Countryside Avant-Garde

The project of the museum of Aleksey Gastev, the ideologist of scientific organization of work, located in his hometown of Suzdal, is inscribed in multiple contexts: the contest of a small town, the context of avant-garde design, the context of “lean production”, and the context of the creative quest of Nikolai Lyzlov’s minimalist architecture – and it seems to us that this project even reveals a distant memory of the fact that Aleksey Gastev learned his craft in France.

Written by:
Julia Tarabarina
Translated by:
Anton Mizonov

23 August 2023

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Aleksey Gastev was a revolutionary, trade union activist, ideologist of the Proletkult, and also a poet and, most importantly, one of the founders of the Soviet movement of “Scientific Organization of Labor”, and the “Central Institute of Labor”. He was also the author of the “social engineering” program, “applied sociology of labor” and the theory of lean production. The essence of the first was to accurately and economically organize the joint work of man and machine, which is clearly inspired by Henry Ford’s conveyor, although Gastev gained experience working as a mechanic in France; the second – to the collection of primary information directly on the production: what is wrong? Why does the worker work slow? – and so on. The third one is still used to hold the Lean Production Leaders Cup.

Aleksey Gastev died in Kommunarka in 1939.

zooming — This is what an optimal hammer swing looks like according to Aleksey Gastev. Cyclogram of chiseling with a chisel. Alexei Gastev in the pedagogical laboratory of the Central Institute of Labor. From the book: “Labor Attitudes”, Moscow, CIT, 1924

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio

He was born in Suzdal, and Suzdal was also the place where he was exiled in the Tsarist time. This is why one of Suzdal’s streets bears his name.

Dmitry Razumov is an entrepreneur, CEO of ONEXIM Group and at various times a member of the boards of directors of several companies, from Nornickel to Megafon. He is also a philanthropist and founder of the MIRA Center in Suzdal, which includes a library, a recording studio, and an exhibition hall.

Dmitry Razumov decided to build a museum of Alexei Gastev in Suzdal, on Gastev Street, 1.

Since the beginning of 2021, the project has been curated by Nikolay Lyzlov. He proposed a very characteristic project, according to the author’s description, “in the spirit of the Avant-garde and Gastev’s views, with the preservation of traditional forms and materials of Suzdal”.

It is hard to imagine a place more inappropriate for the notion of “avant-garde” than the ancient town of Suzdal, which, after happily avoiding the construction of the railroad, turned into a vivid example of a bourgeois “semi-village” town, exceptionally sleepy and drowned in vegetable gardens, which now constitute its tourist charm. There is not a single monument of constructivism in Suzdal. On the other hand, avant-garde artists sometimes did develop in such an environment, and, dare I say it, often in opposition to its reverie charm.

In a word, Suzdal is Suzdal. The site is situated at a distance from the main Lenin street running from one end of town to the other, next to the gate of Alexander Cathedral, which, according to legend, was founded by Alexander Nevsky himself, but was actually built on the money of the Czaress Natalia Naryshkina, the mother of Peter the Great; she gave the money right before her death, and the architecture of the cathedral is provincial, like everything in Suzdal of the late XVII – early XVIII century.

To the right of the site, there is the monastery, and to the left, there is the Spartak stadium, which makes the site one of the characteristic local underdeveloped places. Further away, there is a small meadow and a slope descending to the Kamenka River: a small museum, designed for 50 people with staff, will stand in the open space above the river.

But – the devil is in the details – we should note that despite the spaciousness of the surrounding area, the placement of the building is far from accidental: a gas pipeline runs through the site, and it is only possible to build on the southern side, between the pipeline and the boundary of the stadium.

On the 3D render – which the authors, definitely intentionally, immersed in the most cloudy Suzdal day, probably to avoid any misleading tourist gloss – one can see that the volume of the museum is rather miniature and is lost in the vastness. The Medny Dvor hotel on the right and even the monastery on the left look noticeably larger, and they are the first things that meet the eye. And the Gastev Museum, also because it faces the main viewpoints with its sidewalls, looks exceptionally modest – like lean production.

