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Wooden Zodchestvo of Krasnoyarsk City as the Space for Forming Territorial and Ethno-Cultural Identity
Natalia N. Pimenova and Anna V. Marysheva*
Siberian Federal University 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia 1
Received 4.11.2011, received in revised form 11.11.2011, accepted 16.12.2011
The process offorming the person's identity of territorial and ethno-cultural character is complicated and diverse. The architectural space of the city is capable of becoming the city resident's assistant in his/her self-identification. Modern conditions of life in the city organize the process of obtaining self-identification as maximum synthesizing various points of the person’s self-identification, but it is the daily current life space that contributes to doing it with maximum efficiency. This article gives an overview of wooden sites of Krasnoyarsk zodchestvo from the point of view of their capability to become the means of the city residents’ identity formation.
Keywords: wooden architecture (zodchestvo), architecture of Krasnoyarsk city, formation of the territorial identity, formation of ethno-cultural identity.
The research is done as a part of the grant of the Federal Target Programme “Social construction of all-Russian identity in the Central Siberia”.
Point
Krasnoyarsk sites of wooden zodchestvo: their effect on the formation of territorial and ethno-cultural identity
Krasnoyarsk today is a large industrial city of Siberia, which at the same time has the status of the cultural centre. Its appearance is also miscellaneous and diversified varying from typical civil buildings to unique sites of Siberian architecture, which includes both monumental stone buildings of the 19th-20th centuries and preserved sites of wooden zodchestvo. The tradition of the wooden zodchestvo at the territory of Russia is without any doubt much more ancient
* Corresponding author E-mail address: kistochka7@mail.ru
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
than the stone construction. Wood was more available as a construction material, but it was much more exposed to distraction in comparison with the stone; therefore, many ancient sites of Russian wooden zodchestvo did not survive until our days and researchers know about these sites only from studying ancient sources. Nevertheless, the “izba” type (Russian log house) has survived in the sites of Russian zodchestvo of the 17th, 19th and beginning of 20th centuries, having preserved its form as the tradition of construction and art, the basis of the ingenuity of Russian architects.
The most morbid question today for Krasnoyarsk is preserving wooden architecture
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sites. At the present moment the status of some of them has not been legally formalized, thus effecting, first of all, the extent of their preservation and intensity of restoration of these buildings. Many sites require continuous maintenance and sometimes even urgent interference of restorers. It is worth noting that this issue is quite typical for many Siberian cities, such centres as Tomsk, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, which are also famous for rich heritage of wooden zodchestvo, and where the urgent problem of preserving the sites from such non-durable material is being solved in different ways. In this respect, the issue of studying the importance of wooden architecture for the city has been traditionally discussed for many years. This issue is touched upon in many scientific publications, which register the historical value and specificity of tradition of Russian wooden zodchestvo for Siberian land (Blaginykh, 2006; Oreshko 2009; Kulikova, 2006), in publications and TV reports devoted to understanding of the problem of preserving these buildings. The prevailing point of view regarding the sites of wooden zodchestvo in Krasnoyarsk and Siberia in general is the point of view of researchers, journalists and simple active city residents, who claim the preserved sites of wooden zodchestvo to be the unique cultural heritage of the Territory’s centre forming individual appearance of the city, which distinguishes it from many other Siberian and Russian cities.
It should be noted that the sites of wooden architecture can both form the unique appearance of the city and the people who live in this city, its residents. Modern research in the field of culture and art studies allow to consider art pieces as the means for forming the person’s identification in various aspects, including the person’s social and ethnic self-identification (Koptseva, 2009, 2010; Libakova, 2009; Luzan 2009; Nevolko, 2011; Semenova, 2009, 2011). Art theory in its turn contributes to consideration of
the dialogue of the viewer and the art piece as an exceptionally productive process, which results in the transfigurated image of the world necessarily containing the transfigurated “self-image” as the product of the viewer’s self-reflection (Zhukovsky, 2008, 2011; Tarasova, 2009). Architecture as the art type is may be one of the most efficient spheres of culture forming socio-centric aspect of the world image of the person as a city resident and a citizen daily interfering with it and living in it. The architecture of the city always has the function of forming the social space and the image of the place for the society’s individual member in it. It is the architecture of the city that forms the identity of the individual as the city resident and the citizen of the country. Thus, wooden architecture of Krasnoyarsk contributes to its resident self-realization as a Krasnoyarsk resident, Russian citizen and, with respect to the ethnic aspect of self-identification, as a Russian.
