Collection of modern architectural graphics

About 11,000 storage units.

The collection consists of design materials related to the planning, development and improvement of Leningrad-Petersburg, as well as projects developed by St. Petersburg architects for other cities.

Chronological framework of the collection - 1917-1990s.

The collection began to take shape in the 1920s in the Architectural Department and the Department of Communal and Social Hygiene of the Museum of the City. The creator and first director of the museum, Lev Aleksandrovich Ilyin, was simultaneously the creator and head of the Leningrad Redevelopment Commission. The Commission itself was founded in 1923 at the Museum of the City and only in 1925 it became subordinate to the Petrograd Provincial Executive Committee. The basis of the initial collection was the materials from the archive of architectural graphics of the Urban Development Commission of the Sovkomhoz, transferred to the museum in 1923. Later, the collection was replenished with materials for the settlement of the plan of Petrograd and its outskirts (which were worked out by a group of architects under the direction of L.A.Ilyin) and materials of architectural competitions held by the Otkomkhoz (Department of Communal Services) of the Leningrad City Council. In 1938, during the reorganization of the museum, which became the Museum of the History and Development of Leningrad, a significant part of the materials was lost (decommissioned, sold out, transferred to other museums). However, the collection continued to be actively replenished by proceeds from private collections and from design organizations in Leningrad.

The collection of the fund can be divided into 5 chronological and stylistic groups.

The first one is composed of early post-revolutionary projects, most of which have not been implemented. Stylistically, most of them are connected with the search for the lapidary language of the "new classic". These include projects of the first Soviet architectural competitions in Petrograd-Leningrad, landscaping projects and the creation of urban communications networks, projects of typical buildings for various purposes.

Architectural projects of the second half of the 1920s - early 1930s reflect the avant-garde period of the development of Soviet architecture. Our museum has the most studied and probably the richest collection of architectural graphics of the Leningrad avant-garde. The same period (and partly the previous one) includes a group of materials created by the employees of the Otkomkhoz of Lensovet directly for the expositions in our museum. These objects reflect not only the history of the city and the graphics of the avant-garde era, but also that period in the history of our museum, when it served as one of the first centers in the world for the comprehensive study and design of the urban structure and environment, what we now call “urban studies”.

In the complex of materials of the 1930s and first half of the 1950s, projects of quarterly development of Moscow Avenue and the creation of a new city center, projects of public buildings such as the Udarnik House (architect N.A.Trotsky), the House of the Medical Worker (architect N.A.Miturich), competitive projects of the lighthouse monument in the Leningrad port (authors I.G.Langbard, N.A.Trotsky and others), competitive projects of the House of Soviets.

The post-war period includes projects for the restoration of old houses that were destroyed during the Great Patriotic War and large-scale, mostly low-rise, new residential construction, projects of the first stations of the Leningrad Metro. This period is fairly well and fully represented in the collection by the projects of architects L.V.Rudnev, V.A.Kamensky, K.L.Johansen, A.I.Lapirov, B.N.Zhuravlev, A.V.Zhuk, E.N.Sandler, A.K.Andreev, M.Y.Klimentov, and many others.

The era of Leningrad architectural modernism - 1960-1980s is represented quite fully in the collection. These are projects of residential buildings, public buildings, memorial complexes, layouts of blocks under construction, interior design projects. In this part of the collection it is worth noting the representative complexes of works by architects G.P.Morozov, N.M.Zakharyina, S.I.Evdokimov, I.N.Kuskov, E.M.Poltoratsky, V.N.Sherbin.

The post-Soviet period of the architecture of St.Petersburg is currently presented in the collection only by several dozen sheets. Nevertheless, this part of the collection reflects various aspects of St.Petersburg’s architecture - from residential buildings and restaurants to metro stations and memorial complexes.