The basement of the Aptekarsky Prikaz contains photographs of 28 buildings by Hans Scharun (1892-1972), covering a significant part of the last century - from the 1920s to the 1970s (or even the end of the 1980s, if we count the Hall chamber music of the Philharmonic in Berlin). The author of these photographs, architect and architectural historian Karsten Krohn, began photographing these buildings in the course of his research work, and then it turned into an independent project. Although the buildings of Sharun are captured today, they were filmed in such a way as to convey their appearance as much as possible without later changes and layering, which, obviously, imposed restrictions on the choice of angles and formats.
Nevertheless, the chronological arrow from pictures, directed to the past, from the later to the earliest buildings of Scharun, leads us not only through his work, but also through the history of Germany in the 20th century. The architect never left his homeland - even when, after 1933, he was forced to hide the innovative interiors of his private houses under the “traditional” look prescribed by the authorities. The villas built at that time, however, are no less, and sometimes even more interesting than the buildings erected before in the Berlin City of Siemens (1930), nicknamed by the inhabitants of the "battleship" (nautical motifs are found in many of Sharun's works, and the "battleship" itself is the echo of Eisenstein's film that was released at that moment) or the huge country house of the manufacturer Schminke (1933) with a complex flowing layout and large glazing areas.
Perhaps the forced return of Sharun to tiles and bricks (which was required not only by formal censorship, but also by the state monopoly on the use of concrete and steel, which went to less innocent needs) went so well, because the architect began his career with similar tasks. Traditional materials and techniques were used by him in the construction of residential buildings "Motley Ryad" in Insterburg (now - Chernyakhovsk, Kaliningrad region) in the early 1920s - during the restoration of East Prussia after the destruction of the First World War. Archi.ru published an article by one of the initiators of the current exhibition in the Museum of Architecture Dmitry Sukhin (part 1, part 2) about the exciting history of this - the earliest - work of Sharun. The "colorful row", now in need of urgent restoration, can also be seen in the photographs of Carsten Krohn.
In the biography of Scharun - participation in the expressionist "Glass Chain" by Bruno Taut, and in the association of modernists "Ring" founded by Hugo Hering and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, in exhibitions of the German Werkbund in 1927 (house number 33 in the village of Weissenhof) and in 1929 (house for bachelors and small families in Breslau-Wroclaw), as well as non-participation by the decision of the organizers in the Bauhaus exhibition in 1923: he and his friend Hering did not fit into this review of the modern movement due to the lack of "simplicity" and "industrialism" of their buildings …
After the war, Scharoun, who had previously developed the general plan of the City of Siemens, as head of the Berlin City Council Building Department, directed the creation of the Collective Plan (1946), which assumed the complex development of the city as a linear chain of “neighborhoods” along the Spree valley. This plan was not implemented, but his ideas laid down there were used by Sharun in other projects. He continued the development of the City of Siemens in the nearby Charlottenburg Severny (1961) district, having previously calculated what type and size of apartments Berliners lacked: they made up this residential area. The area, as in many other West German examples of those years, was deliberately populated by residents of different incomes and different professions - without any social segregation. Sharun should have been especially close to such a scheme, since, having never been a member of any party, he was an adherent of "socialism of the heart" all his life.
The most famous building of the architect is the already mentioned Concert Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic (1963), later supplemented by the Musical Instruments Museum (1971) and the Chamber Music Hall (1987). Even if Scharoun had not designed anything in his life, except for the Berlin Concert Hall, he would still go down in the history of world architecture: the innovative arrangement of spectator seats as terraces around the stage brought listeners and performers closer together, changing the usual frontal "scenario" of music perception. This scheme was then reproduced many times by other architects, but perhaps no one has yet succeeded in fully repeating the solution of the space and acoustic properties of the Berlin hall. Perhaps the explanation for this is that the social, humanistic idea of Sharun is overlooked: "Space is created by a person who experiences it and fills it with meaning." This quality of the hall was immediately appreciated by contemporaries: Spiegel magazine called the Philharmonic the first democratic space in Germany.
Also among the heritage of Sharun are finely thought-out schools, a kind of "township" of pavilions and streets, where students of different ages would be comfortable and interesting to study, residential complexes, including the famous "Romeo and Juliet" in Stuttgart (1959), very commercially successful despite at first glance, an acutely original layout (most rooms in apartments have five or more corners, but, according to the residents, they are very comfortable), the State Library of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin (completed in 1979; its reading room can be seen in the film "Sky over Berlin”by Wim Wenders), the city theater in Wolfsburg (1973) - more than 300 projects and buildings in total.
It is difficult to stick a style label on Sharun's work. The complex outline of many of his buildings seems to remind of expressionism, unusually free plans - of organic architecture, their compliance with the program and convenience speaks of functionalism. The main thing for this architect was the space, which he designed with context and purpose in mind. On the other hand, space is a key concept for the modernist paradigm, but Sharun does not have much in common with it. Prominent British researcher Peter Blundell-Jones believes that Scharoun's space influenced German architects, but was hardly understood outside the country. Dmitry Sukhin also speaks of something similar: in his opinion, Sharun's "soil" creativity - unlike the ideas of the Bauhaus - could not become an export product. Therefore, the architect, despite all the difficulties, remained in Germany: he would not have been able to work in a foreign land and would hardly have found a response there. However, Sukhin also emphasizes the "constructiveness" and immanent functionality of Sharun's architecture as an alternative to the popular juggling of style "signs" and therefore sees in the close acquaintance with his works of the domestic public not abstract intellectual entertainment, but quite practical benefits - as from studying a worthy model.
It is believed that the 20th century erased the differences between the architecture of different countries, brought everything to a common denominator. Perhaps these days, national borders are really disappearing, but the situation with the last century is much more complicated. In most countries of the world, outstanding masters worked who obviously do not fit into the "general line" of the history of architecture, as it is customary to tell. If we take the global scale, there will be almost more prominent “loners” who were outside the globalization process than the major figures of the “mainstream”. Attempts are now being made to make the history of modern architecture less black and white, not so unipolar, and the exhibition at the Museum of Architecture, revealing the diversity of Hans Scharun's work for the domestic audience, can be considered a step in this direction.
The sponsors of the exhibition were the Charitable Foundation for the History and Culture of Prussia "Wiedergeburt" and the Keimfarben company, whose paints still cover the facades of the "Motley row", Hans Scharun's residential buildings in Insterburg-Chernyakhovsk: no repainting was required since 1921.