Example
Analysis of the wooden zodchestvo
site “The House of Yurkovskaya”
in Krasnoyarsk
The sites of Krasnoyarsk wooden architecture refer to the end of the 19th -beginning of the 20th century. At the beginning of the 20th century wood in Krasnoyarsk still remained the most demanded construction material. Such public buildings as schools, as well as new spectacular buildings of the city (such as the circus, wild beast show, summer pavilion for the movies show in the city park) were constructed from wood. Large-scale residential houses construction at the beginning of the 20th centuries was mainly wooden. Its types were more varied, architectural and art decisions became more diverse. Besides country estate houses and manors small wooden two-storey houses for two-four apartments were also popular. In the central streets such houses
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Fig. 1. Traditional appearance of the Russian house
were built with a minimum distance between them or even wall-to-wall if stone party walls were constructed between the end faces of the houses, which prevented fire distribution on the nearby buildings. These resident wooden houses survived until our days in Krasnoyarsk.
Many types of residential buildings are based on the construction scheme of a “klet” (housing), a relatively simple and the most ancient form of the wooden house. Traditional wooden dwelling architecture is inclined to the “izba” house type and represents such “klet”, a four-sided log construction with a V-roof (Fig. 1). Two-storey type of “izba” includes a three-sided bypass gallery, which with time lost its original meaning (for closing the window shutters of the second
floor) and remained as a traditional element of this architectural form. Russian “izba” was intended for dwelling and everything in it corresponds to this purpose. Notwithstanding all this usability, “izba” has such a non-functional exterior element as carved decorations of the frontage. This element was also preserved as a tradition; it had not been lost with time, thus proving the necessity of its presence in the integrity of the building. For most wooden residential houses of the city the inclination towards utility is typical both in composition and decoration: space-saving square shapes of the building, flat frontages, symmetry and rhythm of the windows location on the frontage, reserved decoration elements - frontage carving. At the same time, it is the frontage
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Fig. 2. House of Yurkovskaya in Krasnoyarsk, 1892
carving that is the element brining variety to the buildings’ exterior, including decorated frames of the windows and roof coating. Methods of their carving are quite diverse: dumb, volumetric-diaglyphic, sawn, superposing. Among the frames decoration in Krasnoyarsk houses there are both traditional decorative elements of wooden zodchestvo and new elements having appeared by that time in the architects’ work, such as Baroque, Classicism, Modern: baroque motifs with floral ornaments, vases, shaped gables in the Baroque style, classic triangular shaped gables and gable forms traditional for the Modern style. . At the beginning of the 20th century new methods appear in decoration of the houses’ frontages: the main frontages get complicated by introducing into their composition the risalitas ending in triangular gables with carved tracery filling and decorative turrets; under the influence of the modern style the size and shape of windows change; techniques of imitation of the old Russian style are used. The examples of the
dwelling of the beginning of the 20th century are the houses, which present the integral front line of the construction in Gorky street. These houses are the part of the historical complex located in the centre of the city. All wooden houses have two storeys. Some frontages are decorated with risalitas ending in turrets and gables with tracery carved filling. The frontage decoration of these buildings is well preserved and includes typical for Siberia window frames with volumetric, sawn or combined carving, ornate street doors.
The wooden house located at the address 67 Lenina street is an outstanding example of the old Russian style of the end of the 19th century (Fig. 2).This house was built in 1892 by the order of the noblewoman Yurkovskaya. The building has quite a favourable location in the streets structure: it stands at the crossroads, which is the point of intersection of the city streets. Such location speaks for the capability of this building to form the image of the city, to be an emphasis of the city. In connection with its location the house
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has two front facades unlike the buildings located along the streets. Its specific feature is that with all inclination of the architect to rich reconstruction and use of decorative elements of the frontage traditional for Russian zodchestvo, the basis of the Russian wooden architecture itself - timber laying - is veiled. On the one hand, frontage facing with the slat is an isolating element: it prevents the joints between the logs from atmospheric effects; on the other hand, it allows to catch the attention of the viewer exclusively on the decoration of the frontage, visually flatting its basement (the wall) and thus presenting on its background volumetric sawn carving of the decoration. In general, the composition of the house of Yurkovskaya is utmost traditional for Russian zodchestvo in its original version: it has two storeys and the frontage elements present the viewer the construct of the building and its internal rooms (this is achieved by the encircling coating, which visually divides the storeys of the building, and pilasters, which present the portioning of the interior). Duality of the windows
in the central part of the frontage expressly witnesses the extreme importance of absolute mirror symmetry, as well as equability, steadiness and stability for the building’s appearance. These features do not directly correspond to the antique tradition of Russian wooden zodchestvo, but are totally consistent with it (Pimenova, 2007).
