On January 20, the exhibition “Temples: Modernity of Tradition - Church Architecture by Jerzy Ustinovich. Ideas, Projects and Realizations 1986-2013.
A rather ascetic exhibition of projects of Orthodox and Catholic churches by the Polish architect Jerzy Ustinovich for the first time in St. Petersburg, but not for the first time in Russia: over the past two years, she managed to visit Veliky Novgorod and Moscow. The opening ceremony in the Italian Hall of the Academy of Arts was attended by the architect himself, the Consul General of Poland in St. Petersburg Piotr Marcinjak, the rector of the Academy Semyon Mikhailovsky, as well as architects and representatives of the clergy.
In his welcoming speech, Father Alexander (rector of the Church of the Great Martyr Catherine, which is located within the walls of the Academy) said that Russian temple builders are now students who are looking for the key to how to build church buildings. In Poland, the Christian tradition was not interrupted, as in ours, due to a change in political course, so we should listen to the experience of our close neighbors. It is very difficult to create a modern, functional, and at the same time beautiful temple, but Polish architects succeed.
Jerzy Ustinovich said that he comes to Russia as a pilgrim - he also learns from Russian churches. According to the architect, the time has come when the West and the East, the Catholic and Orthodox churches, exchange values, and this is a very positive process. Russian architects need to turn to contemporary art, but not break with tradition. Mr. Ustinovich admitted that in Poland, out of five thousand churches built over the past 20 years, only 30-40 can be called successful. The same is happening in Ukraine. A common problem for our countries: the loss of connection with tradition, the creation of forms without content. According to the architect, it is not worth solving the problem by copying historical samples: modernity sets a completely different context that cannot be ignored. Therefore, it is preferable to conduct architectural competitions when building new temples.
Jerzy Ustinovich's hometown is Polish Bialystok, where he now teaches at the Polytechnic University. Throughout his life, the architect has created more than 60 projects of buildings, almost half of which are religious buildings - 12 of them have been built or are under construction. The architect designed all the churches for the cities of Poland, with the exception of the Church of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious in Belarusian Grodno. Jerzy Ustinovich is a laureate of many architectural competitions, including Russian ones. In 1988, he took first prize in the competition for a church in honor of the millennium of the baptism of Russia in Moscow, and more recently he was among the top ten laureates of the competition "Modern architectural solution of the image of an Orthodox church", which was held by the Union of Architects last fall. The participants of the competition had to submit architectural solutions with interesting compositional and artistic expressiveness, but with the observance of the necessary religious requirements. The architects could place a temple for 500-600 people in the center of an open urban space, in a city block or in an open suburban space. More than 100 works from cities of Russia, Latvia, Ukraine and Poland were submitted to the competition.
Four projects of Jerzy Ustinovich took part in the competition at once, one of which (the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Bielsk Podlaski) allowed the architect to be among the winners. The other day at the State Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchusev, a presentation of the collection “Russian Church of the XXI century. Reflections on Contemporary Church Architecture”, the release of which was timed to coincide with the final stage of the competition. It is worth mentioning that the competition was attended by projects used in the framework of the "200 temples" program. The initiative to build 200 churches in Moscow's dormitory districts was put forward by Patriarch Kirill three years ago. The authorities supported the project, and in 2010 the government issued a decree "On the construction of modular Orthodox churches in the city of Moscow." In 2011, construction plots were identified. According to the official website of the program, 8 churches have been built to date, 24 more are under construction.
Exhibition “Temples: Modernity of Tradition - Church Architecture of Jerzy Ustinovich. Ideas, Projects and Realizations 1986-2013”will last until January 23, after which it will again go to Moscow.
