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DOI: 10.17805/zpu.2016.3.11
America as a Representation of Modernity in the Russian Architectural Press, 1870-1917
W. C. Brumfield (Tulane University, New Orleans, USA)
With the creation of professional organizations in support of Russian architects during the 1860s, new publications were launched to provide information about architects and architectural practices in other countries. The Moscow Architectural Society and the Petersburg
Society of Architects took the lead, with the latter society publishing the journal "Zodchii", which would serve as the publication of record for Russian architects from 1872 until 1917. This article devotes special attention to "Zodchii" as a locus of information about architecture in America, with articles and reports on American building methods and technologies, architectural education, city planning (such as the rebuilding of Chicago after the fire of 1871), major urban projects, the design of private houses, skyscrapers, transportation, pollution and virtually any other topic related to the built environment. Apart from occasional references to Henry Hobson Richardson, little attention was given to specific architects, whose careers must have seemed distant to Russian architects and engineers. The rapid development of America in the half century after the Civil War suggested many possibilities and parallels for Russia. These perceptions are a significant and little known aspect of relations between Russia and the United States.
Keywords: Moscow Architectural Society; Petersburg Society of Architects; architectural journals; "Zodchii"; American Architect and Building News; "Nedelia stroitelia"; Chicago; New York; Philadelphia; subway construction; 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; skyscrapers; urban fires; Nikolai Lakhtin; Ivan Rerberg; Roman Beker; Fedor Dostoevsky; Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
In a long digression on architecture in one of the 1873 issues of his Diary of a Writer, Fedor Dostoevsky made the following sardonic comment on contemporary Petersburg: "And here, at last, is the architecture of the modern, enormous hotel-efficiency, Americanism, hundreds of rooms, an enormous industrial enterprise: right away you see that we too have got railways and have suddenly discovered that we ourselves are efficient people" (Dostoevsky / Достоевский, 1980: 107)1. Here, as in so many other areas, the great writer noted the salient features of an issue that would be much pursued by specialists and professionals, for the terms 'enormous' and 'efficient' define just the qualities that Russian observers valued in American architecture. In their comments on European architecture of the same period, Russians showed an awareness of nuance and style, and they mentioned the 'right' names from the perspective of architectural history. Yet, in the case of America, Russian journals made an isolated reference to Henry Hobson Richardson or Daniel Burnham and John Root but otherwise exhibited an indifference to the specifics of a developing American architectural idiom. What they saw was enormous, colossal, incredible, and efficient.
The Russian architectural press, which conveyed these accounts of American architecture to its Russian audience, was essentially a product of the second half of the nineteenth century; and its development was directly related to the professionalization of Russian architects. The beginnings of cohesion in the profession date from the 1860s, when architects in both St. Petersburg and Moscow realized the need to create an association that would rise above narrow, commercial interests to address problems confronting architects as a group. To be sure, commercialism provided the major financial impetus for a professional organization, as the economic forces of nascent capitalism led to the replacement of the older patronage system of architectural commission with a more competitive, contractual approach to the business of building; but in order to promote the interests of professional development and to regulate the practice of architecture, a form of organization that transcended the individual architect or architectural firm was essential.
The Great Reforms of the 1860s facilitated the economic progress necessary for the expansion of architecture beyond the commissions of the state, the court, and a few
wealthy property owners, and they also created the legal conditions for the foundation of private associations. Although certain Petersburg architects had begun to explore the prospect of founding a professional group as early as 1862, the first formal organization was the Moscow Architectural Society, chartered in October 18672. From the outset this organization disseminated new technical information and served as a center for the establishment of standards in building materials and practices. In addition to its advisory function in technical matters, the society initiated a series of open architectural competitions as early as 1868, thus establishing a precedent to be followed in the awarding of major building contracts during the latter half of the century. An ambitious attempt by the society to sponsor a general conference of architects in 1873 failed for bureaucratic reasons, and it was not until 1892 that the First Congress of Russian Architects took place (100 let obshchestvennykh .../ 100 лет общественных ... , 1967: 12).