Decorative elements of this site are very diverse: roofing, under-roofing and encircling along the line of the storeys joint carved coatings; decorated pilasters structurally separating the frontage, fan gables and frames of the double and separately located on the frontage windows (Fig. 3). Herewith, the decoration has collective features in relation to the traditions of Russian zodchestvo: all of the elements refer to the geometric ornament and genetically ascend to the pagan aspect of the world image of the ancient Russian man. In the building the roof represents a four-sided construction and due to this, unlike in the old Russian tradition, it does not have the “apex”, the gable indigenously decorated with roof carving and fixed with the ridge of the roof.
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But the frontage compensates this loss by means of using traditional system of decoration of the roof’s apex in each of its windows, both double and separate. In this case, each of the window spaces is a sort of separate building, a “palace”. This is achieved by the simplicity, even utility of the window shutters of the first storey: with all decoration of the building, the shutters are flat, divided into three parts by crossbars without any decorating carving. This creates the effect of reecho of shutters and walls and merges it into an integral monolith. Side frames of the windows of the second floor are also less decorated in comparison with other parts: they are quite narrow in relation to the windows’ width. In decoration they visually correspond with the frontage pilasters by regularly lengthwise located vertical elements. All these elements construct window spaces as “palaces” and therefore the integral look of the house’s frontage appears as a “city”; its layout is utmost regular and, consequently, the life in this city is organized. Diversity of the “palaces” in the “city” is minimum, even though very representative (large “palaces” being the double windows of the centre, small “palaces” being the separately located windows of the side parts of the frontage). Moreover, both the frontage of the building as a whole and the frontage of each such window-“palace” is fixed as mirrorlike symmetric and organized. At the same time, the “palace” quality of the windows’ decoration organizes the frontage as an ornate, festive city: the city one would like to live in. An important factor here is also the fact that this building is not public, but residential, i.e. the city space is formed by this building as the space of life in its everyday aspect.
Each separate “palace” of the frontage and the frontage as a whole to the full extent use the system of decoration of the old Russian tradition: in roofing, under-roofing and inter-storey coating the sawn carving uses many times and repeats by
superposing the traditional motif of the Russian ornament, the “heap”, forming the ornament “windows of the heaven”, the levels of the heaven filled with the life-giving water (Rybakov, 1981; Pimenova, 2007). Such system of the ornament is typical for old Russian zodchestvo in roofing decoration: ranges of valances and vergeboards, which in this case reproduce the coating. Decoration of the window’s gables has an ornament in the form of the sun at its zenith, a solar symbol located at the peak of the apex. From this apex the traditional, but used absolutely extraordinary here, decorative elements with solar symbols come like “beams” to the top, forming a fan beam, which is seen from a distance in each window of the frontage representing the shining sun in the zenith. There are solar symbols of an unusual form in the frontage pilasters. They combine at least three round elements in them (their centres are fixed by the sawn “star” and sidelong cross), the central of them dominating and the side ones being smaller and complementary. Such composition was traditionally used by Russian architects in a different way: along the whole extension of the frontage decoration there were three suns. Two of them, the side ones, were smaller or represented by semi-suns, and the central one was larger and represented the path of the sun along the sky (from the sunrise through the zenith to the sunset) and provided the roof with the quality of the model of the celestial sphere. Each separate “palace” has such a celestial sphere in the given site. In the frames of the windows such ornament of “the windows of the heaven” is flanked from both sides by clusters of ‘heaps”, the verticality of which is caught by the elements of the side parts of the frame and goes into the lower level of the heaps, and also beyond the limits of the frame - into the side (small) and central clusters of the heaps - drops of the heaven life-giving water. Within the whole frontage the motif of water outpouring from the “windows of
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the heaven” is supported in a traditional for the Russian zodchestvo way: their rows in the interstorey coating from the backside of the building end in the rain gutter, thus giving the viewer an opportunity to observe how the ornament water of the heaven transforms into its real pouring during the rain.
