Konstantin Melnikov

“You think that I consider myself a genius? No, I am an architect - it is the same thing.”

CLEMENTINE CECIL on the Soviet Constructivist architect

First published Winter 2008

Every now and then one comes across figures in history whose fate is so in step with the currents of their time, that by studying their lives and legacies one can understand more clearly the period in which test lived. Konstantin Melnikov is such a man. His humble birth and then patronage by a wealthy industrialist, the start of his professional life coinciding with the 1917 revolution, his rise to fame that paralleled the intense energy of the early Soviet state, and then his eclipse, a result of Stalinist terror that led to his de facto house arrest - all this reflects the revolutions, highs and lows of Russia’s 20th Century. Melnikov was informally rehabilitated in the sixties, but the suffering, like that of the Russian nation in the 20th century, does not stop there. The fate of Melnikov’s legacy, particularly his own house since the fall of the Soviet Union reflects the great difficulties and clashing interests of the post-perestroika age.

Melnikov studied at the Moscow School of Art, Sculpture, and Architecture, an exciting centre of artistic activity in. Russia attended at one time or other by most of the Russian avant-garde. He graduated from both the painting and architectural departments. He was a talented painter and draftsman. In his later years he wrote a great deal, with a kind of exalted energy, also found in his buildings. He later wrote of his graduation: “a noteworthy coincidence: in one and the same year, 1917, I finished my education and in the same year finished that life in which I had lived the previous 27 years. It’s good that I was 27 - a stalwart age, not yet stuck in one’s ways. Having received the title Architect, I entered into Architecture, standing on the edge of a precipice.”

Although not a committed Communist, like many other architects, Melnikov welcomed the spirit of change that the revolution brought and was happy to work with the new regime. Moscow was made capital of the new Soviet Union in 1918. This factor, combined with the loosening up of trade laws in the early 1920s, led to some major commissions for Melnikov. Unlike many of his peers, Melnikov did not belong to one particular architectural movement. This gave him a greater flexibility, which in part explains his large volume of commissions. It also left him vulnerable to attack later on, when the architectural establishment were searching for a scapegoat when homogeneity and socialist realism was called for in all the arts.

The 1920s was Melnikov’s decade: following his winning design for the USSR pavilion at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, he was the toast of Moscow. This triumph was followed by a series of workers’ clubs. These were an alternative to church as a meeting place for factory workers, and were to keep them from excessive drinking. The Burevestnik, Svoboda, Kauchuk, Rusakov, and Frunke workers’ clubs were all built in the last years of the 1920s.

The Apex of his creativity was the Melnikov House (1927-9) built in the centre of Moscow. He was given the plot of land on the grounds that it was a social experiment that would be applied to mass housing. The house is ingenious in design and construction. Melnikov’s approach was common to the entire avant-garde period: he used traditional materials - in this case bricks and timber boarding - but applied them in a non-traditional way. He thought that cheap, low grade materials could be used if the stress was dispersed all over all parts of the structure. Catherine Cooke described the walls of his double-cylinder house as a ‘load-spreading cage’.

Melnikov House, the floor under construction

The ceilings and floors were dropped in like the top and bottom of a barrel. They have no beams, instead they are made of a grill made of planks with notches in them criss-crossing each other. This was stiffened by a structural ceiling above and below of diagonal tongue and groove boarding.

Because there were no corners, beams, or internal load bearing walls, the house has large, well-lit interiors. The house is equipped for many more windows than it has - the walls are full of openings that could be used at any time to create more. The hexagonal windows are all double-glazed, which helps with insulation, while a sophisticated system of flues keeps the house warm.

Melnikov House under construction, showing hexagonal window openings that avoid the need for lintels

Today, Melnikov’s buildings are enjoying a renaissance of interest. The Frunze, Svoboda and Burevstnik Clubs have been refurbished and partly restored and the Kauchuk is under wraps for the moment. Techniques are crude, for Russia has no experience of sensitive, thoughtful restoration of 20th century buildings, but nevertheless, there is a will to preserve them.

The most high level restoration job is that of his Bakhmetevsky Garage, built in 1926 to house a fleet of Leyland users. The roof is by engineer Vladimir Shukov. Oligarch Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, has opened a gallery there, called Garage. Many original elements were lost during restoration, but the pointing has been well done and the essential space has retained its form and grace.

Controversy continues around the future of the Melnikov House. Owner of half the house Senator Sergei Gordeyev and the architect’s granddaughter, Ekaterina Karinskaya, who is executing her father Viktor’s will, are at loggerheads and until they find a compromise, no progress will be made. Viktor Melnikov, a painter, stipulated in his will, like his father, that the house should become a state-owned museum to father and son. The Melnikov archive, consisting of a large number of his paintings, drawings, and writings, is kept in the Schusev State Architecture Museum, Moscow.

“You think that I consider myself a genius? No, I am an architect - it is the same thing.”

Gregory Ain