Fyodor Schechtel

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In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Osipovich and the family name is Schechtel.
Fyodor Schechtel
Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal

Fyodor Osipovich Schechtel (Russian: Фёдор О́сипович Ше́хтель; August 7 [O.S. July 26] 1859 – July 7, 1926) was a Russian architect, graphic artist and stage designer, the most influential and prolific master of Russian Art Nouveau and late Russian Revival architecture.

Baptised as Franz Albert Schechtel (also transliterated as Shekhtel), he created most of his work as Franz Schechtel (Франц Шехтель), changing his name to Fyodor with the outbreak of

Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal
and various other buildings, primarily in Moscow. Most of his legacy survives to date.

Biography

Early life

Franz Schechtel (Russified as Fyodor Osipovich) was born to a family of

ethnic German engineers in Saint Petersburg, the second of five children. His parents were Volga Germans of Saratov. His mother, born Daria Karlovna Zhegin, came from a family of Saratov merchants. Schechtel's uncle on his father's side, also named Franz Schechtel, was an established businessman in Saratov. He is credited with building the first theater in Saratov. See also a photocopy of the Schechtel family tree
.

The Schechtel family relocated to Saratov in 1865 to assist the ailing Franz Sr. in business. Both brothers, Franz Sr. and Osip, died in 1867. Business debts ruined their families, forcing Daria Karlovna to seek free boarding schools for the children; she relocated to Moscow and worked for

Russian Imperial Army
(Schechtel was eventually relieved from service).

Rebuilding Moscow Art Theater was Schechtel's tribute to the artistic Moscow of the 1880s that shaped his talent, with contributions by Anna Golubkina and Ivan Fomin

An emerging artist

In 1875 Schechtel arrived in Moscow and attended architectural classes at the

Nikolay Chekhov. Schechtel illustrated a book for Chekhov in 1886, who then recommended Schechtel to other clients. This experience (as well as the Tretyakov connection) familiarized Franz with Moscow's artistic circles and the wealthy patrons of the arts who would become his future clients, notably the Morozov family of Old Believers
.

Throughout the 1880s, Schechtel completed many theatrical stage designs; most of his graphics from this period have been lost, excluding a small fraction stored at the Bakhrushin Museum in Moscow.

Zinaida Morozova Palace, 1893

Early architecture

Schechtel obtained a construction management license in 1894. His earlier projects, completed under Kaminsky's management, are sometimes credited to Kaminsky alone. Schechtel's first own, undisputed building - Zinaida Morozova House in Spiridonovka Street, 1893, famous for

Russian Revival. The first sign of a new, mature style (a Russian version of Art Nouveau
, Russky Modern), appears in his 1899 Arshinov House in Bolshaya Ordynka Street.

Art Nouveau

Levenson Printshop, Moscow (1900)
Ryabushinsky House, 6, Malaya Nikitskaya, Moscow (1900)

Schechtel's turn to Art Nouveau is associated with the 1900 Levenson Printshop in Trekhprudny Lane, in

Patriarshy Ponds, a well-to-do neighborhood near Moscow's center. Patriarshy Ponds is still home to many of Schechtel's works, including two of his own residences from 1896 and 1910. Schechtel designed the Printshop to have Gothic trim, but changed his plan midway through construction. His "Popov Tea House" pavilion at the Exposition Universelle (1900) in Paris earned a silver medal, exposing him to international fame (diploma).[1] At home, he was inducted as a member of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1902 (photograph of diploma
).

1899-1903 were Schechtel's most productive years. In this period, he designed (in Moscow alone, not including out-of-town commissions):

Unlike his rival

Revolution of 1917
.

Mature years

Shamshin Building, Moscow, 1909

In the aftermath of the

tented church, borrowing elements from the style of the Church of Ascension at Kolomenskoye in Moscow and older architectural traditions of the Russian North. The church, which could accommodate 1,200 worshippers, was completed in 1912, but was later destroyed during the Soviet period. It is now being rebuilt by the Russian Orthodox Church
).