In the meantime, architects in the capital obtained imperial approval to found the Petersburg Society of Architects, chartered in October 1870, whose functions paralleled those of the Moscow Architectural Society. At the beginning of 1872, the Petersburg group published the first issue of the journal Zodchii (Architect), which appeared monthly, and later weekly, through 1917. For forty-five years this authoritative publication not only served as a record of the architectural profession in Russia, but also provided a conduit for information on technical innovations in Western Europe and the United States. It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Zodchii in supporting professional solidarity among architects and establishing a platform from which to advance ideas regarding architecture's 'mission' in the creation of a new urban environment3.
There were other architectural publications in Russia, and a few of them made occasional reference to America; but Zodchii remained the major source for information on architecture and civil engineering. The general areas of interest covered in the journal's reports on America included: city planning, construction technology, architectural education, building materials and standards, and the related topic of disasters, particularly fires. Many of the items were taken from American and European architectural journals, as well as from general Russian publications such as Birzhevye vedomosti (Stock Exchange News), which had obvious reasons of its own to be interested in the progress and economic development represented by new American construction. In addition, Zodchii frequently published lectures given at the Petersburg Society of Architects by members who had traveled to the United States, and thus provided firsthand observations of the New World.
From the first year of publication, and every year thereafter, Zodchii included news items on the American architectural scene, such as a short comment in 1872 on the new building for the New York City post office (Novoe zdanie ... / Новое здание ... , 1872). The construction of buildings for public institutions in America's booming cities gained the frequent attention of Zodchii, whose editors understood that there was a corresponding need for such buildings to serve Russian society in the period following the Great Reforms. In 1873, for example, there were reports on communal housing for women working in New York's factories (Priiut dlia zhenshchin-rabotnits / Приют для женщин-работниц, 1873; based on material taken from Birzhevye Vedomosti); readers of such articles might have been reminded of the housing crisis affecting workers in
Russia's large cities. The rapidity of American building methods elicited expressions of wonder that are repeated with ritualistic emphasis throughout the 1872-1917 period. An early burst of enthusiasm appeared in an 1873 article — which was drawn extensively from American publications — on the reconstruction of Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871. The effusive praise reveals much about Russian architectural taste during this period, as well as its fascination with technological innovation:
All of them [Chicago's new "building-palaces"] are built in the latest American style, which represents a mixture of classical, Romanesque, gothic, and Renaissance styles; here one can see the widespread use of iron structural components, luxurious entryways even for private houses, balconies on all floors, magnificent roofs and domes encircled with beautiful balustrades. Many of these buildings exceed in luxury and refinement the best buildings of the European capitals and are decorated with statues and colonnades. It is hard to understand how this could have been created in something like a year and a half. Such unusual speed is partially explained by the use of great quantities of iron, including entire facades consisting of a row of iron columns connected by iron beams, and also by wooden construction work (such as at the Palmer Hotel) carried out at night by artificial lighting, and with machines lifting pre-fabricated elements to a height of four stories (Vnov' otstroennyi gorod Chikago / Вновь отстроенный город Чикаго, 1873: 107).
The article's final sentence, echoing similar opinions from Birzhevye Vedomosti, proclaimed that the new Chicago reflects "the results of moral and material activity such as we have seen nowhere else in the history of the cultural development of mankind" (ibid: 108).
Indeed, there seems to have been no limit to Russian credulity in the face of American technological ingenuity, as is evident from an item on the "Beach pneumatic tube," intended to carry passengers around the city at a "remarkable speed" far exceeding that of railroads (Po izvestiiam iz N'iu-Iorka... / По известиям из Нью-Йорка ... , 1873: 94). There was in fact an experimental pneumatic subway opened in 1870 under Broadway Avenue in Manhattan, but its speed and potential for development seem to have been considerably less than remarkable. Pneumatic systems were, however, used for transporting mail in New York by the turn of the century.
