Vladimir Ginzburg

With this article, we are opening up a new section – reminiscences about the architects whose works became milestones in the history of Soviet and Russian architecture of the XX century. Vladimir Ginzburg, the architect who designed the Cinema Center on Krasnaya Presnya and the Engineering Building of the Moscow Metro on the Mira Avenue.

Written by:
Lara Kopylova
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

26 June 2019

in memoriam

Childhood and School Years. Family and Friends

Vladimir Ginzburg was born July 23, 1930 in the family of the world-famous functionalist architect Moisey Ginzburg. He lived with his parents in the famous Narkomfin House on the Novinsky Boulevard, designed and built by his father, in a communal flat. The friend of Vladimir Ginzburg’s, Yuri Platonov, would later on recall how as children they would go together carrying their milk cans to the communal kitchen to get carry-out dinners for their families. In addition to high school, Vladimir Ginzburg went to an art school. There he made friends with the future director of the State Tretyakov Gallery (1980-1992) Yuri Korolev and the future muralist Evgeny Ablin. In the summer camp, Vladimir Ginzburg met Alla Kireeva, who later on married the famous Soviet poet Robert Rozhdestvensky, with whom Vladimir Ginzburg also maintained friendly ties.

Not so long ago, new details of the Ginzburg architectural galaxy became known. Vladimir Ginzburg’s son, Aleksey, discovered in Minsk 120 projects, signed by a certain Jacob Ginzburg and built from the 1890’s to the early 1920’s. Jacob Ginzburg, Vladimir Ginzburg’s grandfather and Moisey’s father, was an architect or civil engineer, and a very successful one, judging by the fact that he was able to send all of his children to study abroad. In Minsk, they found the tenement that Jacob Ginzburg designed and built, and then lived in one of its apartments.

In 1946, when Moisey Ginzburg died, Vladimir was only sixteen, and when his mother died he was eighteen. He was evicted from the Narkomfin House. For some time, Vladimir Ginzburg lived at the place of his mother’s cousin, Raisa Kantsenelson, whom Moisey Ginzburg had brought over to Moscow from Tbilisi. She studied the history and theory of architecture in the All-Union Research and Development Institute of the Theory of Architecture and Town Planning. Then the young man moved to a room in a communal flat. In that flat, he met the future author Anatoly Zlobin.

The choice of a profession became for Vladimir Ginzburg a natural decision. However, in 1948-1949, the Soviet Union embarked on the so-called “anti-cosmopolitanism campaign”, and he was not admitted to the Moscow Architectural Institute. However, he was still able to enter the Moscow Civil Engineering Institute, enrolling at the Moscow Architectural Institute a year later. Vladimir graduated from Moscow Architectural Institute in 1956; his professor was Mikhail Sinyavsky (the designer of Moscow Planetarium, and a colleague of Moisey Ginzburg’s – editorial note). Vladimir was in the same course with Yuri Grigoryev (the future deputy of the Chief Architect of Moscow Alexander Kuzmin), and Vsevolod Talkovsky.

Early Career. Brutalism

After he graduated from the institute, for some time Vladimir Ginzburg worked in Giprosport, and then he worked in Mosproject for thirty years. He became the leader of the architectural studio when still a very young man, at the age of 29. He headed Studio 19, and later on, when it was merged with Studio 10, he headed Studio 10. In 1958, he got married and in 1959 his daughter Elena was born. In 1968, Vladimir Ginzburg got married a second time, to Tatiana Barkhina, and a year later his son Aleksey was born.

Just like many of the alumni of Moscow Architectural Institute, in the late 1950’s Vladimir Ginzburg chiefly designed community centers of “clubs” as they were called in the Soviet Union. Together with other Moscow architects, he took part in restoring Tashkent after the Great Earthquake, designing the housing sector.

zooming — Vladimir Ginzburg

Copyright: Photograph © Aleksey Ginzburg

One of the first public buildings that Vladimir Ginzburg designed is the Shchelkovsky bus terminal in the northeast of Moscow, a classic example of Soviet modernism. Regretfully, this building was torn down in 2017 to be replaced by a new one.

