Exhibition "Architecture of Memory" 18+ Automatic translate

The exhibition "Architecture of Memory" was supposed to open on the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, but due to the pandemic and the closure of the Museum, it was postponed until 2021.

The exhibition is dedicated to the development of architectural thought, the life of monuments in wartime, projects for the restoration of cities and post-war memorials. The purpose of the exhibition is to show the influence of wartime realities on the development of architecture and urban planning.

The exposition opens with a story about the life of Moscow in the first months of the war, when, under the leadership of Boris Iofan, in the summer of 1941, a project of masking the city center was created, designed not only to disorient the enemy aircraft, but also to preserve architectural monuments. This section will also present the projects of the Moscow metro stations, the construction of which was carried out in 1942-1943, archival photographs, the first projects of memorials for the capital and the memories of Muscovites.

After a radical change in the course of hostilities, the architects were faced with the task of restoring cities, restoring damaged and destroyed monuments of architecture, and perpetuating the memory of the fallen. Photographs and newsreels of destroyed Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Veliky Novgorod, and Istra will make it possible to assess the colossal scale of the work carried out in the post-war years. The exposition will include the surviving fragments and measurement drawings of the destroyed Resurrection Cathedral in New Jerusalem, projects for the restoration and new development of the city of Istra by Alexei Shchusev, materials for the reconstruction and restoration of damaged and destroyed ancient Russian monuments of Veliky Novgorod, including Sofia Novgorodskaya (XI century) and the Church of the Savior on Nereditsa (XII century), projects for the restoration of destroyed Sevastopol and Stalingrad.

The final section of the exhibition will illustrate the idea of ​​perpetuating the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, which is inextricably linked with the history of the revival of cities. In the postwar years, the largest memorial complexes dedicated to the main events of the wartime: the defense of Moscow, the Battle of Stalingrad, the breaking of the Blockade, the capture of Berlin and other key events are being designed and built. Archival documents, author’s architectural projects and modern photographs will present the history of the creation of an architectural and sculptural ensemble in Treptow Park in Berlin, a memorial to the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, a Monument to the heroic defenders of Leningrad, as well as a memorial complex on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow.

The exhibition is based on materials from the collection of the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, the Museum of Moscow, the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, the Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents, TASS photo chronicles, the archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, etc.

The curator of the exhibition project is an art critic, deputy director of the Museum of Architecture named after A. V. Shchuseva on educational work Ksenia Smirnova.