Konstantin S. Melnikov was one of the most original but also one of the most important architects of the Soviet avant-garde. He belongs in the company of such architects as the brothers Vesnin, Ginzburg, Ladovsky, and the brothers Golosov. With the exception of the younger Leonidov, Melnikov had another characteristic in common with them: They all received a prerevolutionary training, partly at the same institution, the Moscow School for Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture. Academically oriented, their education was strongly focused on classicism, the leading style of the day. Only after the October Revolution, influenced by avant-garde artists in the visual arts (Malevich, Lissitzky, and Tatlin), did they find their way to Modern architecture.

Early in 1917, Melnikov completed his studies with a neoclassical design for a sanatorium. Even his first independent designs, including the administrative building for the AMO automobile factory (1917) in Moscow and his work on the Alexeyev psychiatric hospital, were classicistic in conception.

Around 1920, Melnikov found his way to Modern architecture. He was attracted by the Expressionist work of the “Zhivskultparch” group, in which architects like Ladovsky and Krinsky played a leading role. Soon, Melnikov began to follow his own path, outside the mainstream of the new Soviet architecture. In the design he entered in the competition for the “The Saw,” a residential complex on Serpukhovskaya Street in Moscow, he laid out the houses asymmetrically in curved lines, in blocks set back from one another, so that collective housing, family dwellings, and communal facilities are clearly and recognizably articulated. The asymmetrical composition, curved lines, and expression of building volumes are also present in his design for the competition for the Palace of Labor in the fall of 1922.

From 1923, Melnikov experienced great success as an architect of realized buildings. He received public attention, particularly for his tobacco pavilion “Makhorka” in the 1923 Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow. Traditional architects dominated that exposition, and Melnikov’s pavilion was one of the exceptions. The center of gravity of his design lay in the expressive counterpoint of the volumes of the wooden building and its spatial effects. The commission had come from the traditional architect A.V. Shchusev (1873-1949). Melnikov was employed in Shchusev’s Moscow studio, which was devoted to the reconstruction of the city.

Melnikov’s true breakthrough came in 1924. Shchusev let him work on the glass bell over Lenin’s sarcophagus for the semi-permanent mausoleum and the administration building Sucharevka, which had a cafe and vending stalls. He also won the competition for the Soviet pavilion for the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs (1925) in Paris, in which Ladovsky, Ginzburg, and Fomin had also entered designs. The pavilion gave him an international reputation. The pavilion was built on a rectangular plan that was divided diagonally by a staircase. The staircase was covered with slanted awnings placed diagonally across from each other. A transparent tower was positioned near one of the entrances to draw attention to it. The pavilion was made out of glass and wood that was painted red and gray. The interior was done by Alexander Rodchenko and others. Of all the buildings at the exposition, Melnikov’s pavilion, which radiated at once a certain sobriety and an expressive dynamism, was the most extensively discussed in the French and international press. Dynamism is also the dominant characteristic of the little-known design for the competition for the tower of the “Leningradskaya Pravda” (1924) in Moscow, in which three vertically arranged spaces were to revolve independently around a central axis.

At the end of his stay in Paris, Melnikov received a commission from the city of Paris for a parking garage. He completed two versions of the design, one in the form of a closed square box and the other as a rectangular space built over a bridge over the Seine and encircled by a double ramp. The inclined diagonals of the ramp gave the project an exceptional appearance of movement. Neither design was realized, but on his return to Moscow, Melnikov successfully built four parking garages.

As a result of the economic upturn of the second half of the 1920s, Melnikov was able to realize a number of projects. The clubs for workers are the most important of these. Intended for workers’ leisure activities, these clubs presented a new building type, one based on a theater layout and consisting of a large hall for dramatic performances and meetings, service areas, and activity rooms. While his Constructivist colleagues attempted to create a standard type, Melnikov himself created an individual solution for each of the six clubs he built. They are built on different plans, according to the positioning of the main hall—wedge-shaped, rectangular, or in the shape of a segment of a circle. Although the spatial arrangement of the plans is very different, the stereometric composition of the different volumes and the contrast of vertical and horizontal modulations are consistent throughout. The Rusakov Club, for the union of Moscow tram conductors, attracted the most attention, adding space to the hall on the street side in the form of three large bays. These spaces, which could be closed off independently, endow the building with an exceptional spatial dynamic and a highly expressive exterior.

This “expressive geometry” is particularly apparent in Melnikov's own house (1927) in Moscow. Two partially overlapping circles make up the plan, from which rise two cylinders of unequal height. The living room on the second floor and the studio on the third floor are double high, and the roof above the living room in the foremost cylinder is designed as a roof terrace. Interior spaces are highly expressive, as the round shape of the cylinders has been preserved, except on the ground floor, through the absence of separating walls. At that time, it was unusual for an architect to design his own house because the avant-garde was interested primarily in different forms of collective housing. However, Melnikov’s typological solution was also unusual and bears witness to his attention to the composition of architectural space and mass. The rounded shapes return in several later projects, as in the design for the MOSPS Theater (1930-31) and the Frunze Academy (1931), both in Moscow.

Melnikov’s entry for the competition for a new recreation area, known as “Green City Moscow,” in 1931 is more conceptual and utopian in character. Melnikov designed the various zones of the area—woods, children’s village, zoo, houses, and collective facilities—as segments of a circle. One special feature is the “sleep sanatorium,” where weary workers could recuperate by means of a sleeping cure. For treatment, Melnikov invented a manipulation of light, temperature, smell, and sound.

The utopian character of this project provoked sharp criticism related, on the one hand, to changes in the cultural and political climate and the increasing repression in the USSR and, on the other, to the struggle among different architectural groups, a struggle

that was fought in political terms. Melnikov did not participate in collective activities or the group polemics. He and his architecture, particularly the clubs and his own house, received a great deal of criticism for their individualism. Melnikov had difficulty adapting to new circumstances. In his submissions for the second round of the competition for the Soviet Palace (1931) and the Ministry of Heavy Industry (1934), he continued to emphasize the symbolism of geometric forms while the cultural and political preferences of the party ran to a revaluation of traditional architecture. His designs were accused of antisocialist formalism. During the first congress of the Union of Architects in Moscow in 1937, this criticism led to Melnikov’s firing as the leader of the seventh Moscow City Studio, which amounted to the end of his career as an active architect. He was allowed to teach at engineering schools but was excluded from design work. After the war, he participated in competitions from time to time but without success. In the late 1960s, Melnikov was rehabilitated, and in 1972 he received the title of “Deserving Architect.” He died two years later.

Otakar Macel 

Sennott R.S. Encyclopedia of twentieth century architecture, Vol.2 (G-O).  Fitzroy Dearborn., 2005.