The most interesting project designed by Vladimir Ginzburg in the 1960’s is the Institute of Mechanical Problems that stands on the Vernadskogo Avenue. In the 1960’s the Soviet architects rediscovered the Russian avant-garde art, perceiving it through the prism of the contemporary European architecture. The artistic design solution of the building of the Institute of Mechanical Problems demonstrates the influence of the brutalist architecture.

The 1970’s brought about new opportunities in architecture. In some certain genres the architects were already permitted to design from brick and travertine; a search for new forms begins, even though postmodernism is still a few years away. What served as a testing ground for many architects – including Vladimir Ginzburg – was the Moscow area health resorts. While the health center in Krasnovidovo is all pristine and honest modernism, the health resort in Voskresensk demonstrates vaults and arches. Later on, these ideas will also show through in the Cinema Center. The Health Center of the Council of Ministers is a most interesting example of wooden architecture of the Soviet period.

The Cinema Center on the Krasnaya Presnya

The architectural ensemble consisting of the Cinema Center and the Hungarian Trade Mission was considered to be his main achievement by the architect himself; for this project, Vladimir Ginzburg was awarded the State Prize of the USSR. Originally, the land site was occupied by the Krasnaya Presnya Baths, and, before beginning the construction, the city had to build a replacement – the bath complex in the Stolyarny Lane – then take down the old bathhouse, and only then build the Hungarian Trade Mission in its stead.

The new building of the Krasnaya Presnya bathhouse, designed by Vladimir Ginzburg, sports a façade with an enormous round window – a dramatic and essentially constructivist element, the only difference being that it was executed in brick.

Parallel to that, Vladimir Ginzburg designed the Engineering Building of the Moscow Metro on the Mira Avenue – together with Vladimir Taranov, his friend and chief architect of his studio. The façade design solution is based on a large volumetric pattern of concrete frames placed in a staggered order. The active plastique of the façade surface provides deep contrast of light and shade. The repetitive rhythm puts one in the mind of structuralism, which was popular those years.

The construction of the Cinema Center and the Hungarian Trade Mission began in the 1970’s, and these projects were built for 15 years. The ensemble of the Cinema Center is a large public project of a truly impressive scale. Volumes with different functions – the Hungarian Trade Mission, the foyer, and the movie hall – were designed differently plastique-wise, clearly showing the inner structure of the building on the outside. The stained glass window on the Druzhinnikovskaya Street façade enhances the difference between the constituent parts of the complex. The author struggled to get the approval to have his windows made of anodized aluminum, and carefully selected their color.

The 1970-1980’s saw a trend for making architectural solutions more and more complex. The pathos of the public building is strengthened by the powerful massive wall with loophole. The sinking-in technique leads to an accentuated “constructivist” image of the wall. The hidden columns and exedras create a feeling of power not at the expense of the smooth wall but thanks to its depth. The arched rounded windows accentuate the expressiveness of the apertures, at the same time softening the shape. By the way, the same shape was used in the Metro building, only on a different scale. In the Cinema Center, these elements became gigantic, up to the scale of this enormous public building.

The interior design was dominated by vaulted ceilings – translucent and backlit. The ledges on the façades were matched by exedras on the inside. The interior was adorned by a sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli. Unfortunately, the interior of the building was redone many times. The outward appearance of the Cinema Center and the Hungarian Trade Mission also suffered from incompetent operation. Both buildings were coated with travertine. Today, the travertine coating of the Hungarian Trade Mission is covered up by orange ceramic tiles, which is at odds with the original concept of the ensemble.

Postmodernism

The late 1980’s saw the beginning of the postmodernism epoch, with Robert Venturi’s ideas gaining popularity. In the creative work of Vladimir Ginzburg, one can see traces of postmodernism in the first building of the Military Academy in the Blagoveshchensky Alley (1989). But then again, the version of postmodernism proposed here by Vladimir Ginzburg is closer to the solution of a large volume, like the Cinema Center, and is farther away from the trend – which later took root in Moscow – which can be best described as “Luzhkov turrets”. The other building of the Academy, situated closer to the Spiridonovka, was remade into the Russian Foundation for Basic Research building. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the construction stopped, and, because the Academy was subjugated to the federal government, the building never was finished.