The features of the building, as the architects say, inherit the mixed construction technique adopted in Suzdal’s tourist facilities construction, both in the past and now: a brick story in white cladding at the bottom and a wooden story clad with planks at the top. The boards are arranged horizontally, that is, as they originally always were, and not vertically, as is now fashionable – but according to the project, there are no plans to paint them, they are supposed to age naturally, maybe to a “dark or almost-black color”.

This beautiful idea is not entirely accurate. When it comes to black, the boards are already starting to rot, which is undesirable – but dark gray, on the contrary, is quite possible. In combination with boiled linseed oil, dark brown, rich tinted flecks may appear – everything will look pretty much as drawn.

This is not the main inaccuracy, however. The neighboring house is depicted by the architects on their renderings as gray, as the museum of wooden architecture; in fact, however, it is painted saturnine red, like many of the houses in the city.

The silvery-gray color of naturally aging wood can be found either in old two-story apartment buildings with warped staircase extensions that have not been repaired for a long time, or in brand-new, modern buildings that are oriented both to the Museum of Wooden Architecture and to those very houses that have not been repaired, but even more to global trends.

And yet, it’s still beautiful. What we see is a very delicate reinterpretation of a local, albeit universal, building tradition.

To no lesser extent, the project fits into the context of Nikolay Lyzlov’s own architectural research, and fits perfectly into the row between, for example, the recent office on Verkhnaya Krasnoselskaya, which was awarded the “Golden Section” diploma in 2021, and the 15-year-old project for an equestrian complex in Pirogovo. The similarities with the first one are: traditional technology without a vent facade, bricks in cladding, a wooden cornice, and the fenestration proportions. The similarities with the second one are even more numerous: the combination of wood, which the architect at some point planned to make black (sic!), extended proportions, a pediment, and even a “temple”, though to the same extent a “manege”, portico. And now let us look at the version of the Gastev Museum building the way it looked back in the spring of 2023: the river was faced by a portico with a large outreach, resting on several supports, and protecting the terrace from the rain.

Now the portico is gone, but there is an open terrace on the river side for events, with an area of 72 m2. The portico was replaced by a vertical stained glass window, its left border is located exactly in the center, and the stained glass window is shifted from off axis, saluting the right-hand part of the stained glass window in the ridge of the roof, providing light to the atrium of the museum.

The second main facade – and I am reminding you that it’s the sidewalls that play the first fiddle here – facing Gastev Street, is also laconic and looks even more like a village house, with a window only at the top, which illuminates the “Heritage” exhibition, while the corner recess in the first tier is responsible for the entrance highlight: it faces the city center, where visitors are more likely to come from, with a simple glass door and a very simple inscription saying “Gastev”. Like I said, the ideologist of sociology of labor was amazingly modest.

Despite the loss of the portico, the interior of the museum retains a few traces of the “temple” approach – it is built as a three-nave basilica on wooden pillars, with a narrow and elevated central “nave” of the vertical atrium, illuminated both by an oblong skylight of the roof ridge and a vertical window facing the river. This “lighting plane” cuts the museum into two halves.

But this light is not a laser, it cannot cut things. Moreover, the atrium is crossed by a staircase, and in the middle there is an elevator shaft – but then again, it is transparent. At the same time, the surrounding space becomes increasingly complex. We see a spatial axis, a thin axis of symmetrical construction, through which parts of the museum begin, as if playing, “jump” first in one direction, then in another. All the more so because the architects planned to include “cells” of avant-garde colors on the sides, like the rectangular spots in Mondrian’s paintings.

On the sides, the space is two and three-tiered in different parts, the floors to the south and north, left and right, are not at the same level, only meeting at about 2/3 of the height. This type of “packing” the internal volumes is reminiscent of the approaches of the House of Narkomfin: it also strives for optimization and the best possible folding, like a three-dimensional puzzle. One can definitely see parallels in this: in this case, we are seeing a “lean” organization of space, just as we saw a “lean” organization of labor....

The volumes of the technical rooms, the boiler room and the storage room, located in the southern part, are deepened, and are lightened up by areaways. The whole floor is deepened by approximately 1.5 meters relative to the zero mark, and on the first floor the public space of the tea room is located 45 cm higher than the space of the lecture hall.

