Anastasia Dolgova
National A. S. Pushkin Museum, Russia
The report focuses on the biography, buildings and artistic method of architect Pavel Fedotovich Alyoshin (1881–1961). His heritage has been studied unevenly and insufficiently: the most researches deal only with his most famous works (F. G. Bazhanov and A. P. Chuvaldina Trade-Industrial partnership house in Saint Petersburg, N. V. Kovalevsky mansion and the building of the Pedagogical Museum in Kiev), certain aspects are covered in articles and books in the Ukrainian language while Russian-language publications about his projects and activity are quite rare.
Research, dedicated to the personality of the architect and his heritage, seems important because more than forty years of Alyoshin’s professional activity reflected the changes that took place in architecture and art at that time. The range of genres in which he worked is very broad, he built residential and public buildings, designed streets and residential areas. In his projects Alyoshin dealt with different styles: Art Nouveau, historicism, neo-classicism and Constructivism.
A unique, holistic view of the Alyoshin’s method of work can be obtained because his extensive archive has been preserved. Drawings, descriptions of buildings, sketches, correspondence, photographs show the breadth of the architect’s interests, his proximity to the type of all-round craftsman, typical to the Renaissance and then to Art Nouveau epoch, his attention to details, engineering and technical innovations, his custom to thoroughly study the issue before the implementation of the project.