Throughout the 1870s, Zodchii published a wide variety of articles on developments in American architecture and technology. The subjects ranged from Edison's "Electric telegraph" to engineering topics such as plans for a canal in Nicaragua, bridges in Philadelphia and New York, and American methods for producing ice — a topic of interest even to Russians because the rapid growth of cities required more re-liable methods of cold storage for perishable foodstuffs4. A direct correlation between Russian and American interests appeared in a favorable review of the Rus-so-American Rubber Company pavilion at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, in which Russians recorded American comments on Russian art (V noiabr'skikh №№ amerikanskogo arkhitekturnogo zhurnala ... / В ноябрьских №№ американского архитектурного журнала ... , 1876). Yet attention remained primarily on American builders, whose accomplishments made St. Petersburg's building boom seem modest.
In general, contributors to Zodchii showed little interest in exploring the principles underlying the new American architecture, but there were occasional comments that
showed the Russians' perceptions of what the American experience meant for the development of architecture. In an article on the journal American Architect and Building News — a frequent source of information for Zodchii — the reviewer not only provided a detailed description of the American publication, but also commented on what he saw as the pervasive influence of the nineteenth-century French theoretician Eug ene Viollet-le-Duc, whose writings played a major role in discussions on the nature of Russian architecture during this period. Particularly noted is Viollet-le-Duc's influence on American "practicality" and on American architects' return to medieval architecture as a source of guidance, not in a literal or historicist sense, but for a new understanding of structural support systems in building (R-r» / Р-ръ, 1877).
TECHNOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE AT THE END OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
It can be argued that Russian architects were receptive to favorable reports on the American republic by virtue of their obvious professional interests in economic growth and technical progress. Although architecture had its social and ideological uses in Russian society, Russian architects could praise American buildings and technology without implying political views of either monarchic or radical tint. Indeed, expressions of wonder continued unabated from Zodchii's correspondents. An 1879 report on Leadville, a mining town in Colorado, noted that it "sprang up as if by magic" in this "land of wonders." Surely such references would have suggested visions of the rapid exploitation of the rich unsettled regions of Siberia and other parts of Russia. A report on the development of the telephone in America stated: "One can indeed call America the land of application of scientific theories to practice and to life. While we engage in debates over the practicality and future of the telephone, city telephone networks are being created in America." (Telefonnoe soobshchenie v Amerike / Телефонное сообщение в Америке, 1880: 33).
America was frequently referred to as the standard for comparison in construction and technology, as can be seen, for example, in an article on the efficiency of American housing construction: "Our masons, carpenters, and other craftsmen — would be amazed at the speed and daring of the Americans." This highly favorable account took notice of cooperation between New York's housing contractors and municipal authorities in the laying of utility lines and the subsequent paving of streets and sidewalks. Also noted was the reliance on prefabricated, standardized components — for example, window frames and doors — in the design of urban homes (Sposoby i priemy postroiki domov v N'iu-Iorke / Способы и приемы постройки домов в Нью-Йорке, 1881), efficiencies that would later become a central part of Soviet housing construction, but on an altogether different scale. Another news item described the opening of New York's Metropolitan Opera House, with the usual hyperbole "enormous."
Beginning in 1882, most of the brief technical news items on American architecture appeared in Nedelia stroitelia (Builder's Week), the newly established weekly supplement to Zodchii. Nedelia stroitelia contained excerpts from the journal Scientific American, as well as reports from American publications on new buildings, technical innovations, and occasional disasters. Theater fires were noted with particular frequency. In 1885, Nedelia stroitelia paraphrased an article from the popular journal Niva on the recent completion of the Washington Monument. Referring to the monument as
"colossal," Nedelia stroitelia took a very critical view of "an unattractive and crude structure" and said "the monument is striking by the lack of all taste" (21-go fevralia ... / 21-го февраля ... , 1885: 3). The tone of this report cannot, it seems, be attributed to anti-American sentiment, but rather to the monument's sharp break with contemporary tastes regarding heavily ornamented memorials — for example, London's Albert Memorial, completed in 1872 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and the early 1880s entries in the competition for the design of the Church of the Resurrection of the Savior on the Blood in St. Petersburg.