Here we would like to draw your attention to one more thing. The wooden columns of the inner frame are very good, and you don’t even have to speak of a temple here – the museum typology rather pushes us towards a temple – it can be any industrial building, from a barn to a hangar, which is closer to Gastev’s story: let us imagine a former, once optimally organized conveyor belt turned into a museum. The only trouble is that we can’t think of any Russian examples of such spaces, but there are several French ones. But then again, we can recall that Gastev learned his locksmith skills, or perhaps his habit of industrial discipline, in France. The circle is closed.

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Gastev Museum, Suzdal

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio
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Gastev Museum, Suzdal

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio
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Plan at the -0.900 elevation. Gastev Museum, Suzdal

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio
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Plan at the +0.900 elevation. Gastev Museum, Suzdal

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio
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Plan at the +2.000 elevation. Gastev Museum, Suzdal

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio
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Plan at the +4.200 elevation. Gastev Museum, Suzdal

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio
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Gastev Museum, Suzdal

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio
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Cross-section view (original version). Gastev Museum

Copyright: © Lyzlov Architectural Studio

23 August 2023

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Inverted Fortress

This year, there has been no shortage of intriguing architectural ideas around the Omsk airport. The project developed by the architectural company KPLN appeals to Omsk’s history as a wooden fortress that it was back in the day, but transforms the concept of a fortress beyond recognition: it “shaves off” the conical ends of “wooden logs”, then enlarges them, and then flips them over. The result is a hypostyle – a forest of conical columns on point supports, with skylights on top.

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Transformation of Annenkirche

For Annenkirche (St. Anna Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg), Sergey Kuznetsov and the Kamen bureau have prepared a project that relies on the principles of the Venice Charter: the building is not restored to a specific date, historical layers are preserved, and modern elements do not mimic the authentic ones. Let’s delve into the details of these solutions.

The Paradox of the Temporary

The concept of the Russian pavilion for EXPO 2025 in Osaka, proposed by the Wowhaus architects, is the last of the six projects we gathered from the 2022 competition. It is again worth noting that the results of this competition were not finalized due to the cancellation of Russia’s participation in World Expo 2025. It should be mentioned that Wowhaus created three versions for this competition, but only one is being presented, and it can’t be said that this version is thoroughly developed – rather, it is done in the spirit of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, the project is interesting in its paradoxical nature: the architects emphasized the temporary character of the pavilion, and in its bubble-like forms sought to reflect the paradoxes of space and time.

The Forum of Time

The competition project for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025 in Osaka designed by Aleksey Orlov and Arena Project Institute consists of cones and conical funnels connected into a non-trivial composition, where one can feel the hand of architects who have worked extensively with stadiums and other sports facilities. It’s very interesting to delve into its logic, structurally built on the theme of clocks, hourglasses and even sundials. Additionally, the architects have turned the exhibition pavilion into a series of interconnected amphitheaters, which is also highly relevant for world exhibitions. We are reminding you that the competition results were never announced.

Mirrors Everywhere

The project by Sergey Nebotov, Anastasia Gritskova, and the architectural company “Novoe” was created for the Russian pavilion at EXPO 2025, but within the framework of another competition, which, as we learned, took place even earlier, in 2021. At that time, the competition theme was “digital twins”, and there was minimal time for work, so the project, according to the architect himself, was more of a “student assignment”. Nevertheless, this project is interesting for its plan bordering on similarity with Baroque projects and the emblem of the exhibition, as well as its diverse and comprehensive reflectiveness.

Report

The Steppe Is Full of Beauty and Freedom

The goal of the exhibition “Dikoe Pole” (“Wild Field”) at the State Historical Museum was to move away from the archaeological listing of valuable items and to create an image of the steppe and nomads that was multidirectional and emotional – in other words, artistic. To achieve this goal, it was important to include works of contemporary art. One such work is the scenography of the exhibition space developed by CHART studio.

The Snowstorm Fish

The next project from the unfinished competition for the Russian Pavilion at EXPO 2025, which will be held in Osaka, Japan, is by Dashi Namdakov and Parsec Architects. The pavilion describes itself as an “architectural/sculptural” one, with its shape clearly reminiscent of abstract sculpture of the 1970s. It complements its program with a meditative hall named “Mendeleev’s Dreams”, and offers its visitors to slide from its roof at the end of the tour.

