Vasily Bazhenov

Russian neoclassical architect, graphic artist, architectural theorist and educator

Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov (Васи́лий Ива́нович Баже́нов; 1 March (N. S. 12) 1737 or 1738 – 2 August (N. S. 13) 1799) was a Russian neoclassical architect, graphic artist, architectural theorist and educator. Bazhenov and his associates Matvey Kazakov and Ivan Starov were the leading local architects of the Russian Enlightenment, a period dominated by foreign architects (Charles Cameron, Giacomo Quarenghi, Antonio Rinaldi and others). According to Dmitry Shvidkovsky, in the 1770s Bazhenov became the first Russian architect to create a national architectural language since the 17th century tradition interrupted by Peter I of Russia. Bazhenov's early success was followed by a tragic professional and private life. His two main construction projects were abandoned for political or financial reasons. His magnum opus, the neoclassical Grand Kremlin Palace, was cancelled shortly after groundbreaking. The imperial palace in Tsaritsyno Park fell victim to the Battle of the Palaces; Bazhenov's palace core was demolished on the orders of Catherine II. Another project, for the Moscow State University building, ended in a bitter conflict with Bazhenov's former benefactor Prokofi Demidov and led Bazhenov into bankruptcy. Before his death, Bazhenov implored his children to stay aside from the treacherous construction business. Bazhenov's legacy remains debated. The attributions of Pashkov House and lesser projects to Bazhenov, backed by a sketchy paper trail, deductions and conjectures, are uncertain to the point where his life and work became subject of conspiracy theories. Even his place of birth and the location of Bazhenov's grave are unknown. His life story, as reconstructed by Igor Grabar and popularized by the historians of the Soviet period, is regarded by modern critics as the "Bazhenov myth", and even most recent academic research fails to replace this myth with a reliable biography. Bolkhovitinov, perhaps, knowingly twisted the facts to raise the prestige of clerical colleges. In the beginning of 1758 the University, requested by Ivan Shuvalov, dispatched a group of sixteen students, including Bazhenov and Ivan Starov, They, along with twenty boys selected in Saint Petersburg, became the first class of the Academy. Bazhenov, according to his own statement, was assigned to the class of Savva Chevakinsky, chief architect of the Russian Admiralty, worked on the construction of the Saint Nicholas church and became a personal mentor and blood brother of younger Starov. Three years later Bazhenov and painter Anton Losenko became the first students of the Academy of Arts to be awarded a scholarship out of Russia. Bazhenov trained in Paris at the workshop of Charles De Wailly (Starov joined him there in October 1762). and applied for a degree and tenure at the Academy, but the new management had no intention to hire Bazhenov. He was subjected to a rigorous formal examination and was ordered to submit a new graduation project; he had no success with the Academy but was noticed by Catherine II and her son Paul, who commissioned Bazhenov to design and build a private mansion on Kamenny Island. At the end of 1766 Grigory Orlov, then commander of imperial artillery and military engineers, hired Baznenov into his retinue, in the military rank of captain of artillery, and commissioned him the Arsenal in Saint Petersburg. and Bazhenov eagerly responded; as early as 1767 if ever completed, would have replaced the Kremlin itself, leaving only its cathedrals intact. or 630 meters

Layout of the new Kremlin "was the most inventive planning effort of Catherine's reign". Bazhenov expanded his planning into modernizing the city itself, which eventually led to the Projected Plan officially accepted in 1775, a joint effort led by Pyotr Kozhin and Nicholas Legrand. Nikolay Karamzin wrote in 1817 that "plans of Bazhenov, the famous architect, are similar to Plato's Republic or More's Utopia: they should be admired in thought and never put into practice." Nevertheless, the project received a go–ahead and the government set up the Kremlin Construction Board (or Expedition in 18th century parlance), an institution that survived into the 19th century. The Expedition became a new architectural school for local students, starting with Bazhenov's aide Matvey Kazakov. Kazakov, working in Kremlin since 1768, became Bazhenov's equal after 1770 and took over management of the Expedition in 1786. He surpassed Bazhenov as educator, revitalized Ukhtomsky school and trained Joseph Bove, Ivan Yegotov and Aleksey Bakarev. At the groundbreaking ceremony (1773) Bazhenov declared that "today we renew old Moscow". Work commenced by shaving of the southern slope of the Kremlin Hill and laying foundation for the supporting buttresses. In 1775 Catherine shut down the project, citing damage to the Cathedral of the Archangel or the simple fact that by 1775 "Catherine had nothing more to prove." is preserved at the Moscow Museum of Architecture. When the museum was based at the Donskoy monastery the model was publicly displayed in its main cathedral. In 2001 City of Moscow proposed building a dedicated museum pavilion to display the model in Alexander Garden but the proposal was rejected.