Most of the reports on America in Zodchii and Nedelia stroitelia dealt with commercial architecture in cities, from Boston and Philadelphia to New Orleans and San Francisco. The centers of attention, however, were Chicago and New York, which represented the most concentrated expression of the American ethos. In the mid-1880s, Nedelia stroitelia reported on projects for the building of a New York City subway, techniques of elevator construction, the number of houses and firemen in the city, water systems, sanitation, the city's telephone network, and the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. Land prices in New York were "fabulous," but the operative word was "colossal" — as in a "colossal new bridge" between New York and New Jersey, or the "colossal building" for the newspaper New York World, which was twenty-six stories, constructed from iron, steel, and brick (Dom redaktsii gazety «New-Iork-World» / Дом редакции газеты «New-Iork-World», 1891). Although the reporter had difficulty in describing a building of such unprecedented scale, the Russians had finally discovered the skyscraper; during the next decade, reports on this American form would appear regularly in the Russian architectural press.
Appropriately, the first detailed descriptions of the skyscraper appeared in articles on Chicago, where preparations for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition stimulated an interest in the city unparalleled since the Great Fire of 1871. The exposition was the subject of extensive reports, such as an analysis of the planning and construction of the site, with statistics from the German publication Deutsche Bauzeitung. The account mentioned the firm Holabird and Roche, a rare occasion in which the Russian press identified American architects (Vsemirnaia vystavka v Chikago / Всемирная выставка в Чикаго, 1891). Among other news items on the exposition was an ecstatic report on the project for an all-electric house, described as a glimpse into the future (Elektricheskii dom / Электрический дом, 1891). A general review of construction in Chicago noted that for six years a new type of structure, based on a skeletal steel frame on a reinforced concrete foundation, had been developed; but the reports were tentative and made no mention of specific architects (Stroitel'naia deiatel'nost' v Chikago / Строительная деятельность в Чикаго, 1892).
In 1893, the crescendo of attention surrounding the Chicago exposition reached a peak. The first issues of Nedelia stroitelia contained lead articles describing the pavilions and the frenetic, last-minute preparations in the area between Jackson and Washington parks. In addition to reciting the fair's greatest architectural achievements and its surpassing dimensions, the unsigned correspondent acknowledged the guiding presence of Messrs. John Root — whose death in 1891 was noted — and Daniel Burnham, who served as chief of construction for the exposition (Opisanie zdanii vystavki v Chikago (nachalo) / Описание зданий выставки в Чикаго (начало), 1893; Opisanie zdanii vystavki v Chikago (okonchanie) / Описание зданий выставки в Чикаго
(окончание), 1893). After 1893, there appears to have been no further notice of these two pioneers of the Chicago School in the Russian press.
Some observers looked beyond the extravaganza of the exposition to the more solid achievements of the Chicago School. One compact but informative report noted that "giant buildings here bear the strange name 'Sky Scrapers'" and contended that Chicago was particularly "rich in these buildings," despite a growing reluctance to insure them (Kolossal'nye postroiki v Amerike / Колоссальные постройки в Америке, 1893). The nineteen-story Auditorium Hotel, more commonly known as the Auditorium (1886-1890), was described as an example of the speed of construction possible with the new technology. The description included an abundance of statistics concerning the building's cost, its height, its weight, the number of bricks needed for construction, and the length of its water and gas pipes. Yet there is no mention of the style of this spectacular building, nor of the architect, Louis Sullivan. For Russian architectural critics, "style" was to be found in Europe; America was the land of statistics and technology.
