"Masterpieces from the collection of the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture. Ten Centuries of Russian Architecture"

The year 2024 marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the A.V. Shchusev State Research Museum of Architecture.

From the first days of its existence, the Museum has become a center for preserving, studying and popularizing the history of Russian architecture. Today the Museum's collection includes about 840,000 items: authentic architectural graphics, measured drawings, a rich collection of photographic materials, paintings, fragments of destroyed buildings, a collection of decorative and applied art, models and layouts, and personal archives of architects.

The Foundation for Development of Science and Culture "Tavolga" in partnership with the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation within the framework of the National Project "Culture" present a traveling exhibition demonstrating the rich history of the development of Russian architecture from the Middle Ages to the end of the twentieth century - "Masterpieces from the collection of the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture. Ten Centuries of Russian Architecture". The exhibition will be held in several Russian cities, the first of which will be Khabarovsk.

On the authentic items from the Museum's collection visitors will be able to see the richness and diversity of architecture of different regions of Russia, the interrelation and continuity in the development of architectural schools, currents and styles. Through sketches and drawings, models and details of reliefs, tiles and photographs the residents of Khabarovsk will be able to get acquainted with the best monuments of the Pskov, Vladimir-Suzdal, early Moscow architectural schools, tent architecture, the epochs of Petrovsky and Elizabethan Baroque, classicism and Empire, historicism and modernism, avant-garde, Stalinist neoclassicism and modernism.

"Architecture is a special kind of art that cannot exist outside the natural, climatic and social context. For this reason, a story about the history of architecture is not a conversation about individual buildings and their authors, it is a conversation about spiritual culture and national identity, about the level of development of society and its ideal aspirations. All regions of the country at a certain historical stage made their own special contribution to the formation of the national architectural heritage, and the traveling exhibition, which has a single semantic core, will include in each of the three host cities a special set of materials emphasizing the architecture of the region",

— Natalia Shashkova, Director of the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture.

The exhibition will be held at Khabarovsk Krai Museum named after N.I. Grodekov. The exposition pays special attention to the architecture of the Russian Far East. Visitors will see the competitive projects of the first half of the twentieth century: the project of the building Dalbank architect Vladimir Vladimirov, large-format cinema "Ocean" in Vladivostok, the planning of the Central District of Khabarovsk architects D. Piller and V. Dontsova. Dontsova.

"The architectural heritage of our country is an incredible value that we are still continuing to realize. In the anniversary year of the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture, it is especially important for us to continue our joint mission to preserve and popularize the architectural heritage. Thanks to it, this year the Far East has become especially close for our Foundation. We are very happy that the first people who will be able to see the exhibition dedicated to the masterpieces of architectural heritage will be the residents of Khabarovsk",

— Marina Bondareva, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Tavolga Foundation for the Development of Science and Culture.

"This exhibition project is very important for us. Just as it is difficult for local history to talk about the region, it is very difficult for architecture to talk about architecture: how to preserve it - through sketches, through models, through people? The A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture carries out very important activities, because it preserves "our face". Architecture is nothing but the face of the country, the face of every town and village. It is different for everyone, but at the same time there is something common that unites and distinguishes our big country from others, makes it special",

— Ivan Kryukov, General Director of the N.I. Grodekov Khabarovsk Territory Museum.

The exhibition presents 99 unique authentic objects from the collection of the A.V. Shchusev State Research Museum of Architecture, many of which have never been exhibited outside Moscow. Among them: author's graphics of outstanding architects of the Classicist era, Nikolai Lvov and Afanasy Grigoriev; masters of the Historicist and Art Nouveau era, Leontius Benois, Alexei Shchusev and Fyodor Shechtel; classics of Soviet architecture, Georgy Krutikov, Ilya Golosov, Konstantin Melnikov and Ivan Leonidov, reconstructions of Old Russian monuments made by the famous restoration scientist Dmitry Sukhov, engravings, lithographs and paintings of the 18th - 19th centuries, photographs by the classics of Russian photography Ivan Barshchevsky, Alexander Alexandrov and Sergey Shimansky. The graphic materials are supplemented by models, authentic fragments of the Peter and Paul Church in Smolensk, the Trinity Church in Kostroma, the cathedral of the Vvedensky Monastery in Solvychegodsk, as well as a decorative lion mask made to a sketch by Mikhail Vrubel in the Abramtsevo workshops.

Exhibition curators:
Ksenia SmirnovaMr. Shchusev, art historian, deputy director of the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture for educational activities;
Varvara AlyoshinaMs. Shchusev, art historian, head of the Popularization Department of the A.V. Shchusev Museum of Architecture.