Approaches to restoring the Narkomfin House

Restoration of the Narkomfin House, the most famous creation of his father, and a fine example of new-type experimental housing, was something that Vladimir Ginzburg took up in the mid-1980’s starting with fundraising at the Soviet art foundations. In 1986, Aleksey Ginzburg joined the project. In 1995, it was planned to attract an American company to the restoration project, and at that time Vladimir Ginzburg, together with his son Aleksey, organized a private studio specifically for restoring the Narkomfin House; however, they were still unable to find the funds up until Vladimir Ginzburg’s demise in 1997.

***

Remembering the personality of his father, Aleksey Ginzburg says: “He was always the heart and soul of the company, be that Mosproject, Sukhanov, or Gagry, in all these creative homes; he always quoted “Master and Margaret”, or other such books, he was sensitive to classical music, would be humming some classical aria, and had a tape recorder collection of Wagner and other composers. He was a man of principles, he was courageous and determined, and he was always decent, never intriguing against anyone. In some ways, he may have been slightly naïve – he never felt the harsh reality of the 1990’s.

Vladimir Ginzburg created memorable buildings that belong to the layer of Soviet postmodernism that became an indispensable part of Moscow cityscape. The cause of restoring the Narkomfin House was picked up by his Aleksey Ginzburg. Finally, in 2016, an investor was found who finally appreciated the potential of the historical building, and now the implementation of the reconstruction project is underway.

26 June 2019

Headlines now

Object

A Step Forward

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Gold in the Sands

A new office for a transcontinental company specializing in resource extraction and processing has opened in Dubai. Designed by T+T Architects, masters of creating spaces that are contemporary, diverse, flexible, and original, this project exemplifies their expertise. On the executive floor, a massive brass-clad partition dominates, while layered textures of compressed earth create a contextually resonant backdrop.

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Layers and Levels of Flight

This project goes way back – Reserve Union won this architectural competition at the end of 2011, and the building was completed in 2018, so it’s practically “archival”. However, despite being relatively unknown, the building can hardly be considered “dated” and remains a prime example of architectural expression, particularly in the headquarters genre. And it’s especially fitting for an aviation company office. In some ways, it resembles the Aeroflot headquarters at Sheremetyevo but with its own unique identity, following the signature style of Vladimir Plotkin. In this article, we take an in-depth look at the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) headquarters in the Moscow agglomeration town of Zhukovsky, supplemented by recent photographs from Alexey Naroditsky – a shoot that became only recently possible due to the fact that improvements were finally made in the surrounding area.

Object

Light and Shadow

In this article, we delve into the architectural design of the “Chaika” house by DNK ag architects, which was recently completed in 2023 as part of the collection of signature designs at ZILArt. As is well-known, all the buildings in this complex follow a design code, yet each one is distinct. This particular building stands out not only for its whiteness and minimalism but also for the refined use of a limited number of techniques that, together, create what can confidently be called synergy.

View

Casus Novae

A master plan was developed for a large residential area with a name of “DNS City”, but now that its implementation began, the plan has been arbitrarily reformatted and replaced with something that, while similar on the surface, is actually quite different. This is not the first time such a thing happens, but it’s always frustrating. With permission from the author, we are sharing Maria Elkina’s post.

Report

Treasure Hunting

The GAFA bureau, in collaboration with Tegola and Arkhitail, organized an expedition to the island of Kilpola in Karelia as part of Moskomarkhitektura’s “Open City” festival. There, amidst moss and rocks, the students sought answers to questions like: what is the sacred, where does it dwell, and what sustains it? Assisting the participants in this quest were landscape engineer Evgeny Levin, artist Nicholas Roerich, a moose, and the lack of cellular connection. Here’s how the story unfolded.

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Depths of the Earth, Streams of Water

In the Malaya Okhta district, the Akzent building, designed by Stepan Liphart, was constructed. It follows a classic tripartite structure, yet it’s what you might call “hand-drawn”: each façade is unique in its form and details, some of which aren’t immediately noticeable. In this article, we explore the context and, together with the architect, delve into how the form was developed.

