Monuments of Russian architectural heritage: experience of typological classification

The article highlights the almost unexplored issue of the classification of architectural heritage sites. The authors define architectural heritage as a complex of buildings and structures that form the surrounding space and reflect the art of creating these buildings and structures. Pursuing the goal to create a regulating system of Russian architecture monuments, the authors of the article use the architectural style as the main sign of monuments. Reliance on scientific research, written and visual sources allows identifying and characterizing large typological groups of monuments. The first group includes monuments of Russian architectural tradition, created in the period of 11th and 17th centuries on Byzantine and Italian architectural basis. The Baroque style was introduced into Russian architecture in the 18th century. It is characterizes by the magnificence and decorativeness of the details, includes columns, pilasters, sculptural decorations. About a century later, the Baroque was replaced by a style of Classicism. An obligatory element of Classicism monuments is a triangular gable, which rests on columns. Such compositional components as bays, risalitas, and balconies characterize the style. Monuments of classicism form architectural ensembles in Russian cities. The most famous of them is Palace Square in St. Petersburg. Since the mid-19th century, architectural monuments of the Eclectic style have been created. It combines elements of Gothic, Classicism, and folk Russian architecture. Wooden monuments of eclecticism, richly decorated with carvings, make the main pride of Tomsk. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, modern architectural monuments with their characteristic asymmetry of the layout, plant decor in the design of facades are created. Under the influence of the changes brought by the Revolution of 1917, the style of Constructivism spreads in Russian architecture. In the early 1930s, the laconic Constructivism was rejected, the order system returned to the composition of the buildings. They are decorated with stucco moldings and sculptural images. For a long time unnamed, now this style is known as Soviet Neoclassicism. In the late 1950s, monuments of Soviet Neoclassicism were accused of unjustified pomp and parade. In the second half of the 20th century, the trends of Neo-Functionalism and Postmodernism prevail in Russian architecture. The regulating system of architectural monuments proposed in the article allows to characterize objects of architectural heritage, provides continuity of cultural experience.

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