AMERICAN PRAGMATISM AND THE NEW URBAN ENVIRONMENT
However significant the role played by the French school in American design, Russian observers were more interested in the practical results of American technical developments. In 1895, Viktor Evald — the editor of Zodchii and one of the most frequent commentators on American civil engineering — provided an account of skyscraper construction in New York and Chicago, with particular attention to methods of foundation support for the steel frames. Impressed by the size and technology of such large structures, Evald took a dim view of their aesthetic qualities and predicted that they would create an urban environment in which "some of the main streets will be enclosed between two rows of tall, gloomy cubes, with small, separate windows in which the sun never peers. Such streets will resemble narrow canals or streams, flowing at the base of deep ravines" (Vozdushnye goroda / Воздушные города, 1895: 155; the article is entitled "Sky Cities"). This poetic image was followed by the observation that American skyscrapers were intended for use between eight and five, after which time the central areas of American cities became depopulated.
Subsequently, Evald wrote a book entitled Structural Characteristics of Buildings in North America (Evald / Эвальд, 1895), and in 1899 he continued his analysis of the American skyscraper with an extensive report on a fire at the sixteen-story Home Life Insurance Company building on Broadway Avenue, constructed in 1893. His observations regarding the still-far-from-ideal methods of fire prevention in tall buildings were based, in large part, on data from the German publication Thonindustrie-Zeitung, which represented the producers of fire-retardant ceramic shields.
By the beginning of the century, reports on skyscrapers and fires in American cities appeared in roughly equal measure. In 1903, Zodchii published a technical review of recent progress in the area of skyscraper construction, with special attention to new methods of insulating the steel frame from the effects of intense heat (many of these advances were introduced after the Pittsburgh fire of 1897). Drawing upon books by Joseph Freitag and William Birkmire — prominent American civil engineers specializing in the design of skyscrapers — the writer attributed the extraordinary increase in tall
buildings in America to three basic developments: the cheap and efficient production of high-quality rolled steel; the production of new types of fire-resistant coating for steel frames; and the introduction of rapid elevators (I. T. / И. Т., 1903).
Fire had, of course, been an enemy of Russian cities from time immemorial, yet there was a specific interest in the spectacular effects of fire on the new American urban environment, even though the lessons to be learned from these conflagrations had limited applications in Russia. The 1904 issues of Zodchii contained several items on this subject, among which was a report on the devastating Iroquois Theater fire, in which some four hundred died, and a survey of measures for fire safety in other major Chicago theaters, including the Auditorium (I. T. / И. Т., 1904ab, with material from Deutsche Bauzeitung). A subsequent article described methods of fire prevention developed by the firm Adler and Sullivan (I. T. / И. Т., 1904c). The culmination of this inflammatory obsession appeared in the journal's extensive coverage of the great Baltimore fire of February 1904. Based on reports in the New York Herald, Zodchii provided a general description of the disaster and its effect on the city in the first article (Khronika: Amerika / Хроника: Америка, 1904). The second article took a more technical approach, examining the conditions of large structures after the fire. The conclusion, bolstered by information from the German publication Stahl und Eisen, discussed the remarkable progress in protecting steel frames from fire damage (Zdaniia so stal'nym karkasom ... / Здания со стальным каркасом ... , 1904; with numerous photographs of tall buildings standing among the ruins).
VISIONS OF THE SKYSCRAPER
For most of its final decade of publication, Zodchii reported with regularity on new developments concerning American skyscrapers. Articles appeared on the Singer Building in 1906, on the Metropolitan Life Building in 1907, and on buildings by Francis Kimball in 1908. There were also reports on the completion of other major structures, such as New York's Penn Station and the New York Public Library. A brief notice in 1908 commented on the "gigantomania" of Ernest Flagg, probably the most active builder of skyscrapers in New York: Flagg "dreams of constructing a building as high as one thousand feet. Even the Yankees have had second thoughts about this. There are reasonable people thinking of raising the question of a law to set limits on the flights of artists beyond the clouds" (Khronika: Amerikanskie «neboskreby» / Хроника: Американские «небоскребы», 1908: 375). Yet after 1908, for no clear reason, the number of articles on America underwent a sharp, if temporary, decline. In 1909, the only item on America dealt with air pollution in Chicago; in 1910, there was a single report on a new bridge in Philadelphia; and in 1911, R. Bernhard reviewed R. Vogel's book Das amerikanische Haus, reflecting a growing curiosity about the American design of the detached house and its suitability as a model for suburban development around Moscow.
