USSR pavilion at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts

In November 1924, after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and France on October 28, 1924, the Soviet Union was invited to participate in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which opens in Paris in the spring of 1925. The exhibition was evaluated in the USSR as a very important political event, since this was the country's first appearance at an international show, a direct and visual comparison with other states ^[1] .

Preparation of the Soviet section of the exhibition took place in an extremely short time. On November 18, 1924, the Exhibition Committee of the Soviet Department announced a closed competition for the design of the USSR pavilion, in which architects V. A. Schuko , I. A. Fomin , the Vesnins brothers , N. A. Ladovsky , N. V. Dokuchaev , V. F. Krinsky , I. A. Golosov , M. Ya. Ginzburg , K. S. Melnikov and a group of graduates of VKHUTEMAS . The competition program required contestants to have the Soviet pavilion “designed in the spirit of purely modern architecture, and ideologically reflect the idea of ​​the USSR as a workers and peasants labor state and as a fraternal union of individual nationalities” ^[2] . A month later, on December 28, the jury chaired by A.V. Lunacharsky and with the participation of V.V. Mayakovsky ^[3] , having considered all the projects submitted to the competition, recognized the project of K. S. Melnikov as the best and entrusted him with its execution in kind. The second and third prizes of the competition were awarded to N. A. Ladovsky and M. Ya. Ginsburg.

In mid-January 1925, Melnikov went to Paris to build a pavilion.

Paris deeply impressed me with its beauty and youthful life, ”K. S. Melnikov recalled,“ but soon we also struck Paris with beauty too, but severe, naked, that arose in our life ^[1] .

The project of the pavilion immediately attracted the attention of the architectural community and the organizers of the exhibition. The chief architect of the exhibition, Bonnier, noted the originality and courage of Melnikov’s plan. One of the largest at that time construction companies, the Brothers Perret ( French: Perret frères ) offered its construction services, as it considered it to be an original and interesting advertisement ^[1] .

In March 1925, A. Rodchenko arrived in Paris, who was introduced to the Exhibition Committee and sent to the exhibition to implement the interior of the Work Club and design the Soviet exposition. On April 17, the pavilion designed by Rodchenko was painted red, gray and white ^[1] .

I, Rodchenko, Mayakovsky went to Paris to show the first appeared Fairy Kingdom. - wrote Melnikov, - Money for the building <...> I brought fifteen thousand rubles - the kiosk came out not a kiosk, but an enthusiasm ... ^[1] .

The grand opening of the Soviet pavilion took place on June 10, in which the USSR ambassador to France LB Krasin and the French Minister of Culture De Monzi took part. According to the memoirs of A. Rodchenko, the opening ceremony quickly resulted in a spontaneous rally of French workers who greeted Krasin with exclamations “Long live the Soviets!” And “The International . ” The police asked Krasin to enter the pavilion and scattered the crowd ^[1] .

After the official opening of the entire exhibition , French President Gaston Doumergue was the first to visit the Soviet pavilion ^[1] .

After the exhibition, the USSR pavilion was demolished, but in 1926 it was restored to a new location. The restored building served as a trade union club and was lost during World War II . The building occupied part of the site (Place du Colonel Fabien), on which the building of the Central Committee of the French Communist Party ^[1] (architect Oscar Niemeyer ) was erected in 1966-1971.

The territory allocated by the organizers of the exhibition for the construction of the Soviet pavilion was not only small (29.5 by 11 meters), but also inconvenient for construction. Tram tracks passed through the site, which were forbidden under the conditions of the Paris authorities. Therefore, the pavilion was limited not only horizontally, but also vertically: it was impossible to lay the foundation under the building ^[3] . At the same time, some modern sources claim that “our pavilion was spread out with a truly Soviet scale and occupied one sixth of the exhibition area: it was necessary to smash both real yurts from Turkmenistan and the plague of the peoples of the Far North” ^[4] .

The pavilion was a light frame two-story building made of wood. Most of the area of ​​the external walls of the pavilion was glazed. The building, which was rectangular in plan, was cut diagonally through an open staircase leading to the second floor, over which an original ceiling was constructed in the form of inclined intersecting wooden plates. To the right of the stairs was a mast tower, crowned with a sickle and hammer and the letters of the USSR ^[3] .

Le Corbusier , who designed the Espri Nouveau pavilion at the exhibition, said the Soviet pavilion was the only one worth looking at ^[1] . In the Soviet press, it was believed that Le Corbusier took into account the success of the USSR pavilion in his project. The highly acclaimed Soviet pavilion, according to I. Ehrenburg , who was in Paris during the exhibition, was given by the famous French painter Fernand Leger ^[1] .

Four pavilions are especially distinguished by modern scholars from the whole variety of exhibition architecture of the 20th century: pavilions of the USSR K. Melnikov and Espri Nouveau Le Corbusier at the International Exhibition of Contemporary Decorative and Industrial Arts, German pavilion L. Mies Van der Roi at the 1929 World's Fair in Barcelona and the Zahi Hadid Pavilion for Blueprint Magazine, built in 1995, under the roof of a giant hall in Birmingham ^[5] .

The result of the fame ^{[6] of} Melnikov, which brought him the construction of the pavilion of the USSR, was the order of a garage project for Paris with a capacity of a thousand cars. Melnikov developed two alternative options: a translucent glass cube with parking at ten floors and a building raised above ground level with cantilever- suspended structures. Paris projects were not destined to be realized, however, a number of architectural ideas that arose during their design were used by K. Melnikov in the construction of garages in Moscow.

• Pavilion "Makhorka"
• German Pavilion (Barcelona)

In Russian

• Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov: The architecture of my life. Creative concept. Creative Practice / Comp. A. Strigalev and I. Kokkinaki. - M .: Art, 1985. - 311 p.
• Konstantin Melnikov. Drawings and projects: Exhibition catalog.— M.: Soviet artist, 1989. - 125 s - ISBN 978-5269001739
• Melnikov K. S. Architectural word in its architecture. - M .: Architecture-S, 2006. - 144 s - ISBN 5-9647-0091-8
• Khan-Magomedov S.O. Konstantin Melnikov. - M .: Architecture-S, 2006. - 296 s - ISBN 5-9647-0095-0 . ISBN 978-5-9647-0095-1
• Strigalev A.A. Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov.- M .: Art, 1985. - 364 p.

In English

• Starr, S. Frederick Melnikov: Melnikov: Solo Architect in a Mass Society. - Princeton University Press, 1978. - ISBN 0-691-03931-3 .
• Pare, Richard Die verlorene Avantgarde. - Schirmer / Mosel Verlag GM, 2007 .-- ISBN 9783829602990
• MacEl, Otakar, Fosso, Mario Konstantin S. Mel'Nikov and the Construction of Moscow. - Skira, 2001 .-- 312 p. - ISBN 9788881185399

In French

• Starr, S. Frederick K. Mel'nikov: Le Pavillon Sovietique - Paris, 1925. - L'Equuerre Paris, 1981

• USSR pavilion at the International Exhibition of Decorative and Applied Arts in Paris I. Golosov Project