Bazhenov, at least in the first half of Catherine's reign, perfectly understood her taste and stylistic program, that of Age of Enlightenment rather than of Neoclassicism. During the 1775 celebrations of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca on the Khodynka Field, Bazhenov "turned imitation of English Gothic Revival into an attempt to create a universal stylistic language for Russian architecture combining typical elements of medieval buildings of both East and West, motifs from Antiquity and pure fantasy." imperial palaces in Moscow suburbs (in 1775 she lived in a temporary wooden building in Kolomenskoye). In summer of 1775 Bazhenov designed the first draft of Tsaritsyno, now lost. In 1777 Bazhenov demolished the old wooden manor house of the Cantemirs, former owners of Tsaritsyno, and started construction of the main palace. The main palace, with an added central annex for Paul's children, In February 1786 Catherine finally awarded Tsaritsyno project to Kazakov; Bazhenov's palace was demolished in summer of 1786. or his Gothic styling; in fact, Kazakov retained both Gothic and Masonic features and most of Bazhenov's auxiliary buildings survived to date. In December 1786 Bazhenov finally retired from state service and had to rely on private commissions alone. The extent of these private jobs, once considered to be numerous (see attribution problem) has been subsequently revised to a very small number of more or less reliably attributed buildings; in contrast, Matvey Kazakov's legacy of the same period has been documented far better. Shvidkovsky noted that Bazhenov set the style of neoclassical Moscow but it was Kazakov and his alumni who actually designed and built it. According to Shvidkovsky, residential Moscow before the fire of 1812 was influenced, through Bazhenov, by works of Charles de Wailly and his circle; Bazhenov enhanced the French style with use of sculpture and garden architecture. Bazhenov, eager to improve his finances, accepted what looked like a generous offer from Prokofi Demidov, a wealthy and whimsical patron of arts. Demidov planned to donate a new building to Moscow University; he agreed to refinance Bazhenov's debts in exchange for his design and management services. Relations soon turned sour; Demidov, literally having Bazhenov in his pocket, rejected his design for a downtown campus and ordered Bazhenov to design a new green field campus on the Sparrow Hills. This cat and mouse game (as presented in Bazhenov's own writing) continued for nearly a decade; the architect wasted years on a dead end project and remained bankrupt at the mercy of Demidov. Once again Kazakov picked up the job and completed the "old" downtown core of the University in 1793. In 1792 Bazhenov relocated to Saint Petersburg and accepted an uninspiring but stable job of an architect of Kronstadt admiralty; in his spare time he translated the complete works of Vitruvius. In April 1792 Bazhenov was implicated in the Nikolay Novikov affair; police found Bazhenov's letter to Novikov about supplying masonic books to Paul. Novikov spent four years in Schlisselburg fortress jail and the theory that he was a long term agent of martinists tasked with winning Paul's support. Paul was aware of Bazhenov's real or alleged mission but by 1792 he stepped aside from freemasonry and personally warned Bazhenov against further conspiracies.

Emperor Paul I of Russia supported Bazhenov as one of the alleged victims of his despised mother. Shortly upon ascension to the throne (1796) Paul summoned Bazhenov to Saint Petersburg and made him vice president of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Bazhenov believed that the Academy must dispose with elementary education and focus on its core subjects, admitting literate teenagers who could prove their talent in an open contest. Paul's main construction project, Saint Michael's Castle, was awarded to his house architect, Italian Vincenzo Brenna, while Bazhenov was appointed to supervise Brenna. Historians of the 19th and early 20th centuries could not clearly separate the input of each architect and attributed the design to Brenna and Bazhenov jointly. Nikolay Lanceray (1930s) and subsequent Russian historians give full credit to Brenna; according to Lanceray, Bazhenov did not interfere in Brenna's designs that were, to a large extent, Brenna's renditions of Paul's own romantic vision. According to Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Bazhenov worked on an earlier design of the castle and this fact was later interpreted as his participation in actual design; Brenna "was given the task of adapting Bazhenov's design" but created an independent work. At any rate, Bazhenov died in the middle of the project leaving Brenna in full control; the castle turned out not a Neoclassical building, but "a rare example of an imperial palace genuinely redolent of the Romantic era." Paul also commissioned Bazhenov to design a new hospital near Danilov Monastery. Bazhenov, again, responded with an extravagant plan that did not proceed past wooden frame and was replaced by Kazakov's extant Pavlovskaya Hospital built in 1802–1807. Shortly before his death Bazhenov began compilation of an album on Russian Architecture, collecting drafts of "all large buildings in two capitals."

Reliable attribution of private 18th century buildings in Russia, even those that retained original styling and floorplans, is rarely possible. Wealthy patrons eagerly hired architects who made themselves famous by working on government megaprojects, but in many instances original drawings are missing. In these cases historians used general design features or specific features to deduce probable author. is attributed to him "through the 19th century tradition supported by the majority of <20th century> researchers". Pashkov House, uniquely to 18th century architecture, retains its original external appearance and layout as conceived by the architect around 1784 and completed in 1787. Yushkov House on Myasnitskaya Street in Moscow (late 1780s – early 1790s) is simply "attributed" to Bazhenov. According to Schmidt, it represented architect's turn from French neoclassicism to Italianate architecture. Layout of this building, featuring a corner rotunda, became a widely copied standard for neoclassical architects in Moscow. The building later housed Palace School of Architecture and Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1844–1918), VKHUTEMAS (1918–1930) and, since 1989, Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Razumovsky House on Vozdvizhenka Street, another corner rotunda completed in 1799, has been attributed to Bazhenov by Schmidt, but Russian sources agree on inability to ascertain architect's identity. Tutolmin House in Tagansky District has been attributed to Bazhenov by Igor Grabar; later researchers attributed it to Starov. Prior to rebuilding in 1900s, the building's landmark role rivalled that of Pashkov House. Same attribution uncertainty applied to now demolished Prozorovsky House on Bolshaya Polyanka Street, "one of most charming estate houses in this street." The Dolgov House in Bolshaya Ordynka Street, has been once attributed to Bazhenov based on the fact that his wife was related to the owner of the building. This opinion has been since discarded. The belltower of the Church of All Sorrows in Bolshaya Ordynka Street, across Dolgov House, is unconditionally attributed to Bazhenov while the church itself has been built by Joseph Bove in 1828–1833. Panukhina (1994) suggested that Bazhenov could have been involved in the late stages of construction of Moscow Kriegskomissariat (present day headquarters of Moscow Military District) in Zamoskvorechye, designed by Nicholas Legrand.