Chimera is a teratomorphic creature with three heads: a lion, a goat and a snake. She has a body: a lion in front, a goat in the middle, and snakes in the back.
Myths of the peoples of the world. M., 1988
A series of exhibitions of temple architecture held by the Union of Architects in several cities, including recently in Moscow, is the first attempt to comprehend a phenomenon that has been developing for 20 years. Critics do not notice the new temple architecture, they do not publish it in magazines, they do not discuss it or write about it, it “rarely becomes an event,” as the organizers rightly say in a press release. This is not surprising - the architecture of the temples built and designed after the fall of the USSR is very far from any artistic mainstream. Nevertheless, it exists, and there is even a lot of it, and this is amazing and some, indeed, completely unconscious material by critics. It remains only to regret that the exhibition lasted only a week. In October at Zodchestvo all expositions, Moscow and other cities, are promised to be shown together, but for now we will tell you about the exhibition that took place at Granatnoye in mid-September, an exhibition of Moscow architects. They are building, however, everywhere in our country.
The organizers brought together buildings of different religions: a Buddhist complex from Elista, a Catholic church from Anapa, five mosques, and one project of the Center for the Jewish Community of the city of Sochi, workshop of Ginzburg. This latter, the only representative of modernism at the exhibition, a mixture of Libeskind and Melnikov, differed from the neighboring projects so much that it could be mistaken for an accidentally forgotten remnant of some previous hanging.
All the rest, including Orthodox churches, of which, of course, the majority, are in the deep 19th century. They copy the Tone Russian-Byzantine style, and the pseudo-Russian style oriented towards the "pattern" of the 17th century, and the pattern itself, and the royal five-domed of the 16th century, as well as Novgorod and Pskov, Vladimir and Yuryev-Polskaya, Byzantium. This means historicism.
They take elements from different monuments and glue them, as in a designer, attach Nikanor Ivanovich's lips to Ivan Kuzmich's nose - this is probably eclecticism. We were all explained in childhood that eclecticism is confusion, and architects confuse. The architect Dmitry Sokolov took the baptismal foundation near the church from the village of Ostrov, a hill of kokoshniks and side-altars near the Odigitria church in Vyazma, turned its tents into a tower similar to Ivan the Great - the church of Peter and Paul in Prokhorovka turned out (built in memory of the tank battle of 1943).
Aleksey Denisov (one of the most inveterate mixers) took the Assumption Cathedral of the Staritsa from Martynov's lithography, attached two bell towers instead of the eastern tents, similar to the Khamovniki ones, seated a large pseudo-Byzantine exedra between them, and on the sides the Smolensk vestibules from the 13th century - a project of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral came out in Rivne.
Andrei Obolensky took a "typical Novgorod" church with a three-legged end of the facades, from the west he attached a vestibule, similar to the vestibules of Yuryev-Polsky, inside he placed the Moscow baptismal vault, which Novgorod never had, and from the east - the apse of the Moscow church of the late 15th century. This is creativity, but creativity, which consists in the selection and compilation of samples, and somehow in parts, the ear from there, and the nose from here, and the skill consists in fidelity and the ability to collect a pool of samples.
The eclecticism of the 19th century did not know such mechanical construction. This is a feature of modern eclecticism, and best of all, that is, bringing it to the point of absurdity, it is demonstrated by the tablet (well, as usual) of Mikhail Posokhin, under whose wise guidance the architect Andrei Obolensky (the leading architect of the Patriarchate "ArchKhram" workshop, which means the legislator of official fashion) created a constructor of typical temples. In the center, a four-piece is drawn, to which it is proposed to attach whatever you want, whether a chapter, a tent, a side-altar, a vestibule, etc. This tablet looks like the quintessence of the entire exhibition - it directly and openly demonstrates the principle of simple attachment of elements to each other, which can be observed in a "hidden" form in most of the buildings shown at the exhibition. On the same principle, fantastic creatures of pre-antiquity were invented, for example, the Asia Minor chimera: the body from one, the head from the other - and here you are, please, a wonderful beast. We must think that the newest trend has formed before our eyes - chimerical eclecticism.
One that does not require an empathy with the tradition, which is enough to juggle with elements, and whoever makes the designer more bizarre is right. Soon, however, when the standard projects of Posokhin / Obolensky are put into operation, chimerical architects will no longer be needed at all - any priest will be able to order a church for himself by writing on a piece of paper to the builders: head number 5, apse number 2, porch number 8 - well, you understand …
Where do the elements come from? From books and especially from textbooks. The architects of the 19th century did not have textbooks, but now they do, and there is much that is drawn and written, which monuments are masterpieces and what should be copied. Therefore, the Church of the Intercession on the Nerl, Dmitrovsky Cathedral in Vladimir and the Cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery haunt the viewer of this exhibition, like Mona Lisa - a visitor to a pop art exhibition. And they return to the idea that the Russian architects of the 19th century did not have textbooks placing local masterpieces on the hierarchical ladder. And Europe and America had textbooks even then, thanks to the hardworking German-Antiquities: therefore, they knew for sure that the Parthenon and Erechtheion should be copied. Therefore, they have outlived this problem of copying masterpieces in the 19th century, and we are experiencing the peak of textbook reification now.
