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Alexander Savvich Brodsky | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1955 Moscow, Russia |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Occupation | Architect |
Alexander Savvich Brodsky (1955) is a Russian architect and sculptor. He is one of Russia's best known architects, particularly for his works of paper architecture.
Alexander Brodsky was educated at the Moscow Architecture Institute where he graduated in 1978. [1] Brodsky's first encounter with the public eye was during the late 1970s. He was a key member of the paper architects (visionary architecture), and furthermore, worked alongside Ilya Utkin in his etchings of distorted cityscapes. [2] Paper architecture was a response to state sanctioned architecture that consisted of standardised and often poorly constructed buildings, which imbued their environments with a communist aesthetic. [3] Such a response allowed paper architects to retreat into their imaginations and defy uniform Soviet architecture through vivid depictions of constructivism, deconstructivism and postmodernism. [4] According to Anna Sokolina, paper architects rose to prominence within the Western world as many of their works won prestigious awards in professional competitions [5] and helped to shape an understanding of Russian modern and postmodern architecture. Scholarship has shown that the whimsical and constructivist etchings of Brodsky and Utkin translate mere illustrations into narratives through the introduction of human characters. These were narratives that voiced man's alienation within the urban world [6] and provided a commentary on the loss of Moscows historical architectural heritage. [7]
Brodsky won his first architectural award in 1989 and was invited to New York by East Meets West, a not for profit organization established by Anneke van Waesberghe. His second trip to New York was in 1990 at the invitation of gallerist Ronald Feldman and then moved there in 1996 to complete public projects as well as personal installations. [8] In 1996 the Public Art Fund asked Brodsky to transform an unused set of tracks in the Canal Street subway station. Brodsky transformed the station for two months into a Venetian lagoon using a 5000-gallon tank, which held life-size gondolas and cut out passengers. In 1999 Brodsky created Palazzo Nudo in Pittsburgh, a 16-metre-high (52 ft) house shaped skeleton with the crumbled ruins of the metropolis heaped in the centre. [9] Coma, 2000, displayed at the Guelman Gallery in Moscow showed the city "as if it was in a hospital or on a surgeon's table" and his work produced for 2006 Venice Architecture Biennale was an ominous and foreboding comment on the doomed fate of Venice sinking into the sea. [10] Night Before the Attack, 2009, discusses the associations of emotion with structure and scale. [11] Brodsky used the title to enlighten the viewer's understanding of a story that lay beneath the artwork. Such a narrative has imbued new meaning and significance to the old structures that have been appropriated within the installation.
Brodsky has really only been an architect since 2000, with his first commission in 2002. He claimed that his return from artistry to architecture was difficult. Despite the commission that Brodsky received upon each work, his efforts were burdened with a mental and physical toll – "I was near a serious mental problem. I'd never had this responsibility, and I was alone. It was my first experience communicating with workers and clients." [12] His first commission, 95 Degrees, a restaurant near Moscow on the Klyazma Reservoir shows Brodsky's specific and often wary architectural style. Everything is precisely thought out, from the materials of wood and plastic, to the subtle deformation of the wooden stilts (all are tilted at a 95-degree angle). [13] Also built in 2002 is Apshu, a restaurant – club hidden in the basement of a building Moscow, now defunct and demolished. The space was specifically framed through recycled window frames and created a sense of nostalgia that isn't usually found in postmodern work. [14] One of Brodsky's most famous works was the Vodka Ceremony Pavilion built in 2004 for a contemporary art festival at the Klyazma Reservoir, demolished in 2012. Again, recycled timber window frames are rescued from industrial buildings and reused. Painted white and forming the structure of the pavilion, the window frames create a sense of Russian tradition from the industrial heritage that defined 20th century Moscow. His projects often have a cerebral and ephemeral quality, despite often being permanent. [15] A literally ephemeral project, Brodsky produced a pavilion on the Klyazma Reservoir in 2003 from water sprayed over a metal mesh attached to a wooden structure. The pavilion was lit from the interior, causing the building to glow. When spring came, the ice melted and the structure was removed.
A small but international respected project was done in Austria, where Brodsky was invited to design one out of seven small bus stops in Krumbach. [16]
Brodskys projects are often built from nothing. [17] His use of recycled materials, window frames, glass and plastic bags to create new structures creates a unique aesthetic. His architectural style combines local and reused materials in such a way that creates buildings that feel both traditional and modern but remain inventive and original. [18]
Brodsky has been revered in Soviet architectural culture since the late 1970s when he first entered the public sphere as a member of the paper architects. [19] Fellow Russians adore him and have called him the "most important Russian architect alive today". [20] His reputation as a paper architect has expanded beyond Russia. He maintains a global presence, achieved in collaboration with Ilya Utkin, as well as his built projects that display Brodsky's specific style, referred to as "New Russian Architecture" by architects in his own studio. According to Mark Lamster, Constantin Boym declared, "When it comes to Brodsky, there is a reverence – like he is our genius." [21]
The paper architects of the late 1970s and 1980s gained critical and commercial success outside of Russia through professional competitions [22] and exhibitions. Interest in Soviet paper architecture was high from the late 1980s until the early 2000s with many exhibitions across America, as well as in Western Europe. [23] This interest in Brodskys work allowed him to travel to America and to begin exhibiting his installations.
