«Architectural ensembles»

1937-1943

The urgent issue of town planning and reconstruction of socialist cities advanced the problem of ensemble on the important place in the architectural and construction activities.

The work “Architectural ensembles” is aimed at solving the task standing close to our today’s present-day demands. We shouldn’t forget that each architectural structure, irrespective of its purpose, is a brick of the general whole urban organism, the architectural decorative design which cannot be built without taking into account the spatial construction of the city planning. Working on the planning and decorative design of the new cities, it is necessary to study the techniques of design and construction of old squares and streets discarding useless elements and accepting the indisputable culture they have.

“Watching in practice the result of the poor examples of construction, when separate tasks are solved irrespective of the surrounding objects and terrain and bring by their presence complete discord into the existing ensemble, I considered it necessary to apply my knowledge to the problem of studying the architectural ensemble.

To get down to the work on the “Architectural ensembles”, I executed many compositions on different problems of architecture, which appeared to be a good preparation for me. I came to understanding many moments of architectural organization of the space. The role of the visual approach, visual distance together with the theory of the main line showed the ways to solve the task set forth. Here a question came to light as to the great role of symmetry when arranging the ensemble entities and the rhythm of repetition, both of the main masses and that of separate parts.

I converted the structural and spatial compositional operations to “planning-structural” ones and used the "panoramic" method of graphical exposition.

The architectural panorama possesses peculiar properties. In such panoramas there is a possibility of demonstrating the vast visual coverage of the space filled with the entities of definite saturation.

I try to introduce the elements of beauty and really truthful exposition of architectural tasks in the architectural ensemble. On a number of compositional design concepts I want to create the elevated festiveness and joyful environment of the man by architectural entities, which should conform to the requirements and tasks of our socialist system.

On no account I shall deprive myself of the real pleasure to add the architectural ensembles of the “future”. I know in advance that these will be fantastic design concepts, but it seems to me that many, even utopian-fantastic design concepts are capable of converting to the real buildings in some time. The history of mankind always confirms this viewpoint. Only in full unity of the past, present and future I imagine the architectural ensembles that I outlined for realization”.

Iakov Chernikhov