April 11 at the Museum of Architecture. A. V. Shchusev, the presentation of the book "Ilya Chernyavsky" by the TATLIN publishing house and the opening of an exhibition dedicated to the work of Ilya Chernyavsky will take place.
The book can be purchased on the publisher's website.
Friend of Michelangelo and Borromini
Ilya Zinovievich Chernyavsky was born in Odessa on March 27, 1917. There he spent his childhood and youth. In the same place, in 1936, he entered the architectural faculty of the Odessa Institute of Civil and Municipal Construction. He was awarded an architect diploma on June 22, 1941.
It is worth paying attention to these two dates - 1917 and 1941, which left a noticeable mark in the history of our country.
We met him in 1974. I don't remember who brought us together. I remember that we went together to see the newly built according to his project, 60 km from Moscow
boarding house "Voronovo". The impressions of what I saw exceeded all my expectations. On the banks of a large reservoir stood a long white building, reminiscent of a train driven by a powerful locomotive. It burst into this tranquil landscape, reflecting its plastic forms in the mirror of the water. The train stopped, but the sensation of movement did not disappear. And then, visiting the object many times, I noticed that this feeling does not disappear. Many of those to whom I showed it later said the same thing. Mobility and dynamics of forms are at the core of the building's architecture. It is akin to music - powerful and at the same time delicately instrumented. Such mobility is a consequence of the multidirectionality and contrast of all the constituent elements of the composition. These qualities are felt everywhere: in contrast to the large volumes of dormitory and public buildings; in the interaction of smaller form divisions, their horizontal and vertical components; in the contrast of deaf and light-transmitting surfaces; in the light gradation of interiors and the like. The dynamics of forms developing in different directions is largely due to the variety of reactions of internal spaces to the natural environment, their opening outward, a visual dialogue of the internal and external.
The building exhibits itself in different ways - with distant panoramic points of view from the opposite side of the reservoir and with a closer, perspective perception while walking around the perimeter. Here, the pulsation of rhythms is most clearly felt. Direct sunlight and its change during the day intensify the drama of forms, their plastic tension. Light not only simulates the external form, but, penetrating inside, determines various states of the interior environment, which are often quite dynamic as well. An example of this is the multi-tiered atrium of the public building. One can “blame” the architecture of the boarding house for excessive expression, excessive emotionality. But such was the nature of its main creator - the architect Ilya Chernyavsky. The architecture of the boarding house was striking in its relaxedness. Chernyavsky was already 57 then. He built something in Moscow. But he could really open up only here, in Voronovo. The shackles fell. In Voronovo, the basic principles of Chernyavsky's professional vision were laid, based on the structural construction of the architectural form, its spatial mobility. This arsenal of tools will be expanded in the future and interpreted depending on the typology of objects, their size and location. The spatial structure of the complexes, the geometric component of the volumetric elements of the composition and their connections will become more complex. New motives and details associated with the general evolution of modern architecture and with its appeal to historical prototypes will appear. But by introducing these new elements, he will remain true to his fundamental principles of building an architectural form.
The duet of the public and dormitory buildings, so brilliantly developed in Voronovo, will be modified in Otradnoye, taking into account the real landscape situation. Here, the public building, located at the highest elevations of the slope, takes center stage in the composition. The direction of the dynamic forces is different - the public building seems to push the chain of residential rooms to the water, resting on the slope of a natural hill. Between them is a high atrium, open towards a kind of canyon formed by these buildings.
In "Planerny" their connection is due to the presence of a standard project, which is modified and partially adapted by Chernyavsky to this place. In the interior, it is worth paying attention to the cylindrical fireplace, in front of which I managed to somehow photograph the author looking at the fire - a symbol of endless movement and the diversity of life and creativity, to which he always aspired.
Since the late 1960s, Chernyavsky began to design large recreational complexes for the South, the creation of which, as shown by international and domestic experience, turned out to be a very difficult task. Designers will be faced with a series of problems and contradictions here. The development of vast territories, the construction of the necessary infrastructures, high densities, etc. lead to an openly urbanistic environment, which few people associate with such concepts as silence, solitude, peace. And the need to build large-scale buildings, including high-rise buildings, deforms the surrounding landscape - the basis of the recreation industry. In the grandiose development project of the resort town of Adler, the verticals of residential buildings are forced to be present. But the architect is trying to alleviate them by dismembering the solid mass of the building with horizontal air breakthroughs. In the following projects he creates "clusters", beams of towers of different height, reminiscent of the silhouette of the surrounding hills. Or transforms architectural volumes into stepped, terraced forms with even flatter outlines. He implements this technique in the construction of a small dormitory building in Krasnaya Pakhra. It should be said here that the key to the problem of dividing large volumes and spaces, their approximation to the scale of a person, was successfully tested even when solving the huge dining room in the "Voronovo" boarding house. There Chernyavsky, using the differences in the levels of small sections of the floor, allocated separate spaces, visually isolated from one another.