The Mirror of Your Soul

We continue to publish projects from the competition for the design of the Russian Pavilion at EXPO in Osaka 2025. We are reminding you that the results of the competition have not been announced, and hardly will ever be. The pavilion designed by ASADOV Architects combines a forest log cabin, the image of a hyper transition, and sculptures made of glowing threads – it focuses primarily on the scenography of the exhibition, which the pavilion builds sequentially like a string of impressions, dedicating it to the paradoxes of the Russian soul.

Part of the Ideal

In 2025, another World Expo will take place in Osaka, Japan, in which Russia will not participate. However, a competition for the Russian pavilion was indeed held, with six projects participating. The results were never announced as Russia’s participation was canceled; the competition has no winners. Nevertheless, Expo pavilion projects are typically designed for a bold and interesting architectural statement, so we’ve gathered all the six projects and will be publishing articles about them in random order. The first one is the project by Vladimir Plotkin and Reserve Union, which is distinguished by the clarity of its stereometric shape, the boldness of its structure, and the multiplicity of possible interpretations.

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The Fortress by the River

ASADOV Architects have developed a concept for a new residential district in the center of Kemerovo. To combat the harsh climate and monotonous everyday life, the architects proposed a block type of development with dominant towers, good insolation, facades detailed at eye level, and event programming.

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In the Rhombus Grid

Construction has begun on the building of the OMK (United Metallurgical Company) Corporate University in Nizhny Novgorod’s town of Vyksa, designed by Ostozhenka Architects. The most interesting aspect of the project is how the architects immersed it in the context: “extracting” a diagonal motif from the planning grid of Vyksa, they aligned the building, the square, and the park to match it. A truly masterful work with urban planning context on several different levels of perception has long since become the signature technique of Ostozhenka.

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Generational Connection

Another modern estate, designed by Roman Leonidov, is located in the Moscow region and brings together three generations of one family under one roof. To fit on a narrow plot without depriving anyone of personal space, the architects opted for a zigzag plan. The main volume in the house structure is accentuated by mezzanines with a reverse-sloped roof and ceilings featuring exposed beams.

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Three Dimensions of the City

We began to delve into the project by Sergey Skuratov, the residential complex “Depo” in Minsk, located at Victory Square, and it fascinated us completely. The project has at least several dimensions to it: historical – at some point, the developer decided to discontinue further collaboration with Sergey Skuratov Architects, but the concept was approved, and its implementation continues, mostly in accordance with the proposed ideas. The spatial and urban planning dimension – the architects both argue with the city and play along with it, deciphering nuances, and finding axes. And, finally, the tactile dimension – the constructed buildings also have their own intriguing features. Thus, this article also has two parts: it dwells on what has been built and what was conceived

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New “Flight”

Architects from “Mezonproject” have developed a project for the reconstruction of the regional youth center “Polyot”(“Flight”) in the city of Oryol. The summer youth center, built back in the late 1970s, will now become year-round and acquire many additional functions.

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The Yauza Towers

In Moscow, there aren’t that many buildings or projects designed by Nikita Yavein and Studio 44. In this article, we present to you the concept of a large multifunctional complex on the Yauza River, located between two parks, featuring a promenade, a crossroads of two pedestrian streets, a highly developed public space, and an original architectural solution. This solution combines a sophisticated, asymmetric façade grid, reminiscent of a game of fifteen puzzle, and bold protrusions of the upper parts of the buildings, completely masking the technical floors and sculpting the complex’s silhouette.

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Architecture and Leisure Park

For the suburban hotel complex, which envisages various formats of leisure, the architectural company T+T Architects proposed several types of accommodation, ranging from the classic “standard” in a common building to a “cave in the hill” and a “house in a tree”. An additional challenge consisted in integrating a few classic-style residences already existing on this territory into the “architectural forest park”.

Overview

The U-House

The Jois complex combines height with terraces, bringing the most expensive apartments from penthouses down to the bottom floors. The powerful iconic image of the U-shaped building is the result of the creative search for a new standard of living in high-rise buildings by the architects of “Genpro”.

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Black and White

In this article, we specifically discuss the interiors of the ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh. Interior design is a crucial component of the overall concept in this case, and precision and meticulous execution were highly important for the architects. Julia Tryaskina, head of UNK interiors, shares some of the developments.

