Ivan Zholtovsky - Advisor To Bolsheviks, 1917-1926

Advisor To Bolsheviks, 1917-1926

Zholtovsky stayed in Moscow throughout the course of World War I, Revolution of 1917 and Civil War. In 1918, he and Alexey Shchusev led Moscow’s only state architectural firm, hiring and training young men like Ilya Golosov, Panteleimon Golosov, Konstantin Melnikov, Nikolai Ladovsky and Nikolai Kolli (the 12 disciples, split evenly between constructivism and traditional art). There were few orders, mostly for repairs or additions of old properties, and very few actually materialized. As construction halted, he concentrated on education and urban planning studies.

Zholtovsky continued teaching at VKhUTEMAS. Whether the architectural college in Leningrad (VKhuTEIN) was led by traditionalists, Moscow college (VKhUTEMAS) became a harbor for modernists. Zholtovsky was spared from revolutionary new-vs-old rhetoric: after all, he was the employer to many modernist architects, giving them whatever jobs he could secure (like the pavilions of 1923 All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition, a project managed jointly by Zholtovsky and Shchusev).

Together with Shchusev, and relying on his juniors, Zholtovsky supervised the first master plan for redevelopment of Moscow. This work earned him a credit with the Bolshevik administration. He met with Vladimir Lenin and was very well received; according to Zholtovsky’s own memoirs (as approved for print in the USSR), Master Plan was commissioned by Lenin himself, who wasn’t exactly competent in architecture and couldn’t recall any past projects of his contractor. Zholtovsky’s plan, as reported to Lenin, relied on shifting urban development into greenfield land to the south-west of the city. Later, he and Shchusev settled on a less radical growth model with only minor attempt to break away from circular layout by cutting two major avenues through the city core. This plan was discarded by Stalin in 1932.

Works of this period (none survived to date)

• Novaya Moskva master development plan (1918–1923, lead planner Alexey Shchusev)
• All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition - general layout and management (with Alexey Shchusev), entrance gates (1923)
• AMO workers' low-rise community (with Melnikov, 1923)
• Soviet pavilion at Milano exhibition (1925–26)