Brodsky's installations were well received (he was invited to participate in the 2006 Venice Biennale) [24] but did not, however, translate into commercial success. In light of this fact, Brodsky returned to his original profession – architecture. His buildings have been applauded for their tendency to incorporate traditional elements of Soviet architecture, such as form, material and techniques, into modern and unique structures. [25] They have also helped to define Russian architecture within the 21st Century, and more importantly, to determine the future direction of architectural culture.
Many viewers however criticise the lack of radicalism within his built works. [26] Whilst his earlier etchings and installations are an obvious reaction against the dehumanising nature of Soviet approved architecture and the lack of care for traditions, the anxiety and chaos of these works are not apparent in his built projects. [27] Brodsky says in reaction to this "I want to design spaces that make people feel good." [28]
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian-American poet and essayist.
Vladimir is a city and the administrative center of Vladimir Oblast, Russia, located on the Klyazma River, 200 kilometers (120 mi) to the east of Moscow. It is served by a railway and the M7 motorway. Its population is 345,373 (2010 Census); 315,954 (2002 Census); 349,702 (1989 Census).
The Cathedral of the Dormition, also known as the Assumption Cathedral or Cathedral of the Assumption is a Russian Orthodox church dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos. It is located on the north side of Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin in Russia, where a narrow alley separates the north from the Patriarch's Palace with the Twelve Apostles Church. Separately in the southwest, also separated by a narrow passage from the church, is the Palace of Facets. The Cathedral is regarded as the mother church of Muscovite Russia. In its present form it was constructed between 1475–79 at the behest of the Moscow Grand Duke Ivan III by the Italian architect Aristotele Fioravanti. From 1547 to 1896 it was where the Coronation of the Russian monarch was held. In addition, it is the burial place for most of the Moscow Metropolitans and Patriarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church and it also serves as a part of Moscow Kremlin Museums.
Kuskovo was the summer country house and estate of the Sheremetev family. Built in the mid-18th century, it was originally situated several miles to the east of Moscow but now is part of the East District of the city. It was one of the first great summer country estates of the Russian nobility, and one of the few near Moscow still preserved. Today the estate is the home of the Russian State Museum of Ceramics, and the park is a favourite place of recreation for Muscovites.
Konstantin Andreyevich Thon, also spelled Ton was an official architect of Imperial Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. His major works include the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow.
Stalinist architecture, mostly known in the former Eastern Bloc as Stalinist style or Socialist Classicism, is the architecture of the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, between 1933 and 1955. Stalinist architecture is associated with the Socialist realism school of art and architecture.
Boris Mihailovich Iofan was a Jewish Soviet architect, known for his Stalinist architecture buildings like 1931 House on the Embankment and the 1931-1933 winning draft of the Palace of Soviets.
Visionary architecture is the name given to architecture which exists only on paper or which has visionary qualities. While the term 'visionary' suggests the idea of an idealistic, impractical or Utopian notion, it also depicts a mental picture produced by the imagination. These architectural drawings on paper allow insight of the unusual perception of the worlds that are impossible to visit everyday, except through the visual dramatization of the designed, imaginative environment. There are also two meanings that are derived from both terms 'imagination' and 'imaginary,' meaning unrealistic and impossible, and the other the ability to deal creatively with an unseen reality. A significant precedent that adheres to the concept of visionary architecture is the 18th century architect Giovanni Piranesi, who also had to think twice about the difference in meaning of the two terms. The titles of his well-known prison etching works had two versions. The first was 'imaginary prisons,' and the final as 'prisons of the imagination.'
Alexey Nikolayevich Dushkin was a Soviet architect, best known for his 1930s designs of the Kropotkinskaya and Mayakovskaya stations of the Moscow Metro. He worked primarily for subway and railroads and is also noted for his Red Gate Building, one of the Seven Sisters.
Svetlana Boym was the Curt Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literatures at Harvard University, and a media artist, playwright and novelist. She was an associate of the Graduate School of Design and Architecture at Harvard University. Much of her work focused on developing the new theoretical concept of the off-modern.
Karl Magnus Vitberg was a Russian Neoclassical architect of Swedish stock.
Yuri Mikhailovich Neprintsev was a Soviet, later Russian, painter, graphic artist, art teacher, professor of the Repin Institute of Arts, People's Artist of USSR, and a member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR. He lived and worked in Leningrad and is regarded by art historian Sergei V. Ivanov as one of the brightest representatives of the Leningrad school of painting, most famous for his genre and battle paintings.
Piotr Konstantinovich Vasiliev was Russian Soviet realist painter, who lived and worked in Leningrad. He was a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists and regarded as one of representatives of the Leningrad school of painting.
Soviet art is the visual art that was produced after the October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Soviet Russia (1917—1922) and the Soviet Union (1922—1991).
The year 1926 was marked by many events that left an imprint on the history of Soviet and Russian fine arts.
The year 1939 was marked by many events that left an imprint on the history of Soviet and Russian fine arts.
Galina Andreevna Balashova is a Russian architect and designer who was associated with the Soviet space program.
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Anna Sokolina, is an American architect of Russian cultural origins, author, editor, and curator, and founding chair of SAH Women in Architecture AG. She has contributed to advisory boards of the International Archive of Women in Architecture (IAWA) and Bloomsbury Global Encyclopedia of Women in Architecture (forthcoming). Her research is focused on women's narratives in architecture and on transformative trends in architecture that ignite a cross-disciplinary discourse. Other areas of study include Paper Architecture, architecture and utopia, architecture and spiritual science, architecture genealogies of memory, recent-century built environments in the US, Europe, and Russia.
