Decorative Elements in the Composition of Facades of Wooden Art Nouveau Buzuluk 19th–20th Centuries

Abstract

Buzuluk is a small town, part of the Orenburg region, located on the border of the Samara and Orenburg regions, next to the unique forest area of the Buzuluksky Bor National Park. Traditionally, the main building material in these places was pine wood — a relatively light and affordable material in processing technology. The development of scientific and technological progress, the formation of industry and economy, capital accumulation of the late 19th — early 20th centuries. during this period, it contributed to the active construction of cities and, as a result, the population growth in them. The new “Art Nouveau” style, developing during this period in large cities, spread to the outskirts of the Russian Empire, but in a modified, adapted form. So, Buzuluk today is almost the only city in Russia that demonstrates an example of mass wooden buildings in the Art Nouveau style of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. A number of scientists were engaged in the study of wooden structures of the regional center of Buzuluk and the cities of the Southern Urals, but none of them considered specific decorative elements that became the basis for the formation of variable ornamental compositions of wooden modern facades of the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, which confirms the relevance of this study. The result of the study is also a description of the artistic, compositional, stylistic and semantic features of the ornamental decor of the Art Nouveau style of the city of Buzuluk. The stylistics of the ornamental compositions of the facades of the wooden architecture of Buzuluk shows the phenomenon of contradiction characteristic of the symbolistic trend of modernity, combining the synthesis of symmetry and asymmetry in the organization of the composition of facades and ornamental motifs, mixing the symbolism of modernity with folk traditional elements. The material is supplemented with graphic reconstructions of residential buildings, which make it possible to determine the principles of compositional construction of ornamental decor.