Of the large volume of design work for the South, very little has been built. These isolated fragments do not give rise to productive criticism. Strict requirements of standardization and, as a result, the dull repetition of metric rhythms deprived these buildings of the living breath of the architecture of "Voronov", "Otradny", "Krasnaya Pakhra". The architect's aspirations are clear, but the result, judging at least by Gelendzhik, hardly satisfied the author himself.
But the work continued. The House of Creativity of Journalists in Elino is an unconditional success of the designers. The free blocking of buildings around the artificial reservoir and the close surroundings of the scale would lead to obvious success if the project were implemented. The appearance in the following projects of a new arched theme was, possibly, the result of the influence of postmodern aesthetics, moreover, purely external, since the structural basis for the construction of the architectural form remained almost unchanged. In the projects of the dormitory building for the same "Planerny" and the kindergarten for "Krasnaya Pakhra", this theme occupies only the front planes, although then it finds a three-dimensional and spatial embodiment.
The most radical for Chernyavsky's worldview will be two projects of the late 1980s - a ski resort on Elbrus and a youth center "Verkhovyna" in Transcarpathia. Both projects propose a move unusual for previous creativity - the unification of functional blocks into a single closed volume, the integral form of which becomes the bearer of its architectural image. This idea is most strongly expressed in the project of a ski base on Elbrus, where the building resembles either some strange crystal pierced into a snow-covered mountainside, or some space object that unexpectedly landed in this place. Pitched roofs, sharp intersections and triangular ledges create an impression of power and aggressiveness. Verkhovyna is one of Chernyavsky's most mysterious projects, looking like some fantastic flying creature. Despite its large size, the building is very accurately placed on the relief and is inscribed in the picturesque landscape of Transcarpathia. The theme, which the architect himself would later call “village”, is another attempt to create a living architectural environment based on the traditions of spontaneously developing historical settlements. Evidence of this is Chernyavsky's works such as the project of a pioneer camp near Minusinsk, a hotel complex in Yalta and, of course, the Derevnya boarding house in Sochi.
In the first of them, axial displacements of volumes of the same type in space and the variety of their completions serve as the basis for the programmed spontaneity and chaos of the environment. In the second, the area of the city set aside for building is deliberately saturated with a complicated geometry of spaces and volumes with openly postmodern plastic facades. “Village” in Sochi is probably the most accurate answer of an architect to the question: “What is a recreation environment?”. There is everything here - a variety of forms and their mobility, the possibility of solitude and peace, open nature and freely flowing spaces, a whole labyrinth of images, polyphony of the environment. The graphic presentation of the project is impeccable. The project of a cultural center for Sochi demonstrates not only the maturity of the author's urban planning thinking, but also his active assimilation of a new vocabulary of modern architecture means. Very high quality project.
The final chord of this great symphony, called "The Architecture of Chernyavsky", was the project of the Ice Palace in Sochi (1992). This work is distinguished by dignity and tranquility, synthesizing the long-term searches of the master.
The beginning of the 1990s brought little consolation - the workshop was shrinking, orders were getting smaller, age took its toll. New themes and new customers did not really inspire him, and he already had little strength. We rarely met during these years. In August 1994, when he died, I was not in Moscow, and I could not say goodbye to him …
Ilya Zinovievich Chernyavsky immensely loved architecture. He was obsessed with her. This is a special kind of creative excitement that has no beginning or end - wherever a person is and how he feels. Chernyavsky possessed rare stubbornness and perseverance, although he sometimes complained that he was tired, that he was tired of everything. In his work he was collected and firm, never deviated from his ideas. Customers and administrators tormented him, but he stood his ground. There were enough difficulties, but he seemed not to notice them. His method was traditionally simple for the artist - the method of insight, in which the idea is embodied in small sketches, concentrating the main artistic idea of the author. Then this idea is developed and turned into design drawings and mock-ups. He believed in the purpose of architecture and mastered the art of its creation. He wanted architecture to sound powerful. His proactive stance viewed his surroundings - urban or natural - both as a source of inspiration and as an environment to which he is able to add something new.
Chernyavsky's architecture is complex, multifaceted, dynamic. In my opinion, if he lived in the era of Michelangelo and Borromini, he would have chosen them as his best friends.
Ilya Zinovievich was multifaceted, like his architecture. Composure and firmness in business were combined in him with some kind of childish touchingness.
He was a lonely person, and I have often felt this. But his love for architecture saved him from many sorrows, and he never betrayed her.
