Neoclassicism (1903-1917)
Fomin acquired a solid reputation, but did not have an architect’s license yet. He returned to St.Petersburg in 1905 and completed Leon Benois' course at the Academy of Arts in 1909, winning a one-year study tour to Greece, Egypt and Italy. At this time, Neoclassical Revival became the leading style in St. Petersburg, and the most technologically advanced. Banks and department stores, who favored the style, could afford a steel frame and concrete slab floors. A combination of money and technology allowed the mix of classical columns and arches with large glass surfaces.
Fomin's turn to Neoclassicism is traced to 1903, when he applied to the contest for Count Volkonsky estate with a neoclassical draft. In 1904, Fomin published his Revival Manifesto in Mir Iskusstva magazine, pledging to architectural legacy of Catherine and Alexander I. "These days, everyone wants to be individual, to invent his own, and in the end we cannot see nether a dominant style, nor a trace of those who can eventually create it". Fomin believed in a universal idea uniting everyone, and in an architectural style that could serve it. He promoted the Academy's exhibitions in "History of Russian Art" (1909) and "History of Architecture" (1911), as vigorously as he did his Art Nouveau shows. Fomin was an outspoken advocate for building preservation, leading a campaign against the conversion of historical mansions into rental apartment buildings.
Fomin completed numerous interior renovations, and two new buildings (Polovtsov mansion, and Abamelek-Lazarev mansion ). His greatest urban projects of this time, interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, didn’t materialize in full.
Novy Peterburg (Goloday Island development) was a huge Palladian fantasy. In 1911, a British investment company launched a development project on a 1 square kilometer lot in the western Goloday Island, awarding general planning to Fomin. Building design was split between Fomin and Feodor Lidwahl. Fomin wanted to recreate the monumental imperial classics in a middle class community. Only a fraction of his plan materialized before World War I. One building, a school on Kakhovsky Street, stands today.
Read more about this topic: Ivan Fomin