After 1905, Schechtel was famous for his office buildings, applying Art Nouveau concepts to steel frame structures, notably the 1907 Ryabushinsky Printshop in Putinkovsky Lane (photographs, floorplan) and the 1909 Merchant's Society offices in Cherkassky Lanes (photograph, floorplans, the latter damaged by inadequate replacement of the original windows). Emphasis on the top floor ornamentation, witnessed in the Merchant Society Building, became a key feature in the so-called Rationalist Modern trend in commercial architectural design.

Neoclassical Chekhov Library, Taganrog, 1914

In 1909 Schechtel turned to

Doric style. He began taking more commissions outside Moscow, notably in Nizhny Novgorod, his hometown of Saratov, and Taganrog, including the neoclassical Chekhov Library in 1914. Vladimir Lenin's refuge in 1923-1924, the neoclassical Gorki Leninskiye
estate (formerly Morozov property), is also Schechtel's design.

Death and legacy

The advent of

Olonetz area models (excluding the integrated belfry, which was uncommon for Olonetz architecture). The church was closed in the 1930s, neglected and eventually demolished in the 1960s; a wooden replica was built in 1996-1997.[2]
Schectel's only post-1917 work, a pavilion at the 1923 All-Russia Agricultural Exhibition, met a similar fate.

Shechtel cooperated with various planning and design agencies, continued teaching at

Lenin Mausoleum contest (Schechtel's entry
), but did not build anything anymore. Construction in the USSR, halted by a decade of hostilities, resumed in 1926, the year of Schechtel's death.

In 1918, the architect was evicted from his house on Bolshaya Sadovaya and had to live with his daughter, Vera Tonkova (née Schechtel). Of Schechtel's four children, two of them — Vera Tonkova and Lev Zhegin — would become well-known artists. According to several accounts, however, Schechtel died in bitter poverty. He was interred at Vagankovo Cemetery.

Schechtel's Art Nouveau was despised by Soviet critics as rotten formalism until the Brezhnev period. At the same time, his Neo-Russian structures, such as Yaroslavsky Terminal, which matched the patriotic Soviet rhetoric quite well, were at first tolerated and later praised. Many of his Moscow mansions were leased to foreign embassies, have been well maintained and are still in good order inside and out. His public buildings, including his theaters and the Taganrog Library, also remain close to their original design externally.

Buildings

Schechtel's second own house, in Yermolayevsky Lane, 1896
Moscow Art Theater, main entrance, sculpture by Anna Golubkina
Details of 1900 Ryabushinsky House

See also

Schechtel's grave in Vagankovo cemetery
  • William Craft Brumfield. The Origins of Modernism in Russian Architecture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)
    ISBN 0-520-06929-3
  • William C. Brumfield, "Fedor Shekhtel: Aesthetic Idealism in Modernist Architecture",1991 www.cdlib.org

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fyodor Schechtel.
  • This article started as an abridged translation of ru:Шехтель, Фёдор Осипович, itself based on materials from mosmodern.race.ru. Some material was rearranged as in V.G.Vlasov's "Lexicon of Fine Arts".[4] Contradicting, unreferenced statements were omitted. Dates, wherever possible, are referenced to drafts, not completion, as in "Architectural monuments of Moscow" ("Памятники архитектуры Москвы") academic edition.
  1. ^ Russian: Н.П.Овчинникова, архитектор (Ленинград), "Россия на Всемирной выставке 1900 года в Париже" www.nsc.ru
  2. ^ Russian: Church of St.Nicholas, official site Archived 2012-04-18 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Russian: Cело Одинцово. Михайло-Архангельская церковь www.domod.ru Archived 2007-07-10 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ Russian: Власов В.Г. Большой энциклопедический словарь изобразительного искусства, СПБ, 2000, online at Vlasov
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