Pages from the book Architecture of the NKTP Sanatorium in Kislovodsk by Moisei Ginzburg
Join architect Alexei Ginzburg, publishers Natalia Shilova, Frank Althaus and Mark Sutcliffe, and photographer Richard Pare to discuss a new English-language publication of the original book on the NKTP (People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry) Sanatorium in Kislovodsk, by architect Moisei Ginzburg.
The Sanatorium was commissioned in 1934 by Grigory Ordzhonikidze, one of Stalin’s closest allies and head of the Commissariat for Heavy Industry (he committed suicide after falling out with Stalin in 1937, the year of the sanatorium’s completion). Despite the prevailing ideology that sought to outlaw modernism in favour of Stalinist neoclassicism, architect Moisei Ginzburg, with a team that included Ivan Leonidov, Evgeny Popov and Nikolai Paliudov, succeeded in creating an architectural ensemble that essentially retained its modernist integrity – and today remains a masterpiece of 1930s modernism – while making only minor concessions to the new Stalinist orthodoxy.
In the early Soviet period, Kislovodsk in the northern Caucasus became known as a centre for health spas and sanatoria – ‘palaces of health for the workers’. Ginzburg’s sanatorium still functions as a therapy centre, and retains many of its original features, including windows, light fixtures, some of the furniture etc.
Moisei Ginzburg (1892-1946) was an architect, theorist, teacher, and a leader of the Constructivist group in Soviet avant garde architecture. Born in Minsk in 1892 into an architect’s family, he went abroad to Italy and France for his architectural training. He settled in Moscow, where he taught architectural history and theory at the Moscow High Technical School and in the architecture faculty at the Vkhutemas Art School. His grandson Alexei Ginzburg is currently working on the restoration of Moisei’s famous Narkomfin building in Moscow (completed in 1932). As part of this project, Ginzburg Design has initiated the publication of Moisei Ginzburg’s four seminal publications on architecture and the built environment. This is the final tome, and is the first English-language publication of the original book documenting the creation of the Sanatorium. All four books are published by Ginzburg Design with Fontanka.
Celebrated photographer of the Soviet avant garde Richard Pare will show some of the photographs he took of the Sanatorium just over ten years ago. Pare describes the building as, ‘a last gasp of the modernist impulse.’ It features the only ever built project by avant-garde architect Ivan Leonidov - a grand sweeping staircase. Pictures of the Sanatorium by Richard Pare can be seen here.
Copies of the book will be available to buy.
In English.
Pages from the book Architecture of the NKTP Sanatorium in Kislovodsk by Moisei Ginzburg