THE RUSSIAN ARK PROJECT

T H E RU S S IA N A R K P R OJ E C T RUSSIA - GREAT BRITAIN 2015

1

2

Above Eternal Peace, Isaak Levitan, 1894 Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

1

2

CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Project Aims 3. Project Information 4. Proposed design 3.2 Timeline 3.3 Construction 3.4 Location and Installation 4. Project Programme 4.1 Preliminary Events Series 4.2 Main Events Programme 4.3 Publications 5. Project Team and Partners 5.1 Team Members 5.2 White on White Research Collaborative 5.3 Partners (Russia)

3

4

1. INTRODUCTION The Russian Ark Project is intended to celebrate the shared values of design, craftsmanship and community in Russia and Great Britain. We plan to build one of the most evocative symbols of Russian culture, a traditional wooden church.

These ancient log buildings reflect the ingenuity of the Russian people over the centuries. These constructions overlaid with decorative details - shingled onion domes, axe carved crosses and delicate tracery - reflect a profound and enduring sense of fantasy.

2. PROJECT AIMS 1. To increase the awareness and enjoyment of traditional Russian culture through direct contact with the skills and techniques employed in the construction and conservation of wooden architecture.

2. To enable the sharing of skills between craftsmen in Russia and the UK, and to give students of architecture the opportunity to learn a less familiar architectural language.

3. To present this unique experience to a diverse audience - young and old.

3. PROJECT INFORMATION The church will be built by architectural students and professional carpenters here in the UK, in collaboration with master craftsmen from the Russian north.

These traditional Russian skills, almost lost during Soviet times, have been revived to restore those fragile wooden structures that survive. The project intends to encourage links between individuals and organisations in Russia and the UK in support of that work. The churches are of a simple construction. Logs are laid one on top of the other and interlocked at the corners without the use of nails or fixings. This means that once the church has been built and enjoyed in one location it can be taken down and reassembled elsewhere in the UK. The process of building, disassembling and re-assembling the church will be very much part of the experience.

5

6

AIM: Our aim isto establish a direct linkwith the past by reconstructing a church lost to history. The church of St. Peter and Paul in Plyos was destroyed by firein 1903 but more significantly it was the inspiration for Isaak Levitan’s extraordinary painting Above Eternal Peace. Painted in 1894, it now hangs in the Tretyakov gallery in Moscow.

The Russian Ark Project is collaberation people who have seen at first hand the unique and beautiful wooden buildings and churches in the far north of European Russia and who are moved by the distressed and wretched state of many of these beautiful structures.

Disastrous historical events that led to state atheism and a complete disregard for the traditions and heritage of Russia’s northern towns and villages have resulted in the loss of many of these exquisite examples of wooden architecture. Those that remain are scattered over thousands of miles of the north in a landscape of forests, lakes and majestic rivers – they are drifting into decay and oblivion.

The Russian Ark Project’s seeks to raise awarness in partnership with local Russians. Many of the localities are poor, but the people are not indifferent to their heritage. On the contrary, given the chance to show that they care, many local volunteers have come forward, carpenters, builders, smallholders, foresters, craftsmen and others, who are prepared to contribute their time and skills.

7

Church of St. Peter and Paul, Plyos Isaak Levitan, 1888

Church of St. Peter and Paul, Plyos Isaak Levitan, 1888 8

(Contribution by Averil King ~ author of Issak Levitan Lyrical Landscape)

3.1 THE CHURCH AND THE PAINTING. THE CHURCH OF ST. PETER AND PAUL, PLYOS Levitan is perhaps Russia’s best-known landscape painter. He painted many views of the Russian countryside, celebrating the arrival of spring and also the quiet beauty of her rivers and lakes, fields and forests, often pictured at twilight. Levitan lived from 1860 to 1900, and trained at the Moscow School of Art. As a young artist, he made several visits to the shores of the Volga river, looking for inspiration, sometimes staying at the riverside village of Plyos. In 1888 he was accompanied there by his mistress, Sofia Kuvshinnikova, who was ostensibly his student but was in fact the wife of an eminent Moscow surgeon.

Noting the small wooden church of St Peter and St Paul on a hill above the village, Levitan made a sketch ofit in oil. Then, asking permission from the local priest, he and Sofia went inside the church to record its interior. The priest lit candles to illuminate its ancient iconostasis, so that its gold icons glowed in the candlelight. Levitan worked quickly, but suddenly he became nervous, fearing that the old timber building might catch fire and begged the priest to extinguish the flames.

The church of St Peter and St Paul at Plyos is an important element in his monumental painting Above Eternal Peace, which dates from 1893/4. The location where the painting was conceived was Lake Udomlya, some 200 miles north of Moscow, where Levitan had gone to work during the summer of 1893. The little church, transposed from the banks of the Volga, is shown in the immediate foreground. On this violently stormy day, the crosses marking the gravestones in its tiny cemetery teeter in all directions. Windswept trees bend towards the church’s one small lighted window, evidence of man’s presence in the landscape dwarfed by the immense sweep of swirling water.