The reappearance of articles on American architecture and technology in Zodchii was due, in large measure, to the Sixth International Congress on Materials Testing, held at New York's Engineering Societies Building in 1912. Given the standards of the time, it is noteworthy that the journal's correspondent was a woman, Maria Koro-leva, about whom regrettably little is known. Her dispatches provide detailed and highly technical accounts of the proceedings, as well as an analysis of the construction
of New York's Woolworth Building by Cass Gilbert (Koroleva / Королева, 1912abc). To Russian observers, the Woolworth Building represented an extreme example of the American mania for the office tower — a mania that went beyond the limits of economic feasibility, according to the writer of an article on the building, who also noted that its primary function was to serve as a trademark for the Woolworth firms (Predel vysoty amerikanskikh ... / Предел высоты американских ... , 1912: 522). In a series of postcards entitled "Moscow in the Future," dating from 1913, visionaries in Russia were producing fanciful sketches of a "new Moscow," which bore a distinct resemblance to midtown Manhattan (see: Kirichenko / Кириченко, 1977: 95—99). Indeed, the first tentative steps in this direction had already been taken with the completion of Ivan Rerberg's modest tower for the Northern Insurance Company in central Moscow in 19115.
The increasingly specific technical descriptions of the engineering involved in the construction of skyscrapers and their skeletal steel frames indicate that Russian builders were prepared to undertake such projects. World War I and subsequent events, however, postponed the large-scale application of this technology until the late 1940s. The most significant statement of this convergence between American and Russian goals in civil engineering appeared in Nikolai Lakhtin's two-part survey of the latest techniques for the use of steel and reinforced concrete in New York's skyscrapers (Lakhtin / Лахтин, 1913ab). For Lakhtin, Russia's economic future clearly pointed toward the American model in urban architecture:
Industry, trade, and technology are developing, prices for land parcels are growing, telephones and other communications cannot always satisfy demand; in short, circumstances analogous to those in America are gradually arising in our urban centers. These circumstances make it necessary to construct tall buildings, which must be erected on a steel frame (Lakhtin / Лахтин, 1913a: 204).
With this imperative in mind, Lakhtin analyzed the tall building from foundation to wind braces and made detailed drawings of key points in the steel column and girder structure. The same message, regarding the convergence of Russian and American architectural conditions, was propagated at the Fifth Congress of Russian Architects in 1913 by Lakhtin and Edmond Perrimond, both of whom had recently attended conferences in America and returned to Russia convinced of the relevance of the new American architecture6.
With the onset of war, visions of growth, progress, and technical development receded, and with them the possibilities of an American-style construction boom in Russia. These visions were undoubtedly unrealistic or premature; Lakhtin once went so far as to compare the subsoil of St. Petersburg with that of New York to assess whether it could support tall buildings. During the war years, references to America dwindled, with the exception of a series of detailed articles written in 1916 by Roman Beker on small community library buildings in America. Beker presented a highly favorable view of these structures because of their design, and also because they seemed to express the democratic belief in education for the people (Beker / Бекер, 1916a, and the three subsequent issues, with floor plans, photographs, and a bibliography: Beker / Бекер, 1916bcd). In 1917, America's entry into the war on the side of the Entente produced renewed
interest in the United States; but at the end of 1917, Zodchii ceased publication. In a wholly unintended irony, the last article published in the journal bore the title "American Engineers and the War" (Amerikanskie inzhenery i voina / Американские инженеры и война, 1917)7.
AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE AS CULTURAL MODEL
An element of fantasy reigns over many Russian perceptions of American architecture, even those expressed in the pages of solid professional journals — not to mention the more imaginative, if less reliable, passages from literary works such as Maksim Gorky's City of the Yellow Devil (1906). This air of unreality must be attributed in part to the different levels of development between Russia and America at the time, and to the great distance separating the two countries. Yet for all of these limitations, there is evidence to suggest that the extensive Russian reporting on American architecture established a receptivity to technology that would continue — and in some respects increase — after the revolution, despite barriers to exchanges of information.
Beyond the specific function of America as a model in civil engineering and architectural design, there is the broader issue of cultural perception, which Zodchii was uniquely qualified to convey. Although technical concerns are of obvious importance to members of the architectural profession, architecture as an art and as a building technology also participates in the social and cultural values of the environment that it shapes. In this respect, Russian reports and articles on American architecture reveal a continual measuring. America is seen as the ultimate standard, regardless of Russia's more immediate relation to Europe. Paradoxically, this taking of measure reflects, on a deeper level, a type of nationalism that seeks a model commensurate with its own as-pirations. Only America, with its continental sweep and boundless energy, provided a comparable scale for the challenges confronting Russian builders8.
No other form of endeavor in Russia expressed this relation to America as clearly as architecture, with its emphasis on both the pragmatic and the cultural. Whatever suspicions Russian thinkers such as Dostoevsky might harbor toward American culture, the material from Zodchii suggests that the two countries have often perceived in each other a set of values and characteristics that are tacitly admired and accepted as one's own. Hence the willingness of Russian observers to repeat the terms of American boos-terism — "colossal," "enormous," and "fast" — even while offering skeptical comments. These are the terms that have appealed to the Russians' own sense of destiny — terms that, despite immeasurable social and cultural differences, indicate in the broadest sense the presence of shared ideals.
NOTES
1 Hereinafter all translations from Russian are by the author.
2 For a history of the foundation of the Moscow Architectural Society, see: 100 let obshche-stvennykh ... / 100 лет общественных ... , 1967: 6-11.
3 The complicated publishing history of Zodchii and its supplement Nedelia stroitelia is presented in: Ibid: 103-104.
4 See: Kak izvestno, amerikantsy .../ Как известно, американцы ... , 1876 (based on material from American Architect and Building News).
5 The tower has survived very well in contemporary Moscow. See photograph in: Brumfield, 1991: 284.
6 Compare to Koroleva's report on papers read at the technology section of the Fifth Congress: Koroleva / Королева, 1914: 27.
7 Although a few isolated issues appeared under the same title after 1917, the journal and its editorial board in effect ceased to function at the end of 1917.
8 Extensive reports based on personal observations of American architecture began appearing again in the Russian architectural press in the 1980s. For example, Stroitel'naia gazeta published an interview with a faculty member at the Leningrad Engineering and Construction Institute, who had visited American construction sites in 1985 and gave a positive account of what he saw. Even the terms used are reminiscent of those in Zodchii (Bystree — znachit pribyl-nei / Быстрее — значит прибыльнее, 1987).
REFERENCES
Amerikanskie inzhenery i voina. (1917) Zodchii, no. 47-52, pp. 226-229. (In Russ.).
Beker, R. (1916a) Nebol'shie bibliotechnye zdaniia v Amerike (nachalo). Zodchii, no. 46, November 13, pp. 412-416. (In Russ.).
Beker, R. (1916b) Nebol'shie bibliotechnye zdaniia v Amerike (prodolzhenie). Zodchii, no. 47, November 20, pp. 419-426. (In Russ.).
Beker, R. (1916c) Nebol'shie bibliotechnye zdaniia v Amerike (prodolzhenie). Zodchii, no. 48, November 27, pp. 427-432. (In Russ.).