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The “Snake” Mountain

The competition project for the seaside resort complex “Serpentine” combines several typologies: apartments of different classes, villas, and hotel rooms. For each of these typologies, the KPLN architects employ one of the images that are drawn from the natural environment – a serpentine road, a mountain stream, and rolling waves.

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Opal from Anna Mons’ Ring

The project of a small business center located near Tupolev Plaza and Radio Street proclaims the necessity of modern architecture in a specific area of Moscow commonly known as “Nemetskaya Sloboda” or “German settlement”. It substantiates its thesis with the thoroughness of details, a multitude of proposed and rejected form variants, and even a detailed description of the surrounding area. The project is interesting indeed, and it is even more interesting to see what will come of it.

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Feed ’Em All

A “House of Russian Cuisine” was designed and built by KROST Group at VDNKh for the “Rossiya” exhibition in record-breaking time. The pavilion is masterfully constructed in terms of the standards of modern public catering industry multiplied by the bustling cultural program of the exhibition, and it interprets the stylistically diverse character of VDNKh just as successfully. At the same time, much of its interior design can be traced back to the prototypes of the 1960s – so much so that even scenes from iconic Soviet movies of those years persistently come to mind.

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The Ensemble at the Mosque

OSA prepared a master plan for a district in the southern part of Derbent. The main task of the master plan is to initiate the formation of a modern comfortable environment in this city. The organization of residential areas is subordinated to the city’s spiritual center: depending on the location relative to the cathedral mosque, the houses are distinguished by façade and plastique solutions. The program also includes a “hospitality center”, administrative buildings, an educational cluster, and even an air bridge.

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Pargolovo Protestantism

A Protestant church is being built in St. Petersburg by the project of SLOI architects. One of the main features of the building is a wooden roof with 25-meter spans, which, among other things, forms the interior of the prayer hall. Also, there are other interesting details – we are telling you more about them.

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The Shape of the Inconceivable

The ATOM Pavilion at VDNKh brings to mind a famous maxim of all architects and critics: “You’ve come up with it? Now build it!” You rarely see such a selfless immersion in implementation of the project, and the formidable structural and engineering tasks set by UNK architects to themselves are presented here as an integral and important part of the architectural idea. The challenge matches the obliging status of the place – after all, it is an “exhibition of achievements”, and the pavilion is dedicated to the nuclear energy industry. Let’s take a closer look: from the outside, from the inside, and from the underside too.

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Rays of the Desert

A school for 1750 students is going to be built in Dubai, designed by IND Architects. The architects took into account the local specifics, and proposed a radial layout and spaces, in which the children will be comfortable throughout the day.

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The Dairy Theme

The concept of an office of a cheese-making company, designed for the enclosed area of a dairy factory, at least partially refers to industrial architecture. Perhaps that is why this concept is very simple, which seems the appropriate thing to do here. The building is enlivened by literally a couple of “master strokes”: the turning of the corner accentuates the entrance, and the shade of glass responds to the theme of “milk rivers” from Russian fairy tales.

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The Road to the Temple

Under a grant from the Small Towns Competition, the main street and temple area of the village of Nikolo-Berezovka near Neftekamsk has been improved. A consortium of APRELarchitects and Novaya Zemlya is turning the village into an open-air museum and integrating ruined buildings into public life.

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Towers Leaning Towards the Sun

The three towers of the residential complex “Novodanilovskaya 8” are new and the tallest neighbors of the Danilovsky Manufactory, “Fort”, and “Plaza”, complementing a whole cluster of modern buildings designed by renowned masters. At the same time, the towers are unique for this setting – they are residential, they are the tallest ones here, and they are located on a challenging site. In this article, we explore how architects Andrey Romanov and Ekaterina Kuznetsova tackled this far-from-trivial task.

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In the spirit of ROSTA posters

The new Rostselmash tractor factory, conceptualized by ASADOV Architects, is currently being completed in Rostov-on-Don. References to the Soviet architecture of the 1920’s and 1960’s resonate with the mission and strategic importance of the enterprise, and are also in line with the client’s wish: to pay homage to Rostov’s constructivism.

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The Northern Thebaid

The central part of Ferapontovo village, adjacent to the famous monastery with frescoes by Dionisy, has been improved according to the project by APRELarchitects. Now the place offers basic services for tourists, as well as a place for the villagers’ leisure.