Architect Alexei Shchusev’s “Fairy Tales” Turned Inside Out

An unusually decorative exhibition has opened for the architect’s 150th anniversary

The exhibition “Composed by Architect Shchusev” opened at the All-Russian Museum of Decorative Arts. It is no coincidence that there are three “ъ” in the name. This is exactly how the drawing of one of the versions of his project for the Church of Sergius of Radonezh on the Kulikovo Field was signed. For the 150th anniversary of Shchusev, the architect Yuri Avvakumov “composed” a project where he presented exclusively the “fairy tales” of the legendary countryman (both originally from Moldova), namely his pre-revolutionary projects in the neo-Russian style. All these are temples, among which the key one is the Marfo-Mariinskaya Monastery. In each of the halls, the curator presented, in addition to sketches of drawings and sketches, models of buildings turned inside out. However, the finale was not complete without Shchusev’s most famous project. The Avvakumov Mausoleum was made up of 3,500 dominoes decorated with shiny rhinestones. It even turned out to be too decorative.

Yuri Avvakumov prefaces his reading of the architecture of Alexei Shchusev as follows: “Sometimes it seems to me that behind the “facade” of the great architect Shchusev hides not one, but at least three different people: the first – before 1918, a virtuoso master of the neo-Russian style, the second – before 1932 years, practical constructivist, third – until the end of his life, court neoclassicist <…> Before 1918 he had a fairy tale, from 1918 to 1932 he had a utopia, since 1932 he had a myth. Choosing from his three incarnations, I preferred the first as a sincere and spontaneous architect, driven by the motives of ancient Russian architecture.”

After the introductory words, the viewer finds himself in a corridor of descriptions of Shchusev’s “fairy tales”, which are crowned by a huge photograph of the architect, as if illuminated from within. Before us are the following architectural “works”: the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh on the Kulikovo Field, the Spasskaya Church in Natalevka, the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Italian Bari, the church on the estate of the landowner Bogdan in Moldavian Cugureshti, the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent and the Mausoleum. Moreover, all texts are written with “ъ” at the end of words and “i” instead of “and” – that is, the way they were written before the Russian spelling reform of 1918. Behind the wall from each of the characteristics you can find a room with sketches, drawings, graphics, fabrics and works of decorative art that belonged to Alexei Shchusev. Moreover, the viewer will see much of this historical material for the first time. The fact is that in 2020, the architect’s heirs donated a collection of Shchusev’s graphics to the museum, and for the first time the family provided some works specifically for the exhibition.

The highlight of the project was the so-called “reverse” models of temples, made on a scale of 1:43. Before us are temple buildings turned inside out, making them look like constructivist nesting dolls. In some places, the models are painted with temple patterns and faces. And the exhibition is crowned by an absurdly decorative model of the Mausoleum, assembled from thousands of dominoes. The dots on the dominoes from which the fairy-tale ziggurat is assembled are illuminated from the inside by multi-colored spotlights, making the leader’s tomb look less like a model and more like a fashionable toy.

In this fabulous essay about the neo-Russian period by Alexei Shchusev, which Avvakumov calls the most sincere, reality seems to disappear. And it seems that the exhibition contains modern and historical photographs of churches, but they are lost among the nesting doll models and the shine of rhinestones. To understand what came out of the presented sketches and sketches, you will have to Google or go to the churches themselves, for example to Bolshaya Ordynka, where the Marfo-Mariinsky Monastery was miraculously preserved, saved in the 1940s by restorers of the Igor Grabar Center.

By the way, another museum – the architecture named after Alexei Shchusev – did not support the project of the museum on Delegatskaya and did not provide any exhibits for the exhibition. They are preparing their exhibition history for the 150th anniversary of the great architect.