The outstanding Soviet architect Alexei Nikolayevich Dushkin left a great legacy and had a significant impact on domestic architecture and urban planning. His life was not easy, but he was able to realize his talent. Let's talk about how the architect A. N. Dushkin was formed, what he is famous for, how his creative biography and personal life developed.
Family and childhood
On Christmas Eve 1904 in the village of Aleksandrovka, Kharkov province, a boy, the future architect Dushkin, was born. The biography began with a holiday, but the life of Alexei Nikolaevich was not always full of joyful events - it is full of dramatic stories. But then everything was perfect. The family in which Alexei was born was from an intelligent circle. Mom came from among Russified Germans from Switzerland, her name was Nadezhda Vladimirovna Fichter. Father Nikolai Alekseevich was a fairly well-known soil scientist, worked as an agronomist and manager of the estates of a large industrialist, sugar factory,philanthropist P. I. Kharitonenko and the estates of the Kening family. The father of the future architect was born in Vologda and was a hereditary honorary citizen of this city. The atmosphere in the family was very friendly, cultured, many interesting, educated people visited the house.
Alexey had an older brother, Nikolai, who later became a writer and artist. A completely different fate awaited him. At the age of 18, his brother began to serve in the tsarist army, went through all of Eastern Europe with it, received a military award - the Order of St. George. He never returned to Russia, since 1926 he lived in France, where he gained great fame as a miniaturist. The brothers have never met since their early youth.
Alexey's childhood years were more than prosperous: an educated, happy family, friendly children, a tutor, an interesting atmosphere. All this allowed the children to develop harmoniously.
Education
In tsarist Russia, it was customary for we althy families to give their children home education, and the family of the architect Dushkin was no exception. The boy's biography was laid in the house, where a special teacher was hired for the brothers, who taught them the basics of all sciences. This allowed the young man to easily enter a good school without taking a course at the gymnasium.
After graduating from college, at the insistence of his father, Alex enters the meliorative institute in Kharkov. But the young man did not feel a vocation for agriculture. In 1923, he transferred to the Faculty of Chemistry, but did not stay here for long either. In 1925, immediately after the death of his father,he is transferred to the Faculty of Civil Engineering. And then he achieves that he is accepted into the studio of the famous Ukrainian architect Alexei Nikolaevich Beketov.
The diploma project "Building of the Printers' Combine" by Dushkin was received favorably by the mentors. In 1930, he completed his studies, but Aleksey Nikolayevich never received a document on graduation due to the impossibility or unwillingness to liquidate the debt in the Ukrainian language.
Career start
After graduating from the institute, the architect Dushkin was assigned to work in Kharkov Giprogor. The beginning of his career is associated with constructivism. He came under the strong creative influence of the famous Soviet architects Leonid, Alexander and Viktor Vesnin. In 1933, he got a job in the studio of Ivan Alexandrovich Fomin, where he was fond of art deco aesthetics. During this period, he works in a team on projects for a new environment in the city of Donbass, the building of the Automobile Institute in Kharkov. During this period, Dushkin actively participates in various competitions to declare his vision of modern architecture. Among the most notable projects: the Radio Palace, the Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute, the Academic Cinema in the capital of the USSR. In them, Dushkin was part of the team, but not yet the leader of the team. Together with J. Doditsa, he made a project for a railroad club in Deb altseve, for which reason the team was awarded the first prize.
Palace of Soviets
In 1931, an All-Union competition for the project was held in MoscowPalace of the Soviets. This grandiose plan has been nurtured by the country's leadership since the beginning of the 1920s. The competition task was large-scale: several thousand people should be placed in the building, there should be a Large and Small halls. In addition, the appearance of the building should prove the triumph of socialism as the best ideology in the world. Architect Alexei Dushkin, as part of the group of Yakov Nikolaevich Doditsa, took part in the preparation of the project for this competition. The project under the slogan "Chervonny Prapor" received the first prize, its creators were awarded the amount of 10 thousand rubles, but the project was not accepted for implementation.
In total, 160 works were submitted to the competition, including those from the famous architects Le Corbusier and Gropius. The competition revealed many talented architects and gave rise to many bright ideas, but none of them was accepted for implementation. However, for Dushkin it was a chance to get orders in which he was able to realize his talent. He also met outstanding contemporary architects Shchusev and Zholtovsky. In addition, thanks to this project, Dushkin and his family moved to Moscow.
Metropolitan
Dushkin's main achievement is the creation of projects for Moscow metro stations. In 1934, the architect began work on the design of the Palace of the Soviets station (now Kropotkinskaya). The work was not easy: Dushkin had to prove the legitimacy and value of his plan at all levels. The project used the latest technologies for casting concrete columns. Today, their forms amaze with the elegance of lines and conciseness.
This station is literallysaved the architect's life. In early March 1935, he was arrested and sent to Butyrka: the NKVD had some claims against him. But on March 15, the station opened, and a foreign delegation came to see it. They wished to get acquainted with the author, which was skillfully used by Dushkin's wife, who wrote a letter to the government. Three days later, the architect was released, but this story forever left a mark on his soul. Dushkin was allowed to return to work and he created a number of great projects, these are the stations: Revolution Square, Mayakovskaya, Avtozavodskaya (at that time Stalin Plant), Novoslobodskaya, Paveletskaya (radial). These projects are widely known not only in Russia, but all over the world. The Mayakovskaya station even won the Grand Prix at the New York World's Fair in 1939.