Above the long expanse of empty land stretching towards the horizon, angry clouds scud across the sky. Some regard Above Eternal Peace as the most symbolic of Levitan’s compositions, in which he portrayed man’s diminutive and transitory presence in the vast natural scene, as the flood waters and tumultuous sky threaten to engulf the little church on its small spit of land. The artist considered Above Eternal Peace his finest work. He wrote to Pavel Tretyakov, the founder of Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery and the most important 9

The Iconastasis, Church of St. Peter and Paul, Plyos Isaak Levitan, 1888

The Iconostasis, Church of St. Peter and Paul, Plyos Isaak Levitan, 1888

10

(Contribution by Averil King ~ author of Issak Levitan Lyrical Landscape)

of his patrons, describing it as ‘embodying my whole psychic being, the quintessence of myself’. Tretyakov, readily appreciating its magnificence, bought the painting straight away.

In 1891 the writer Anton Chekov, returning from a visit to a Paris Salon exhibition, wrote home, ‘I must tell you that I take the Russian artists far more seriously than I do the French.

Compared with the landscape painters I have seen here, Levitan is a king.

The earliest document, from 20th December 1782, shows the “plan of the churchyard of the St. Peter and Paul church with its cemetery and the yards of the clergymen”, without giving the date of its foundation. But according to the written sources of the 19th century the church in Plyos had been constructed in 1748 by an “unknown builder”. The observations made by the priest Jacob Ouspensky and presented to Archaeological Society of Moscow in 1887 were accompanied by the measured drawings of the architect A. Pavlinov – the author of the first comprehensive survey of the history of Russian Architecture.

The church, built of pine logs, consisted of two wide rectangular frameworks – the church itself and the refectory – with a five-sided sanctuary added to the east, and a porch to the west. The roof with an onion-shaped dome was covered with iron sheets and fixed with four iron chains. Compositionally the church in Plyos perfectly demonstrates the so-called “klet-type”, that is considered the simplest and oldest design used for wooden buildings, both secular and religious. The church traditionally had two window types: large “red/beautiful” windows, framed by an architrave of four smooth timbers mitred at the corners, and in the sanctuary there was one small window closed by a sliding panel.

The construction of the iconostasis, made from horizontal beams, and consisting of two tiers, seemed to be archaic. The iconostasis, a printed Gospel from 1659, icons bearing the dates of 1663 and 1696, along with a gravestone in the cemetery inscribed 1572, seem to indicate an earlier date for its construction. In 1748, it is probable that, the old church was re-consecrated after restoration that year, but at present it is impossible to say exactly when the church was built. The church of St. Peter and Paul in Plyos burnt to the ground in 1903 by children, attempting to smoke out the birds responsible for splotching and desecrating its interior.

Evgeny Khodakovsky, Ph.D., Ass. Prof.

Head of the Department of Russian Art History, Faculty of History, St. Petersburg State University 8 March 2014 11

12

Drawing Church of St. Peter and Paul by the architect A.M. Pavlinov

DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION Wood is the most favorite building material of forest Russia. Novgorod’s 9-th and 10-th centuries excavations show that the construction of wooden houses on log technology did not change until the 20th century, but it allows carpenters to create a huge variety of architectural forms of wood.

Many outstanding monuments of Russian wooden architecture were often built on the edge of the physical capabilities of wood and they became a significant part of the treasury of world architecture. One of the most outstanding monuments is the Ensemble of Kizhi Pogost on the island of Kizi. It has been included into the World Heritage List in 1990.

The project involves the construction of an authentic replica of an ancient wooden church on traditional technology, with traditional tools. It is an example of temple architecture, manifesting all the best aspects of Russian construction culture. Usually the most skillful craftsmen were invited for the construction of such churches.

Using media (films, videos, guidelines and manuals on the construction of log buildings in Russian style), using the support of stakeholder relevant institutions and help of students majoring in engineering and architecture, the project will allow not only to tell the residents of the British Isles about original building culture of Russia, but also to attract the attention of all the stakeholders in Russia and abroad to the problems of dying traditional culture.

The Recearch Institute of Historical and Theoretical Problems in Traditional Architecture (Petrozavodsk State University) will prepare the architectural and detailed design of the temple.

Timber can be harvested from the North of Russia (Karelia, Arkhangelsk region), and prepaired for work, including its pre- produce processing, sawing on the desired product, etc. The material from ruined, old, log buildings can be used as well, for the manufacturing of individual designs.

One should get into account that the shrinkage of the wood in the first 1.5 - 2 years after logging may cause some defects of the construction as, for instance, formation of cracks in the floor, etc.

Traditional hand-forged tools, axes, chisels, braces must be ordered from Russia in the amount required for the production and educational process. Upon completion of the project the instruments may be left for educational and practical perposes to the educational institutions participating in the project.

