Ivan Zholtovsky - War and Postwar Years, 1945-1959

War and Postwar Years, 1945-1959

In 1940, already 73 years old, Zholtovsky accepts the chair of Moscow Architectural Institute (MArchI). Zholtovsky stayed in Moscow throughout World War II, managing MArchI and engaged in various consultancies; when time came to repair the damage of war, he was too old to take serious out-of-town jobs. He bid for expansion of Mossovet headquarters, making 18 proposals (1939–1945,); all failed, and the job was awarded to Dmitry Chechulin. In summer 1945, the state instituted Zholtovsky School and Workshop, where he would work till his death.

In the same 1945, Zholtovsky workshop completed a controversial House of Lions, in Yermolayevsky lane - a luxurious downtown residence for Red Army Marshals, styled as an early 19th century estate. Reverence to top brass backfired very soon. Zholtovsky issued his students an exercise to design Country residence of a Marshal of Soviet Union. Immediately, political accusations poured in; November 2, 1945 Zholtovsky received a formal order to discard completed student projects, reverse their grades, and issue a new, politically correct, assignment.

After 1945, Zholtovsky personally designed only three apartment houses in Moscow (including an expansion of his 1935 NKVD building on Smolenskaya Square). The best known, a 1949 Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya building is an interesting illustration of Zholtovsky’s shift from elite to the masses, an attempt to bring mass construction to the levels of quality expected of Stalinist architecture and his own Renaissance style. All apartments in this building are relatively small, with two rooms yet with plenty storage space. Floor plans deliberately discouraged conversion of small-family units to overcrowded multi-family kommunalki (kitchen is accessible only through the family rooms). Zholtovsky's favorite flat walls (no bay windows, no setbacks) and modest application of Florentine canon fit the purpose quite well.

In 1948, 80 year old Zholtovsky became the subject of a witch-hunt once again. With no apparent reason, small-time critics slammed his works and his role in education. Zholtovsky lost the chair of MArchI. In February 1949, a "professional round table" branded his Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya House as formalist, condemned Zholtovsky’s educational efforts, and virtually excommunicated him from practice for a year. Suddenly, fortune turned around, and in March, 1950 Zholtovsky was awarded Stalin Prize, second class – for the same building that was ostracized a year before. By 1952, critics praised it as the way to build.