Anna Bronovitskaya, architectural historian, research director at the Institute of Modernism:
“When people talk about VDNKh, they usually imagine fountains, the main pavilion with a spire and other Stalinist splendor. But all this refers to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, and the VDNKh itself existed from 1959 to 1991. The pavilions built during this time represent practically all variants of the architecture of Soviet post-war modernism, with the exception of mass construction, and the first approaches to postmodernism. It is a pity that with the hasty renovation of the exhibition ensemble for a new opening in the summer of 2014, the most interesting of the earliest experiments in the development of modernist aesthetics in the USSR - the aluminum façade of the Radio Electronics and Communications pavilion - was destroyed. But there is enough left to study the history of architecture of the 1960s – 1980s without leaving the exhibition grounds. There is no other territory in Moscow with such a concentration of original buildings from this period.
Circular cinema panorama
Natalia Strigaleva, engineer Georgy Muratov
1959
A very modest-looking building (especially after the loss of the "crown" of glowing tubes) - the shell of a unique attraction, a cinema with a 360 ° projection and a monument to Khrushchev's attempt to "catch up and overtake America." The circular motion picture appeared at VDNKh in connection with the American exhibition in Sokolniki in 1959, which in itself was an unprecedented event. Learning that the Americans were going to bring to Moscow the "Circorama" - a panoramic cinema system patented by Walt Disney a few years earlier, Khrushchev ordered the creation of a superior Soviet analogue, which was done. Soviet designers in the shortest possible time developed a method of shooting, mixing and projection of full-panoramic films, and the architect Strigaleva and engineer Muratov designed and built a building for their demonstration in three months.
It is arranged very simply: in the center there is a round hall with screens, around there is a gallery, in the upper tier of which there is a projection room, and in the lower tier there is a foyer and administrative premises. From the outside, it looks like a deaf drum, animated only by groups of ventilation grill holes, "hovering" over the solid glazed foyer. No columns, no stucco molding, no cornice - just a fashionable luminescent sign with a repeating inscription "Circular cinema panorama" along the edge of the roof. It looked incredibly modern and, together with the facade of Radioelectronics, which appeared at the same time for the opening of VDNKh, showed how far the country had gone in a short time after Stalin's death.
"Gas Industry" (No. 21)
Elena Antsuta, Vladislav Kuznetsov
1967
In 1967, the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of the revolution, and by this date VDNKh was significantly updated. Two-thirds of the pavilions were demolished on the Promyshlennosti Square and four large pavilions were built in their place - "Consumer Goods", "Chemical Industry", "Electrification" and the pavilion of inter-branch exhibitions. The last of them demonstrated the possibilities of creating unique buildings from standard elements, which turned out to be not very convincing. In 2015, it was demolished, and a Rosatom pavilion is planned to be built in its place. The grandiose, 229 m long façade pavilion "Consumer Goods" (No. 57, Igor Vinogradskiy, V. Zaltsman, designers Mikhail Berklide, A. Belyaev, Alexander Levenshtein) in the same 2015 was replaced with a remake, which housed the historical park "Russia - my story"). But the pavilion "Chemical Industry", like its larger brother mentioned above, demonstrating the fascination of Soviet architects with the work of Mies van der Rohe (No. 20, Boris Vilensky, A. Vershinin, engineers I. Levitis, N. Bulkin, etc.) is still preserved intact. Just behind it, away from the main axis of the exhibition, on the site of the "Potatoes and Vegetable Growing" pavilion, the "Gas Industry" pavilion was built. Its appearance leaves no doubt that the hero of the authors was not Mies, but another genius of modern architecture - Le Corbusier: the visor, which is strongly bent, resembling a boat, is, of course, inspired by the Capella in Ronchamp. The principle of overflowing external and internal spaces was emphasized by a ceramic mosaic depicting a gas flame, starting on the wall outside the pavilion and continuing into the interior behind the glass envelope. Alas, now this cannot be seen: with the recent reconstruction, the mosaic in the interior has disappeared. In the same renovation, new windows were cut into the façade, although the originally curved blank surface served as the background for the metal relief depicting gas wells and the inscription “Gas Industry”.
