Viktor Stepanovich Balikhin (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: Виктор Степанович Балихин, 1893–1953) was a

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. He taught at the VKhUTEMAS and was one of the founders of the Association of New Architects (

ASNOVA ASNOVA () was an avant-garde architectural association in the Soviet Union, which was active in the 1920s and early 1930s, commonly called 'the Rationalists'. The association was started in 1923 by Nikolai Ladovsky, a teacher at VKhUTEMAS and ...

), whose members included

Nikolai Ladovsky Nikolai Alexandrovich Ladovsky (; 15 January 1881 – 18 October 1941) was a Russian avant-garde architect and educator, leader of the rationalist movement in 1920s architecture, an approach emphasizing human perception of space and shape. ...

Konstantin Melnikov Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov (Russian: Константин Степанович Мельников; – November 28, 1974) was a Russian architect and painter. His architectural work, compressed into a single decade (1923–33), placed ...

, and

El Lissitzky El Lissitzky (, born Lazar Markovich Lissitzky , ; – 30 December 1941), was a Soviet Jewish artist, active as a painter, illustrator, designer, printmaker, photographer, and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, h ...

Biography

Viktor Balikhin was born 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 ...

in 1893. He studied architecture at the

Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture The Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (), also known by the acronym MUZHVZ, was one of the largest educational institutions in Russia. The school was formed by the 1865 merger of a private art college, established in Moscow ...

and at

's United Workshops (OBMAS) at the VKhUTEMAS, from which he graduated with a project for an airport in 1924. From 1923 to 1929, Balikhin taught the propaedeutic course "Space" at the VKhUTEMAS. Balikhin was one of the founders of the Association of New Architects (

, 1923–1932), alongside Nikolai Ladovsky,

Vladimir Krinsky Vladimir Fyodorovich Krinsky (Владимир Фёдорович Кринский; 19 December 1890 – 2 April 1971) was a Russian people, Russian artist and architect active with the ASNOVA architectural organisation and linked with the Cologne ...

, Nikolai Dokuchaev, and others.

joined the association between 1923 and 1924.

designed the only issue of the association's journal ''Izvestiia ASNOVA'' (News of ASNOVA) in 1926. After Ladovsky broke away from ASNOVA and formed the Association of Architect-Urbanists (ARU) in 1928, Balikhin became ASNOVA's de facto leader until

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...

, when all artistic associations were dissolved. Balikhin worked collectively with other members of ASNOVA on submissions to architecture competitions, including for a monument to

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

on the site of the

Cathedral of Christ the Saviour The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (, ) is a Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, Russia, on the northern bank of the Moskva River, a few hundred metres southwest of the Kremlin. With an overall height of , it is the ...

in Moscow (with

Georgy Krutikov Georgy Tikhonovich Krutikov (1899–1958) was a Russian constructivist architect and artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage ...

and others, 1924), the All-Union Palace of the Arts in Moscow (with Vladimir Krinsky, Viktor Petrov, Irina Tikhomirova, and others, 1930), and the

Palace of the Soviets The Palace of the Soviets () was a project to construct a political convention center in Moscow on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The main function of the palace was to house sessions of the Supreme Soviet in its ...

(with Pyotr Budo, Militsa Prokhorova, Mikhail Turkus, Romuald Iodko, and Flora Sevortian, 1931). In July 1932, Balikhin and Ladovsky were elected to the board of the newly created Union of Soviet Architects. Balikhin worked at the Academy of Architecture of the USSR during the 1930s. Balikhin died in 1953. Balikhin's works were shown at the ''Paris-Moscou'' exhibition at the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1979. The

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; ) is a Architecture museum, museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street) and rue Saint-Ma ...

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

holds the "V.S. Balikhin Archive", which includes photographs of models and plans of projects by Balikhin, his collection of photographs of cities, towns, and projects designed by various architects from 1923 through 1935, as well as an inscribed copy of Balikhin's 1936 article "Iz materialov obsledovaniia arkhitektury zhilykh kompleksov" (From Materials of a Survey of Architecture of Housing Complexes).

Selected writings

* * *

Notes

References

* * * *

External links

V.S. Balikhin Archive

digitized items
{{DEFAULTSORT:Balikhin, Viktor Stepanovich Russian avant-garde 20th-century Russian architects Soviet architects Modernist architects Vkhutemas alumni Academic staff of Vkhutemas Architects from Moscow 1893 births 1953 deaths Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture alumni