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Fir Tree Dynamics

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A Brick Shell

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Report

Word Forms

ATRIUM architects love ambitious challenges, and for the firm’s thirtieth anniversary, they boldly play a game of words with an exhibition that dives deep into a self-created vocabulary. They immerse their projects – especially art installations – into this glossary, as if plunging into a current of their own. You feel as if you’re flowing through the veins of pure art, immersed in a universe of vertical cities, educational spaces – of which the architects are true masters – and the cultural codes of various locations. But what truly captivates is the bold statement that Vera Butko and Anton Nadtochy make, both through their work and this exhibition: architecture, above all, is art – the art of working with form and space.

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Flexibility and Acuteness of Modernity

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Interview

Yuri Vissarionov: “A modular house does not belong to the land”

It belongs to space, or to the air... It turns out that 3D printing is more effective when combined with a modular approach: the house is built in a workshop and then adapted to the site, including on uneven terrain. Yuri Vissarionov shares his latest experience in designing tourist complexes, both in central Russia and in the south. These include houseboats, homes printed from lightweight concrete using a 3D printer, and, of course, frame houses.

Object

Moscow’s First

“The quality of education largely depends on the quality of the educational environment”. This principle of the last decade has been realized by Sergey Skuratov in the project for the First Moscow Gymnasium on Rostovskaya Embankment in the Khamovniki district. The building seamlessly integrates into the complex urban landscape, responding both to the pedestrian flow of the city and the quiet alleyways. It skillfully takes advantage of the height differences and aligns with modern trends in educational space design. Let’s take a closer look.

Object

Looking at the Water

The site of Villa Sonata stretches from the road to the water’s edge, offering its own shoreline, pier, and a picturesque river panorama. To reveal these sweeping views, Roman Leonidov “cut” the façade diagonally parallel to the river, thus getting two main axes for the house and, consequently, “two heads”. The internal core – two double-height spaces, a living room and a conservatory, with a “bridge” above them – makes the house both “transparent” and filled with light.

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The White Wing

Well, it’s not exactly white. It’s more of a beige, white-stone structure that plays with the color of limestone – smoother surfaces are lighter, while rougher ones are darker. This wing unites various elements: it absorbs and interprets the surrounding themes. It responds to everything, yet maintains a cohesive expression – a challenging task! – while also incorporating recognizable features of its own, such as the dynamic cuts at the bottom, top, and middle.

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Urban Dunes

The XSA Ramps team designed and built a three-part sports hub for a park in Rostov-on-Don, welcoming people of all ages and fitness levels. The skate plaza, pump track, and playground are all meticulously crafted with details that attract a diverse range of visitors. The technical execution of the shapes and slopes transforms this space into a kind of sculptural composition.

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Proportional Growth

The project for the fourth phase of the ÁLIA residential area has been announced. The buildings are situated on an elongated plot – almost a “ray” that shoots out from the center of the area towards the river. Their layout reflects both a response to Moscow’s architectural preferences over the past 15 years, shifting “from blocks to towers”, and an interpretation of the neighboring business park designed by SOM. Additionally, the best apartments here are not located at the very top but closer to the middle, forming a glowing “waistline”.

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The “Staircase” Building

In designing the “Details” residential complex in New Moscow, Rais Baishev spiced up the now-popular Moscow theme of a “courtyard” building with an idea drawn from the surrealist drawings by Maurits Escher. He envisioned the stepped silhouettes and descending slopes as a metaphysical mega-staircase, creating a key void within the courtyard that gave the project an internal “spine”. This concept is felt both in the building’s silhouette and on its façades.

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Projection of the Quarter

No one doubted that the building that Vladimir Plotkin designed as part of the “Garden Quarters” would be the most modernist of all. And it turned out just that way: while adhering to the common design code, the building successfully combines brick and white stone, rhythmically responding to the neighboring building designed by Ostozhenka, yet tactfully and persistently making a few statements of its own. This includes the projection of the ideal urban development composition “14–9–6”, which can be found right next door, mathematical calculations, including those for various types of terraces (and perhaps the only reminder of the Soviet past of the Kauchuk rubber factory!), and the white “cross-stitch” pattern of the façade grid.

