The ShchusevThe official site of the museum prefers the spelling ''Schusev''. Museum of Architecture is a national museum of

Russian Architecture The architecture of Russia refers to the architecture of modern Russia as well as the architecture of both the original Kievan Rus', the Russian principalities, and Imperial Russia. Due to the geographical size of modern and Imperial Russia, i ...

located in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

the capital of

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and also a research centre to study and promote the architectural and urban heritage. The museum was founded in 1934 and is located on the

Vozdvizhenka Street Vozdvizhenka Street, (), is a radial street connecting Manege Square and Arbat Square in central Arbat District of Moscow, Russia. The street's name refers to a monastery that existed here since 1450 and perished in the Fire of Moscow (1812). I ...

.Shchusev State Museum of Architecture: About the Museum
, retrieved 11 November 2011 The collections include more than 800000 items. The museum is named after Russian and Soviet architect

Alexey Shchusev Alexey Victorovich Shchusev (; – 24 May 1949) was a Russian and Soviet architect who was successful during three consecutive epochs of Russian architecture – Art Nouveau (broadly construed), Constructivism (art), Constructivism, and Stalini ...

History

The original museum of the Academy of Architecture, established in 1934 was located in the secularized

Donskoy Monastery Donskoy Monastery () is a major monastery in Moscow, founded in 1591 in commemoration of Moscow's deliverance from the threat of an invasion by the Crimean Khan Kazy-Girey. Commanding a highway to the Crimea, the monastery was intended to def ...

. The sprawling fortified monastery housed hundreds of fragments of art salvaged from the demolished buildings. The museum was dedicated, at least officially, to worldwide architecture of all periods and styles, although most tangible exhibits were Russian. In the summer of 1945

began campaigning for the establishment of a museum of Russian national architecture. The new museum was established in 1946, with Shchusev as its first director. He personally picked the , then occupied by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

, and used his connections within the organization to free it up for the museum. Under Shchusev's management the museum became a refuge for the unemployed Jews hit by the

anti-cosmopolitan campaign The anti-cosmopolitan campaign (, ) was an anti-Western campaign in the Soviet Union which began in late 1948 and has been widely described as a thinly disguised antisemitic purge. A large number of Jews were persecuted as Zionists or rootless co ...

, like , and . The Baldin Collection of German art was secretly deposited in the museum, with Shchusev's consent, in 1948. However, the main purpose of the museum, as envisaged by Shchusev himself, was the recording and archiving of Russian heritage that was destroyed or damaged during the war. For the first ten years, it operated primarily as a research and archive institution; the first permanent public exhibition opened in 1957. In 1964, after

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

had disbanded the Academy of Architecture, the two museums were merged into the Shchusev Museum of Architecture. The Donskoy Monastery and the Talyzin House exhibited pre-revolutionary Russian and post-revolutionary Soviet exhibits, respectively. In 1991 the government expelled the museum from the monastery. Some exhibits were evacuated to the Talyzin House, others remained within the monastery walls. The Talyzin House, meanwhile, was falling apart after decades of poor maintenance and vibration from subway trains, and had to be closed for a lengthy restoration. In the 21st century, the museum operates three main exhibition sites in Vozdvizhenka Street: the reconstructed Talyzin House, the nearby "Ruin" building, and the 17th-century building of the former . The Melnikov House became part of the museum in 2018.

Directors

(1945 – May 1949) * Naum Minkin (acting, June 1949 – November 24, 1949) * Sergey Chernyshyov (November 24, 1949 – January 1, 1954) * Nikolai Vinogradov (acting, January 25, 1954 – July 30, 1956) * Naum Kabukovsky (July 30, 1956 – February 1962) * Elena Panfilenko (February 1962 – July 15, 1963) * Victor Baldin (July 15, 1963 – 1987) * Vladimir Rezvin (1990–2000) * David Sargsyan (2000–2010) * Irina Korobina (2010–2017) * Irina Chepkunova (acting, January 2017 – March 2017) * Elizaveta Likhacheva (2017–2023) * Natalia Shashkova (March 2023 – present)

Sources

References

External links

Shchusev State Museum of Architecture
{{authority control Museums in Moscow National museums Architecture museums Architecture in Russia Art museums and galleries established in 1934 1934 establishments in Russia