Vesnin brothers
Between 1910 and 1916 the Moscow-based family firm designed and built a small number of public and private buildings in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod, stylistically leaning towards neoclassicism.
During the Russian Civil War Leonid and Victor concentrated on industrial projects and teaching while Alexander had a successful solo career as theatre stage designer.
When the economy recovered from post-war depression, they were rewarded with high-profile real construction projects like the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station and Likhachev Palace of Culture in Moscow.
The father hoped that at least one of his sons would continue the family business, or at least obtain a business-like profession, and insisted that Victor and Alexander chose a different college, the Institute of Civil Engineers (also in Saint Petersburg).
[9] The Vesnin family business was ruined by the 1905 revolution;[5] from now on the brothers had to earn their own living and support two sisters and father[10] (their mother died in 1901 giving birth to Anna Vesnina).
[11] Alexander and Victor dropped out of the Institute and moved to Moscow where they worked for architectural firms of Roman Klein, Illarion Ivanov-Schitz, Boris Velikovsky and other architects,[12] building a reputation for their energy and dependability.
[18] Prior to the outbreak of World War I the brothers completed a bank building and a neoclassical mansion in Moscow and two country churches in Russian Revival manner.
Their most visible building of the period, Mantashev Stables on Khodynka Field, mixes Petrine Baroque with Russian Revival and Neoclassicism, yet is clearly apart from mainstream eclecticism.
Alexander was cashiered for poor eyesight, Victor worked in defence factory construction;[10] his most important project of the period, a textile mill and adjacent worker's town in Kineshma, was completed in 1917.
Work for the Bolsheviks cost Victor his job for Nadezhda von Meck's heirs, but he and Leonid quickly found employment opportunities in industrial construction; Alexander stayed in starving Moscow.
Many contemporary artists (Malevich, Tatlin, El Lissitzky, Stenberg brothers) did the same, but, unlike them, Alexander had a solid background in structural engineering and practical construction management.
[33] The show attracted mostly constructivist architects[33] and became a sweeping victory for the Vesnin brothers: their 125 meter tall[34] reinforced concrete Palace, remotely reminiscent of Walter Gropius's Tribune Tower draft,[28] made headlines in the professional mainstream press.
[35] For unknown reasons the highly publicized draft was omitted from the official competition catalogue; floorplans and cross-sections were published only in 1927,[36] along with Ginzburg's praise: "It cannot be imitated.
"[37] One month before filing the Palace of Labor, Leonid Vesnin presented his drafts of a housing block, marked by clever rational floorplans but otherwise fairly conventional.
The Vesnins responded with a lean, six-storey tower housing two-storey public area (newsstand and reading room) and four-storey editorial office.
[42] Arcos, a British-Soviet trading company that temporarily served as liaison between two countries without diplomatic ties, declared a public competition for its Moscow headquarters in 1924.
[43] Moisei Ginzburg criticized the ‘’Arcos’’ draft as lacking any true novelty, which was expected of constructivist architecture: it was little more than a traditional office block wrapped in modern materials.
Critics like Ginzburg dubbed the emerging trend "constructive style", opposed to true "constructivism"; according to them, simple following the function was sufficient and needed no external stylistic cues, no aesthetics whether original or borrowed.
The idea, however, has not caught their attention instantly: the Vesnins and Loleyt continued the style of Arcos in their 1925 Central Telegraph and TSUM department store drafts, gradually moving to simpler, larger, laconic shapes.
[47] Both Alexander and Leonid joined the faculty of Vkhutemas during the Civil War, before the 1920-1921 conflict that split its Architectural Department into "academic" (Ivan Zholtovsky), "united" (Nikolai Ladovsky) and "independent" (Ilya Golosov) workshops.
[48] Alexander had far-reaching plans of restructuring basic training at Vkhutemas along productivist ideas, that were cut short by its board in February 1923[50] Soon afterwards his students and staff, including Rodchenko, transferred to Ladovsky's United Workshop.
In December 1925 short-lived artistic unions based at Vkhutemas, MVTU and Institute of Civil Engineers merged into a new organization, OSA Group, headed by Ginzburg and Alexander Vesnin.
[53] The government's reluctance to recognize yet another architects’ union forced OSA founders to reconsider its goals; these were proclaimed as “drafting the new, modern architectural style of large industrial hubs”[54] and defence of constructivism as art, rather than the bare following of function.
[58] Vyacheslav Glazychev noted that the unique role of SA led to an overstatement of the constructivists’ influence at the expense of rival art schools, especially by foreign authors.
"[35][60] Memoirs published by Natalya Vesnina (Victor's widow), statements by the Vesnins' alumni and archive studies allowed different scholars to reconstruct each brother's input and work process.
[70] Engineering issues were brushed aside, and the commissioners chaired by Avel Enukidze[67] (Anatoly Lunacharsky, Alexey Shchusev and others) clashed over style alone, finally awarding the contract to Vesnin.
[76][77] Although the Vesnin brothers won the contract to produce working drawings, they were forced to share control with Arkady Mordvinov and his VOPRA associates, harsh critics of the OSA Group and other established architects.
The Vesnin brothers actively participated in all public architectural competitions of 1932–1936 (Palace of Soviets, Narkomtiazhprom, STO building in Moscow and Government of Ukraine compound in Kiev), but lost all their bids to revivalist architects.
[92] Victor Vesnin was the sole constructivist architect that retained or even improved his role in Joseph Stalin's establishment after the Palace of Soviets contest sealed the stylistic outline of Stalinist architecture.
[94] Highly valued work for the militarized industry kept Victor on top, but also meant withdrawal from actual architectural design and public professional life.