Beker, R. (1916d) Nebol'shie bibliotechnye zdaniia v Amerike (okonchanie). Zodchii, no. 49, December 4, pp. 438-440. (In Russ.).
Brumfield, W. C. (1991) The origins of modernism in Russian architecture. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press. xxv, 343 p.
Bystree — znachit pribylnei. (1987) Stroitel'naia gazeta, March 3, p. 3. (In Russ.).
Dom redaktsii gazety «New-Iork-World». (1891) Nedelia stroitelia, no. 3-4, p. 20. (In Russ.).
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Elektricheskii dom. (1891) Nedelia stroitelia, no. 26, p. 288. (In Russ.).
Evald, V. V. (1895) Konstruktivnye osobennosti amerikanskikh zdanii i estestvenye kamni, primeniaemye v sooruzheniiakh v Soedinennykh shtatakh / comp. by V. V. Evald. St. Petersburg, A. S. Khomskiy & C° Printing House. 99 p. (In Russ.).
I. T. (1903) Postroika mnogoetazhnykh domov v Sev. Amerike. Zodchii, no. 51, December 21, pp. 605-608. (In Russ.).
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Kak izvestno, amerikantsy istrebliaiut neveroiatnoe kolichestvo l'da. (1876) Zodchii, no. 7, July, p. 85. (In Russ.).
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Submission date: 3.04.2016.
АМЕРИКА КАК СИМВОЛ СОВРЕМЕННОСТИ В РОССИЙСКОЙ АРХИТЕКТУРНОЙ ПЕЧАТИ (1870-1917 ГГ.)
У. К. Брумфилд (Университет Тулейн, Новый Орлеан, США)
По мере возникновения профессиональных организаций для поддержки российских архитекторов в 1860-е годы были созданы новые издания для распространения информации об архитекторах и архитектурных практиках в других странах. В числе лидеров были Московское архитектурное общество и Петербургское общество архитекторов. Последнее издавало журнал «Зодчий», в котором с 1872 по 1917 г. публиковались факты и новости для русских архитекторов.
В статье особое внимание уделяется «Зодчему» как источнику информации об архитектуре в Америке, содержащему доклады и материалы об американских методах и технологиях строительства, архитектурном образовании, градостроительстве (к примеру, о перестройке Чикаго после пожара 1871 г.), основных урбанистических проектах, дизайне частных домов, небоскребах, транспорте, загрязнении окружающей среды, а также на другие темы, связанные с антропогенной средой. Помимо случайных отсылок к Генри Гобсону Ричардсону конкретным архитекторам уделялось мало внимания, а их деятельность, по всей видимости, казалась слишком далекой для русских архитекторов и инженеров. Быстрое развитие Америки в течение 50 лет после Гражданской войны продемонстрировало множество перспектив, которые могли быть полезны и для России. Все эти факты и идеи представляют собой значимый и малоизученный аспект отношений между Россией и Соединенными Штатами.
Ключевые слова: Московское архитектурное общество; Петербургское общество архитекторов; архитектурные журналы; «Зодчий»; «Новости американской архитектуры и строительства»; «Неделя строителя»; Чикаго; Нью-Йорк; Филадельфия; строительство метро; Всемирная Колумбова выставка 1893 года; небоскребы; городские пожары; Н. К. Лахтин; И. И. Рерберг; Р. Бекер; Ф. М. Достоевский; Эжен Виолле-ле-Дюк
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Дата поступления: 3.04.2016 г.
Brumfield William Craft, PhD, Professor of Slavic Studies, Tulane University, New Orleans, USA. Postal address: 6823 Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70118, USA. Tel.: +1 (504) 865-5276. E-mail: William.brumfield@gmail.com
Брумфилд Уильям Крафт — доктор философии (PhD), профессор славистики Университета Тулейн (Tulane University) (Новый Орлеан, США). Адрес: 6823 Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana, 70118, USA. Тел.: +1 (504) 865-5276. Эл. адрес: William.brum-field@gmail.com