Keeping with the old Russian tradition the ornament decoration represents itself a vitally important element of the residential house, while it instructs this space with the quality of representing the integrity of the World and the man’s guide in it, capability of occupying an individual place in the integral World in its co smic aspect, where everyday life is the way of existing in it, the way “to exist”. In this case the Russian house as a dwelling place is destined to provide the person with the opportunity to be connected with the Universe, which is daily and constant, and naturally included into the person’s everyday life and set by means of any everyday action, while this space also organizes the rhythm of life in accordance with the rhythm of the shown World (Pimenova, 2007). Decoration elements of the frontage of Yurkovskaya’s house done in the Russian tradition and significantly reorganizing it, give the architecture of the house the capability to effect the integral structure of the World and become an individual place for the person in this World. Peculiarity of such World also consists in the fact that originally the person-master is written into it as a natural element of the world system, which acts in this system. It is interesting that the World modeled by this architectural piece is the world of the pagan tradition, the world of nature, where nature is the utmost phenomenon of the divine features. In this respect this building today (not only due to the nature of its material-wood, but also by means of the World representation as the integrity of the earth and the heaven spaces) is the guide pointing at the human’s relationship to nature in the general urban direction of his
existence in the modern city. Therefore, today this site is not only modelling the relationship of the human and the World, but also provoking the human, constantly living in the city space and keeping with the high rates of the industrial centre, for the organic relationship with nature.
Peculiarity of this site in comparison with earlier sites of wooden zodchestvo in the central Russia lies in the fact, that besides the function of organizing together the individual - house dweller, viewer- with the World as a natural space, this building also shapes social relationships and forms the viewer’s image of himself as a city resident. The frontage, which appears as the “city of palaces”, represents the city space as organized, as the space of coexistence of the equal, notwithstanding the presence of big and small “palaces”, which do not differ by anything else from each other, but the size. This means that in such a city each dweller is individually included into the World and lives in the society of those equal to himself in accordance with the laws general for everybody. This is given to the “city” image by the utmost regularity of the frontage. The frontage of Yurkovskaya’s house forms the image of the viewer as the city resident as a desirable, attractive for him and natural for the human (the “city” is organized in accordance with the laws of nature and is included into it in this model by means of the heavens ornament).
The house of Yurkovskaya as the site of wooden zodchestvo of Krasnoyarsk represents itself also the means of forming such selfidentification of the viewer as the “Russian”. In Siberian land, unlike in the European part of Russia, no old Russian sites have been preserved. In Krasnoyarsk there are no buildings of the first fortress, and this building with its richness of decoration in the old Russian style stands as including Krasnoyarsk into the space of Russia with its general history. At the same time this site due to the same feature - utmost richness
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with originally Russian content - is capable of forming the viewer’s ethnic self-identification as the Russian. The Russian as the representative of the ethnic group and the great Russian culture rooting into the times of the old orthodox-pagan Russia. It is no coincidence that Yurkovskaya’s house is located at the crossroads, which fixed by itself the situation of choosing the way. The site of wooden zodchestvo offers one of the versions of such a choice to the viewer, the human, the resident of Krasnoyarsk city.
Resume
The site of Krasnoyarsk wooden zodchestvo known as Yurkovskaya’s house to
the full extent stands as the means of forming territorial and ethno-cultural identity of the city residents interacting with it as viewers, who pass by every day while waiting for the green light at the crossroads. It is noteworthy that directly Krasnoyarsk architectural space can be referred to the Russian tradition in its original version only by wooden buildings of the end of the і9ш- beginning of the 20th centuries. Therefore, these sites can be the space for forming such identity of the residents as the “Russian”. These capabilities of the heritage of Krasnoyarsk wooden zodchestvo show to the full extent its utmost value for the city and its residents.
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Деревянное зодчество Красноярска как пространство процессов территориальной и этнокультурной идентичности
Н.Н. Пименова, А.В. Марышева
Сибирский федеральный университет, Россия 660041, Красноярск, Свободный, 79
Процесс идентичности человека территориального и этнокультурного характера является сложным и неоднородным. Архитектурное городское пространство способно выступить помощником его жителя в самоидентификации. Современные городские условия жизни выстраивают процесс обретения своей идентичности как предельно синтезирующий различные грани самоопределения человека, но, тем не менее, именно ежедневно актуальное пространство жизни способствует его совершению с предельной эффективностью. Данная статья предлагает рассмотрение памятников деревянного зодчества Красноярска с позиции их возможностей выступить средствами формирования идентичности жителей города.
Ключевые слова: деревянное зодчество, архитектура города Красноярска, формирование территориальной идентичности, формирование этнокультурной идентичности
Работа выполнена в рамках участия в гранте ФЦП «Социальное конструирование общероссийской идентичности в Центральной Сибири».