"Poultry" (No. 37)
Vladimir Bogdanov, V. Magidov, M. Leontiev
1968
Vladimir Bogdanov worked a lot for the Foreign Ministry, built Soviet embassies abroad. Perhaps that is why the pavilion is distinguished by the style and quality of construction, which were difficult to find outside the Baltic states on the territory of the USSR. The building stretched along the shore of the pond is divided into volumes slightly displaced relative to each other so as not to overwhelm the scale. Additional fragmentation, which does not cause a feeling of anxiety or variegation, is created by the combination of textures: light brick and a dark hog of the basement coexist with glass, light concrete, stained wood and dark metal from which the chopped letters of the sign are made. The sculpture of a rooster, mounted on a high pillar in front of the entrance, further reinforces the Baltic associations. Industrial poultry farming is a pretty scary thing. Visitors were distracted from realizing this by the futuristic exposition of the introductory hall with stands made in the form of giant eggs, and the construction of a wing with a natural exposition. Aviaries and bird cages were fenced off with odor-blocking glass, and on the other side, through the same panoramic glass, a beautiful landscape with a pond opened up.
"Gardening, viticulture and subtropical crops" (No. 22)
B. S. Vilensky, Akopov, V. I. Zhuk, Pumpyanskaya, engineers I. Levites, A. M. Broida, Goryacheva
1968–1971
This is the last building of Boris Vilensky, a member of the Vkhutemas, who died in 1970. In 1959, he was one of the first to participate in the return of modern architecture to the USSR, leading a team that built several elegant glass cafes in Sokolniki, and then, together with Igor Vinogradsky, designed exhibition pavilions in Sokolniki and at VDNKh, varying one theme - a glass parallelepiped. Here, perhaps due to the participation of young colleagues, the solution is more complicated. There is also a glass parallelepiped, but it is lined with an elegant cage and pushed back, and the facade is curved in a wave and covered with a relief cladding made of shell rock. In addition to the traditionally open, flowing spaces of the exposition part, the pavilion had a tasting room, decorated as befits a restaurant of that time: brick floor, wooden ceiling and walls covered with tuff with inserts of ceramics and metal casting.
"Floriculture and gardening" (No. 29)
Igor Vinogradskiy, Vladimir Nikitin, G. V. Astafiev, N. Bogdanova, L. Marinovsky, A. Rydaev, engineer Mikhail Berklide and others, sculptor Yuri Alexandrov
1969–1971
Probably the most interesting and complexly organized of the modernist pavilions of VDNKh. This time, the starting point for the authors was the work of Louis Kahn. The pavilion was designed along with the landscape area, where the pools were put forward for the demonstration of aquatic plants - alas, they have not been functioning for a long time. From the outside, it looks like a group of stone cubes put together, above which rises obliquely cut pyramids of light wells. Inside - a very rare case in Soviet practice - we find open concrete structures, moreover, of amazing beauty. The pavilion has a fortunate fate; it has still retained its purpose. Of course, the chaos of modern stands confuses the feeling of space, but by lifting your head and looking over the partitions, you can still appreciate the quality of the architecture. One corner - a café with a winter garden - has been preserved almost as it was in the 1970s. Another joy of this pavilion is the convex-concave, openwork relief "Flora" by the sculptor Yuri Alexandrov in the deepening of the facade in front of the entrance.
"Seeds" (No. 7)
Zoya Arzamasova, engineer D. Zemtsov
1974–1979
The pavilion, located in an open area at the bend of the Ring Alley, immediately attracts attention with its dynamic form, which changes depending on the angle. When approaching from the South entrance, we see two intersecting triangles, and from the perpendicular alley, the plane of the facade opens with an asymmetrically located rectangular tower. Only after walking around and going inside, you realize that the parallelepiped of the main volume is cut by two vertically placed triangular plates, the stained-glass windows of which let in daylight into the interior. And the architect did not fight with the lowering of the relief on the site, but opened the basement towards the "pit", thus preserving the trees growing on the site. Seeds are still traded inside, fragments of the original exposition and even authentic plaques with male and female silhouettes on the toilet doors have been preserved.
Annex to the Sheep Breeding Pavilion (No. 2)
V. E. Popova
1974
One of the pavilions of the idyllic livestock town of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in 1954 was re-qualified for the "Reproduction of farm animals". This formulation meant artificial insemination, and for such a progressive theme, the old architecture, stylized as a 17th century monastery building, was not very suitable. Fortunately, Pavilion A7 by Kolesnichenko and G. Savinov was not demolished, but simply given a new entrance with a round corner tower crossed by a cantilever.