Object

Domus Aurea

In this issue, we examine the “Tessinsky-1” house, designed by Sergey Skuratov and completed in 2023. Located in the middle of the Serebryanicheskaya Embankment district, at the intersection of its main streets, this house assumes a sort of “nodal” role: it not only responds to everything around it and preserves many memories of the former EMA factory within itself, but it weaves all this into a newly directed pattern, reconciling bright “gold” and dark-colored brick, largely with the help of the new, modern-yet-archaic Columba brick, which, come to think about it, is the most precious element here.

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The Chimney of Nikola-Lenivets

In this issue, we are examining the “Obelisk House” designed by KATARSIS and built for the Arkhstoyanie 2023 festival. However, it was only finished later on, and this is why we are examining it now. It seems to us that after the “Obelisk House” appeared in Nikola-Lenivets, a dialogue and a few inner connections appeared between the temporary structures built here. These houses no longer look like “accidental neighbors”, more of which below.

Periscope by the Bay

The jury awarded the second place in the competition for a public and cultural center in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to the companies GORA (“Mountain”) and M4. In the consortium’s proposal, the building resembles a sperm whale with a calf swimming next to it or a periscope, whose lenses capture the most spectacular views from the surrounding landscape.

Contest Results

From Arcs to Dolmens

While working on the competition project for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, ASADOV Architects prioritized the value of the natural and urban environment, aiming to preserve the balance of the location while minimizing the resemblance of the volume that they designed to a “traditional building”. The task was challenging, and the architects created three versions, one of which having been developed after the competition, where their main proposal took third place. However, the point of interest here is not the competition result but the continuity of creative thinking.

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Hide and Seek

The ID Moskovskiy house, designed by Stepan Liphart in St. Petersburg, in the courtyards near Moskovskiy Avenue beyond the Obvodny Canal and recently completed, is notable for several reasons. Firstly, it has been realized with considerable accuracy, which is particularly significant as this is the first building where the architect was responsible not only for the facades but also for the layouts, allowing for better integration between the two. On the other hand, this building is interesting as an example of the “germination” of new architecture in the city: it draws on the best examples from the neighborhood and becomes an improved and developed sum of ideas found by the architect in the surrounding context.

The Big Twelve

Yesterday, the winners of the Moscow Mayor’s Architecture Award were announced and honored. Let’s take a look at what was awarded and, in some cases, even critique this esteemed award. After all, there is always room for improvement, right?

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Above the Golden Horn

The residential complex “Philosophy” designed by T+T architects in Vladivostok, is one of the new projects in the “Golubinaya Pad” area, changing its development philosophy (pun intended) from single houses to a comprehensive approach. The buildings are organized along public streets, varying in height and format, with one house even executed in gallery typology, featuring a cantilever leaning on an art object.

Report

Nuanced Alternative

How can you rhyme a square and space? Easily! But to do so, you need to rhyme everything you can possibly think of: weave everything together, like in a tensegrity structure, and find your own optics too. The new exhibition at GES-2 does just that, offering its visitor a new perspective on the history of art spanning 150 years, infused with the hope for endless multiplicity of worlds and art histories. Read on to see how this is achieved and how the exhibition design by Evgeny Ace contributes to it.

Object

Blinds for Ice

An ice arena has been constructed in Domodedovo based on a project by Yuri Vissarionov Architects. To prevent the long façade, a technical requirement for winter sports facilities, from appearing monotonous, the architects proposed the use of suspended structures with multidirectional slats. This design protects the ice from direct sunlight while giving the wall texture and detail.

Contest Results

Frozen Magma

A competition for the creation of a public and cultural center was held in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Three architectural companies made it to the final, and we consider it important to share about the work of each. Let’s start with the winner – the consortium led by Wowhaus.

Report

Campus within a Day

In this article, we talk about what the participants of Genplan Institute of Moscow’s hackathon were doing at the MosComArchitecture booth at the “ArchMoscow” exhibition. We also discuss who won the prize and why, and what can be done with the territory of a small university on the outskirts of Moscow.

​Vladimir Ginzburg

Vladimir Ginzburg