectural
body: a building becomes a vessel, within which man addresses the Supreme being
in the conditions of a dense earthly substance. Celestial and earthly currents
come to a harmony; a person finding himself in such a space undergoes transformation,
catching up with the rhythm of development of the Universe, with the rhythm of
evolution. A temple fills with sense the active points in the projects of I.
Leonidov. The architect resorts to the most ancient compositional devices,
establishing the Axis of the World and the Center of the Universe. It is not by
chance that parallels are drawn between the St.Basil Church and the House of
Narkomtyazhprom. The verticals of Narkomtyazhprom towers are like crystals,
i.e., such a highly ordered material that its body is able to specifically
refract cosmic rays (for example, decompose a ray of sunlight into a harmonious
spectrum). The verticals enabling overflow of fine and coarse energies, open
exit beyond the Earth boundaries.
Man’s coming out into the open space in the second
half of the 20th century gave an opportunity to find confirmation to
a series of insights made by Ivan Leonidov. Under conditions of weightlessness,
floor, ceiling and wall planes lose their meaning; volume becomes the
dominating characteristic, and the shape of maximum use of space would be not a
parallelepiped, but a sphere. The form of a glass sphere hanging in the air on
open-work structures was selected by Leonidov for the building of the large
auditorium of the Lenin Library on the Leninsky hills. In consideration of the
high cost of “earthly substance” brought to cosmos, the architectural volume
must be made multifunctional. The main principle of organizing interiors is
their maximum transformation in terms of both space, color and light,”[6]
concluded Igor Kozlov, who had given twenty years of his
life to cosmic architectural design. “In the projects of the House of
Centrosoyuz and the House of Industry, while designing spatial organization of
a standard house floor, Leonidov works out a practically universal plan.
<…> He strives for creating an all-purpose type of a building: one
volume-spatial composition for a number of functions. Leonidov saw no need,
particularly in office buildings, for detailed arranging of partitions on
standard building floor areas and layout of equipment, believing that this
should be left to the initiative of those who would come to use this building.
He purposefully leaves unfragmented internal spaces of standard flows in office
buildings, believing that a universal plan would be most expedient in
structures with a huge number of variants of functional processes”.[7]
In cosmic space, an architectural body must allow of further growth (e.g., for
future expeditions and new tasks), therefore the building compositional system
must remain open. Leonidov favors such scheme in construction, e.g., in
imitating a “galactic” spiral with several “arms”.
Ivan Leonidov comes to a new understanding of
architecture. The project of a Sun City presents an original testimony of
Leonidov. Like all his previous works, this architectural body
remained paper.
The last “castle of air” by Leonidov tells about inevitability of a new
attitude in architecture.
Different proportions of a human body make people unlike.
Using the measure of parts of a human body, comparing the sizes of his body
with various objects of the surrounding world, man uses these ratios as a basis
in creating a new protective shell – architecture. This shell fences man from
the acts of natural elements and creates a specific environment – space
subordinated to man and commensurated with a human body.
When man comes out into the cosmic space, everything
changes. Human body is not just an enclosure, but five (and even more) totally
different organs of sense. In the cosmic space, all organs of sense work
differently. Beyond the Earth boundaries, architecture obeys different laws.
Body learns to live anew; earthly thinking gives way to cosmic, and new
architecture is born.
- translated by Marina Yakhontova -
References
[1] Danilenko L.E., Yemelyanov B.V.
Ocherki russkogo kosmizma. Ekaterinburg, 2001, p. 30.
[2] Ibidem, p. 84.
[3] Dal V. Tolkovy slovar
velikorusskogo yazyka. In 4 volumes. V.4. M., 1980, p. 448.
[4] I.Leonidov. Zapiska k probleme
pamyatnika. “Sovremennaya arkhitektura”. 1929, No. 4, p. 148. // Cited from:
Aleksandrov P.A., Khan-Magomedov S.O. Arkhitektor Ivan Leonidov. M., 1971.
[5] Mastera sovetskoi arkhitektury ob
arkhitekture. Izbrannye otryvki iz pisem, statei, vystuplenii i traktatov. In 2
volumes. V.2. M., 1975. P. 32.
[6] A. Kaftanov. Ot nauki k
fantastike. “Proyekt Rossiya”, 2001. No. 1. P. 26.
[7] Aleksandrov P.A., Khan-Magomedov
S.O. Arkhitektor Ivan Leonidov. M., 1971. P. 54.