Architects have become book children, and I must say that those who immerse themselves in books deeper, manage to get away from the chimerical eclecticism, dive under it that way, and immersed in knowledge, create things a little more exciting, and sometimes even romantic. In this more worthy field, in addition to competition in copying accuracy and in the choice of more intricate samples, there is a phenomenon that can be called book romanticism.
Its first kind is reality correction. So, the architect Andrei Anisimov took the Cathedral of the Archangel from the Kremlin in Nizhny Novgorod, replaced his tent with an eight by the tent of the same architect (Antipa Konstantinov) from the Nizhny Novgorod Pechersky Monastery. He added barrels from the Nizhny Novgorod church of the Assumption on Ilya Hill to the narthex, and deprived the bell tower of the tent - probably because the restorer of this church of the 1960s Svyatoslav Agafonov in his books repeatedly wrote that the tent and rustic roof in the corners of the bell tower are late. But the dear restorer was mistaken, with whom it does not happen! In the 17th century there was a rustic and a tent on this bell tower; if the architect Andrei Anisimov knew this, he probably would not have begun to fix this place; but he did not know, after all, one cannot know everything. By the way, Andrey Anisimov's numerous projects - he covered two walls out of four with them, his works occupied almost a quarter of the entire exposition - at this exhibition there are the most scientists, precise in terms of stylization and various (this is not surprising, he is still the son of an academician of RAASN) … It is very exciting to look at its stands.
The same Andrei Anisimov in the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin for the village of Balakirevo was inspired by the princely church of Vladimir Bogolyubov, but not in that half-dead form in the reconstruction of the 18th century, as we know it now, but in the reconstruction of the archaeologist Nikolai Voronin. This is no wonder, now the church does not shine with grace, but according to the descriptions it was beautiful, and even the columns inside it were like golden trees. The architect did not reproduce the columns (which is a pity), but he built the openwork hipped-roof turret drawn by Voronin; and this is not the only example.
Reconstructions of famous historians and restorers embodied in stone are like the construction of a romantic dream and for an architectural historian they are rather pleasant. In any case, they prove that historians have not worked in vain. Although it must be said that back in the 1970s, the restorers laid the tradition of erecting their own fantasies in stone: for example, the upper half of the Cathedral of the Andronikov Monastery of the Savior is the same fantasy of the architects-restorers, only placed on the walls of the monument. Maybe it's good that now architects have the opportunity to build fantasies from textbooks (and scientific articles) out of the blue, without disturbing the monuments.
The second type of book romanticism is a touching craving for the restoration of historical justice. In the XIII century, the Russian principalities were conquered by the Tatar-Mongols, imposed a tribute, and stone construction practically stopped. The tradition was interrupted, frankly, on takeoff - and so, looking at the exhibition, one might think that the architects are trying to fill the gap that was formed because of Batu. They all the time strive to design something stepped, high, flying upward, or, in extreme cases, to attach to their churches 3 vestibules, which went out of fashion in the 15th century, but so successfully form a stepped silhouette. You might think that architects in this way are striving to symbolically heal an old wound, to throw off, do you understand, the ancient yoke and to fill the gap, to develop a flight that did not take place in the XIII century … But excuse me, why this particular wound? Why, with the abundance of other wounds, are we so worried about the yoke of seven hundred years ago?
This is probably also the reason for the theory: historians wrote that it was in the stepped churches that Russian architecture first broke away from Byzantine, became independent and even "original" (this is not surprising, Byzantium was just at that moment conquered and ruined by the crusaders). For Russian architecture, according to the conviction of art critic Mikhail Ilyin, are characteristic: firstly, the striving upward, and secondly, the predominance of external form.
This is probably why the worst thing so far is the interiors. Not only are they not always even eager to show, but what has been shown is sometimes simply frightening. Using concrete structures, architects first of all remove the pillars from the interiors. This is done, apparently, by a simple removal method. After the removal is made, and the chapter outside must be kept in the traditional one, i.e. As a rule, in a narrow form, architects begin to think about what to do with the ceiling, that is, excuse me, with the vaults left without pillars in some kind of suspended state. Arches, sails, cuts and bevels appear, sometimes quite ridiculous.
One of the typical examples of an unsuccessful interior is the Yaroslavl Assumption Cathedral of Alexei Denisov. Four round pillars, once used by Aristotle Fioravanti to make the space of the Moscow Dormition Cathedral brighter and more spacious, Alesy Denisov put on giant thick pedestals taller than human height, because of which the cathedral, despite the large windows, is below, there, where people stand turns out to be dark and even gray. At the top, the pillars are crowned with flat slabs sticking out on the sides, of which disproportionately thin arches grow. And if you go to the gallery, then the series of domed vaults makes it look like a Turkish bath rather than a Byzantine narthex (it was somehow elusively wrong there).
