Ivan Leonidov began his formal art studies at the Svomas (free art studios) in Tyer and continued his education from 1921 until 1927 at the VKhUTEMAS (Russian acronym for Higher State Art and Technical Studios or workshops) in Moscow. It was there, in the studio of Aleksandr Vesnin, that his interests shifted from painting to architecture.
Leonidov's diploma project for the Lenin Institute and Library (1927) captured widespread attention and brought him public prominence. Featured at the 1927 Exhibition of Contemporary Architecture in Moscow, the precocious scheme received further recognition after its publication in the Constructivists' architectural journal, Sovremennaya arkhitektura (Contemporary Architecture).
Leonidov's design for the Lenin Institute, situated in the Lenin Hills near Moscow, envisioned a centrifugal arrangement of buildings connected to the slender and centrally placed bookstack tower of the library. An elevated monorail connected the institute to the city below and communicated with it using the best telephone systems of the time. His proposal also included a science theater with a planetarium, various laboratories, and offices for the research personnel, and a spherical glass auditorium, audaciously supported by an inverted conical structure.
From 1927 to 1930, Leonidov taught at the VKhUTEMAS and was one of the editors of Sovremennaya arkhitektura. During this period, he produced unexecuted designs for a variety of building types: the Sov-Kino Film Production Complex (1927), the Tsentrosoyuiz Headquarters (1928) in Moscow, and the Government Center in Alma-Ata (1928), projects for the Christopher Columbus Monument in Santo Domingo (1929), and the House of Industry in Moscow (1929). His design for Moscow's extensive Proletarsky district provided a full range of recreational facilities for workers living in a comprehensively planned environment.
As an active member of the Constructivist Ob"yedineniye sovremennykh arkhitektorov (OSA; Society of Contemporary Architects), Leonidov's designs were a species apart. While the other Constructivists tended to conceive of buildings as dynamic combinations of functionally and geometrically distinct spaces, Leonidov isolated the programmatic elements into simplified, freestanding figures. The Constructivists generally articulated the structure and differentiated the cladding of their dynamic buildings. Leonidov, however, preferred to neutralize the surfaces of his buildings, creating visual interest by vigorously contrasting the scale, geometric form, and orientation of the buildings themselves.
Leonidov's notable urban designs include a project for a Palace of Culture in Moscow and plans for the city of Magnitogorsk; both were designed in 1930 but remained unexecuted. Located in the Urals, a new industrial center was conceived as a linear city, extending from an industrial core out into the countryside. It featured a broad residential spine that was placed between two parallel zones reserved for parks, athletic facilities, community service buildings, and the main highway. Streets were placed perpendicular to this highway and divided the city into sectors, with each superblock defined by its zoning. The scheme allowed for linear, incremental growth by the addition of new sectors as the need arose.
In the early 1930s, Leonidov's projects became embroiled in the debate between the "urbanists," representing traditional planning ideas, and the "disurbanists," who were supporters of new urban paradigms. When the Soviet government began withdrawing support for modernism, Leonidov's proposals drew increasing criticism. In the official press, "Leonidovism" became a derogatory term usually applied to projects deemed idealistic, financially naive, utopian, or formalistic.
Leonidov responded to the critics by submitting a project of striking originality for a 1934 design competition. The competition was for the headquarters of the Ministry of Heavy Industry (Dom Narkomtiazhprom), sited in Red Square, Moscow's most important and sensitive site. For this project, Leonidov drew inspiration from the vernacular buildings of medieval Russia and sought to engage the Kremlin, Lenin's Mausoleum, and the Church of St. Basil in a compositional dialogue. The new ministry—a keystone of Stalin's plans for rebuilding central Moscow—also was intended as a counterpoint to the Palace of the Soviets (1931), sited to the Kremlin's southwest. Had these two projects been built, they would have bracketed the medieval Kremlin between them and created a symbolically charged juxtaposition celebrating Stalin's regime.
Leonidov's proposal for the Ministry of Heavy Industry consisted of three skyscrapers, each one asserting its particular identity through its distinctive form, structure, and materials. Bridges interconnected the three towers, which rose above an elongated tribune of stepped terraces, created to better view the parades in Red Square. The foremost and tallest tower, built from an exposed skeleton frame, crowned its topmost stories with trusses and radio antennas. Behind it stood an elegantly elongated rotational hyperboloid, its surface completely veneered with bricks of black glass and punctuated by boldly projecting balconies. The third tower, Y-shaped in plan, alternated concave curtain walls of glass against flat end walls of concrete. North of this tower, Leonidov placed an auditorium—a multicolored and modestly scaled rotational hyperboloid—that responded in modern terms to the neighboring Neoclassical Bolshoi Theatre.
From the mid-1930s to the start of World War II, Leonidov worked for Moisei Ginzburg, producing various projects for coastal sites in the Crimea. Of these projects, only the amphitheater and ornamental staircase were built in 1937, for the park of the Ordzhonikidze Sanatorium in Kislovodsk. During this period, Leonidov also designed the House for Young Pioneers (1935), built in Kalinin (Tver).
After World War II, Leonidov developed his urban and architectural ideas in a series of sketches titled "City of the Sun," a utopian vision that remained unfinished at his death. As his work became better known in the 1970s, Leonidov's significance in modern architecture became internationally recognized.
K. Paul Zygas
Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.2 (G-O). Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005. |
