Some New Episodes from I.V. Zholtovsky's Creative Biography

Abstract

The article consists of some results of research on architect Ivan Zholtovsky's biography in 1900-1910s. Despite a huge bibliography, this person is still a mysterious one. The authors of the article focused the attention on three plots. Firstly, using archival sources and museum funds, the authors succeeded to clarify some details related to Zholtovsky's education at the Imperial Academy of Arts as well as to the beginning of his independent career. The second story concerns the list of pre-revolutionary works of Zholtovsky, which should be supplemented by the results of the research that revealed nearly forgotten pieces - the house in the Shchurovo estate and the design of the Russian pavilion for the exhibition in Rome in 1911. For unknown reasons, they did not appear even in the lists of projects and buildings made during Zholtovsky's lifetime, although the sources attribute his authorship quite firmly. Finally, the authors managed to describe the role of Zholtovsky in creating the translation of Palladio's "Four Books on Architecture". The genesis of this translation has never been specifically studied before. As the authors show, Zholtovsky's participation in that process was different from what is commonly thought.