Архитектор и инженер Николай Александрович Потураев. Заметки о творчестве

Abstract

Currently, one of the most important tasks of research activity is the task of collecting information, identifying and publishing the names of architects, sculptors and artists who are still unknown, the circumstances of their life and work, which will allow more objective presenting of Russian art of the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries. In particular, this concerns a study of the field of construction of industrial facilities, where the names of most project authors still remain unknown. This paper is to study the work of one of such architects and engineers — Nikolai Alexandrovich Poturaev. To this end the authors explore some of the construction activities of the Brothers A. and N. Poturaev Trading House in Moscow, as well as identify a number of addresses related to the placement of workshop, technical office and other services of this Trading House. Addressing to archival documents made it possible to establish that the Trading House of brothers A. and N. Poturaev actively collaborated with the M. S. Kuznetsov Partnership and carried out construction work at the Riga Porcelain-Faience Factory, Dulevsky Porcelain Factory, Tver Porcelain Factory in the village of Kuznetsovo. The factory buildings under construction included carefully elaborate heating system as well as the first ventilation and air humidification system installed. The most modern technical solutions and materials were used for construction. It should be noted that the merits of buildings of purely utilitarian purpose are due in no small part to elements of decor, generally characteristic of Russian industrial architecture of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The authors analyze Poturaev's architectural projects, considering stylistic features of neoclassical buildings with the introduction of Art Nouveau elements, as well as other historical styles. Poturaev's architecture is distinguished by rationality, the desire to develop interesting layouts, convenient and practical. In the composition of the building, he always highlights its structural basis, as a rule, emphasized by decorative elements. The surviving buildings of N. A. Poturaev provide additional connotations to the characteristic of development of a domestic architecture of the late 19th – early 20th centuries.