Besides this, Alexei Nikolaevich raised a whole galaxy of followers who created stations not only in Moscow, but throughout the Soviet Union. His school was even called the architecture of the movement. The main principles justified by Dushkin were:
- the need to clearly identify the basis of the design, without unnecessary volumes,
- use of light as a means of forming an architectural image,
- unity of architectural design with decor,
- safe floors.
Main Projects
But the architect Dushkin, whose work was widely known in the Ministry of Railways, continued to create groundthe buildings. His heritage includes the buildings of the USSR embassies in Bucharest and Kabul, a high-rise building in Moscow on the Red Gate, the famous building of the Children's World on Lubyanka Square.
Innovation
Architect Dushkin earned his fame not only for his ability to create beautiful buildings, but also for his serious contribution to the practice of urban planning. He worked a lot with communication routes, designed bridges and train stations, and understood that the building should not only impress with external effects, but also be functional. He always skillfully combined the beauty of the decor with the general theme of the building and high-quality construction.
Working at the Ministry of Railways
In the 50s, practitioners from different industries came to work in many ministries. The architect Dushkin did not escape this fate. Photos of his work can be found in many reference books of the world on the construction of the subway. He was invited to the post of architect in Metroproekt. Then he quickly goes up the career ladder, first taking the position of the head of the architectural department of the Metroproject, and then - the chief architect of the workshop at the Ministry of Railways.
He is also working on a number of station buildings in parallel. First, he draws up portals along the Sochi-Adler-Sukhumi railway line. After the war, he creates designs for stations in Stalingrad, Evpatoria, Sevastopol. He takes an active part in the restoration of the railways after the Second World War. In the period from the late 1930s to 1956, he worked very hard and hard. Under his leadership, manystations and railway stations in the southern part of the USSR. And in 1956, he was removed from the post of chief architect of Mosgiprotrans, and a year later he was removed from architectural supervision of all projects.
Persecution
During the time of N. S. Khrushchev, the struggle against cosmopolitanism began, and many talented artists fell under this campaign, including the architect Dushkin. The wife of Alexei Nikolaevich recalled that in 1957, in the prime of his creative powers, he was thrown out of architecture. Back in 1956, claims were made against him by party and trade union bodies. We can say that this was the beginning of the discrediting of the architect. In 1957, as a result of prolonged torment caused by the Decree "On the elimination of excesses in design and construction" of 1955, Dushkin was removed from all projects and removed from all positions. This was a great stress for the architect.
Out of the crisis
Dushkin, after he had to part with great architecture, began to devote himself more to painting, which had previously served only as a hobby. He also begins to work in monumental sculpture, creates monuments in Saransk, Vladimir, the Gagarin monument in Moscow in tandem with the sculptor Bondarenko, the Victory monument in Novgorod. Dushkin makes several tombstones (to Stanislavsky, Eisenstein), which can be seen at the Novodevichy cemetery.
In 1959, he came to work at Metrogiprotrans as chief architect. In the early 60s, he was attracted to work on projects for metro lines in Leningrad,Tbilisi, Baku, but he is not allowed to lead author's projects. In 1966, he suffers a microinfarction, but continues to work. In 1976, Dushkin begins to write a book about his work, but does not have time to finish it.
Teaching activities
In 1947, the architect Dushkin began working with students of the Moscow Architectural Institute. Here he worked until 1974. Over the years, he produced many architects who continued to carry his ideas.
Awards
For his busy creative life, the architect Dushkin received an unfortunate few awards. He has three Stalin Prizes to his credit (for a metro station and for a high-rise project in Moscow). He was also awarded the Order of Lenin and twice received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. The architect has several professional awards.
Private life
Even in his early youth, the architect Dushkin, whose wife and children were not yet in priority plans, met Tamara Dmitrievna Ketkhudova. She was a student at the conservatory at the time. Her father was a famous civil engineer, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Engineering Institute. Three years later, in 1927, the young people got married. The young began to live in the house of Tamara's parents in Kharkov. They spent their honeymoon in Kichkas, where Aleksei did his internship.
In 1928, the couple had a son, Oleg. In 1940, the second son Dmitry was born to the Dushkins. From 1941 to 1945, many Muscovites were sent toevacuation, Dushkin's wife and children left for Sverdlovsk, and the architect remained in the capital throughout the war and worked hard.
On June 5, 1977, the Dushkins celebrated their golden wedding, their life was a strong union in which the wife always supported her husband in everything. And he heard music in it and embodied it in his buildings. All researchers note this special musicality of Dushkin's architecture. On October 1, 1977, the life of Alexei Nikolayevich was cut short by a heart attack. Tamara Dmitrievna outlived her husband by 22 years, and all these years she diligently preserved her husband's legacy, tried to popularize it.
Memory and heritage
Preservation of the memory of the architect today is his granddaughter Natalya Olegovna Dushkina, architectural historian, professor at Moscow Architectural Institute. She wrote several articles about her grandfather's work, and today she also lectures about his work. In 1993, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where the Dushkins lived for 25 years.