Construction works will be carried out under the guidance of master carpenters from Russia and supplimented by workshops on theory and practice of Russian wooden architecture.

Upon completion of the construction project the church may be transferred to Russia to one of the Orthodox parishes.

It is also necessary to arrange the final conferences in the UK and Russia with participation of all the stakeholders, institutions and vocational training schools participating in the project.

13

Illustrated Elevation of the Church of St. Peter and Paul 1:125 14

Illustrated Section of the Church of St. Peter and Paul 1:125 15

PARTNERS (RUSSIA) Sergey Kulikov has lead conservation and restoration projects from small village churches to the Kizhi Pogost churches and has lectured widely.

Alexander Popov is an architect and restorer from the Vologda region.

- Petrozavodsk University - Kizhi State Open Air Museum of History, Architecture and Ethnography PARTNERS (UK) - Bristol University - Courtauld Institute of Art - Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre - John Soane Museum Wooden Architecture at Risk (WAaR) is a UK based charity set up by people who have seen at first hand the unique and beautiful wooden buildings and churches in the far north of European Russia and who are moved by the distressed and wretched state of many of these beautiful structures.

David Leviatin is a timber frame carpenter, documentary photographer and cultural historian. His work as a builder, author and lecturer reflects his interest in combining theory and practice to reveal and realise the connections between shape, construction and culture.His London based company of craftsmen and consultants specialises in the conservation of historic timber buildings and the design and construction of new innovative timber frame architecture.

J. Mitchell Johnson is a producer, director, writer and consultant on international media projects. He is currently working on a documentary, Saving the Wooden Churches of Russia

16

5.1 TEAM MEMBERS Andrew Spira graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art before completing a MA degree at City University, London. He worked as a specialist in Russian and Byzantine icons at the Temple Gallery and the Royal College of Art. Andrew has been Course Director at Christie’s Education since 2004 and in 2008, published The Avant-Garde Icon: Russian Avant-Garde Art and the Icon Painting Tradition.

Richard Davies is a freelance photographer primarily working in the field of architecture. Since 2002 he has travelled extensively in Northern Russia on a project photographing wooden churches. Richard published Wooden Churches – travelling in the Russian North’ with Matilda Moreton in 2012 and is a founding member of charity Wooden Architecture at Risk.

Ben Hayes was recently awarded the RIBA Silver medal for his Masters design work at University College London. The research focused on the design for a new open-air museum and a sustainable strategy for the restoration of Russian wooden heritage. He has previously worked at Foster and Partners and MSAArchitects on a broad range of projects and building types in the UK and abroad. He is currently working for Niall McLaughlin architects.

White on White Research Collaborative.

Helen Higgins, Markus Lahteenmaki, Rosie Rockel and Lauren Warner are four art historians, specialising in Russian and European art of the 20th century.

White on White write innovative scholarly publications, undertake investigative research projects and produce interpretative and educative materials for a broader audience.

White on White write innovative scholarly publications, undertake investigative research projects and produce interpretative and educative materials for a broader audience.

17

18

June 2014 July 2014 August 2014 September 2014 October 2014 November 2014 December 2014 January 2015 February 2015 March 2015 April 2015 May 2015 June 2015 July 2015 August 2015 September 2015 October 2015 November 2015 December 2015 January 2016 February 2016 March 2016 April 2016 May 2016 June 2016 July 2016 August 2016

3.2 PROJECT TIMELINE

1.Design finalised 2..Press Launch and Public Announcement 3. Preliminary events 4.Construction 5.Installation (Initial location, UK) 6.Official Opening 7.Main events programme 8.Closing events 9.Church disassembled 10.Church re-assembled (Second location, UK) 11.Church disassembled 12.Church re-assembled (Third location, UK) 13.Final installation at permanent location in Russia

Andrew Spira graduated from the Courtauld Institute of Art before completing a MA degree at City University, London. He worked as a specialist in Russian and Byzantine icons at the Temple Gallery and the Royal College of Art. Andrew has been Course Director at Christie’s Education since 2004 and in 19

20

PROJECT PROGRAMME 4.1 Preliminary Events Series • Press launch • On-going marketing (project blog, videos) • Conference 4.2 Main Events Programme • Opening events • Accompanying exhibition • Concerts • Lecture series • Crafts workshops • School and family events 4.3 Publications • Exhibition catalogue • Research papers • Educational material EVENTS • London Festival of Architecture • World Architecture Festival

21

22

MORE INFORMATION Please visit our website or email us: Web:

INFO@THERUSSIANARK.ORG.UK Email:

WWW.THERUSSIANARK.ORG.UK HOW CAN YOU HELP? 1) By making a donation to The Russian Ark Project 2) Can you put us in touch with others who may be interested in helping or supporting us?

23

THERUSSIANARK.ORG.UK

24