Other patterns can also be traced. Now the ghost of last year's Paris competition hangs over Orthodox architecture. And the organizers say about it - they say, the competition has aggravated, and we decided to arrange an exhibition, to see who we have there and how. However, at the exhibition in the CAP, there were only a few of the projects of the Paris center, and even then unrepresentative, not the most, frankly, beautiful. It seems that the competition has posed a problem, but no one undertakes to solve it, and everything somehow hung up, like an overworked computer.
If we talk about successes, then first of all it must be said that all architects succeed in small forms much better than large ones. The dependence is direct - the smaller the structure, the better it turns out; the overhead chapels are especially good. As if the measure of artistic talent released for one object is equal, and in a small church it is concentrated more densely.
Moreover, it is in small temples that the only version of a new temple typology that has emerged over the past 20 years is found. True, this option is so timid that it should rather be called a "subtype". You can see him in the projects of Andrei Obolensky: for example, in the Church of Basil the Great at the All-Russian Exhibition Center or Pantelemon at the FSB hospital. These churches can be defined as "monogamous". The fact is that Russian craftsmen in the 15th and 16th centuries, when they began to build pillarless churches with a solid, albeit small, internal space, continued to decorate them from the outside as if these pillars were inside: they divided the walls into three spainles, or at least at least the four were crowned with three (or more) kokoshniks.
In the early 1990s, architects decided to treat the pillarless church as a part removed from a large temple - one zakomare on each facade. One of the earliest rebuilt churches, the Church of St. George on Poklonnaya Hill, should probably be considered the ancestor of a new type of small church. And there are at least two prerequisites for this. The first is concrete, a material that pushes the architect towards a more solid form. The second is, again, the theoretical works of historians who have repeatedly compared the pillarless temples of the 16th and 17th centuries with parts "carved" from large temples. The reasoning developed approximately like this: we take the temple of the Andronikov Monastery of the Savior, cut off the "extra" pillars, leave only the central part with a drum and supporting arches, and in the end we get a pillarless temple with a criss-cross vault. Whether the architects of the early 16th century reasoned this way or not, this is a big question, but modern architects reasoned definitely this way (especially since, unlike the ancient Russian architects, they could read about it in the book of the academician of RAASN Sergei Popadyuk) - and it turned out similarly. Here's the effect of theory on practice, please.
The temples of "one zakomara" must be recognized as the most curious achievement of modern church architecture. They look like chapels, and as already mentioned, chapels are the best that Orthodox architecture can boast of now: compact, vertically elongated, attracting high-quality decor, and often similar to their predecessors of the Art Nouveau style.
And the Art Nouveau style itself serves as a kind of medicine for Orthodox architects: those who own it act both more exciting and romantic. Perhaps this is because it was Art Nouveau that turned out to be the last style in a series of traditions interrupted by the revolution, and therefore, when modern architects try to tie a knot from Art Nouveau, it turns out especially harmoniously. By the way, Art Nouveau also knew "one-size-fits-all" temples, only there were fewer of them. A well-known example is the church in the Talashkino estate near Smolensk; the architect Alexander Mameshin repeated it quite accurately, although he enlarged it, building the temple of Seraphim of Sarov in Khabarovsk. However, Art Nouveau is best obtained when it is repeated either accurately or with soul, and at least they do not skimp on decor.
Another good doctor is classicism, but he is ruthless, like a surgeon: here you have to either work exactly (at least copy exactly), or not mess with. Although the main architects of the churches in the style of classicism, Ilya Utkin and Mikhail Filippov, were not at the exhibition.
One way or another, and the material, first collected together, despite its incompleteness and leapfrogging quality, is very entertaining. The phenomenon must be recognized as fully established: temple architecture has not only its own preferences and its own masters, but also its own conferences and a full set of normative documentation: from technical norms to a manual on spiritual foundations. The main author of most of the texts is Mikhail Kesler from the ArchKhram architectural and artistic center of the Moscow Patriarchate, the son of a priest and an architect who has been involved in church architecture since 1981.
So, temple architecture has long been an established phenomenon, but it exists in a very confined space. Not all architects will now undertake the design of the temple. And some of those who once undertook out of necessity, consider it necessary not to advertise their experience. All this is completely unsurprising: our religious architecture exists in a very narrow plane, limited, on the one hand, by the conservatism of customers, and on the other, by the giftedness of architects who are ready to contact this industry despite all its limitations. So it develops like a cucumber in a bottle - it grows only where it can, and takes the form of the walls that bound it. And it is not possible to take this vegetable out of the bottle - it has already grown a lot, and breaking the bottle is also scary.
