Russian Traditions in Teaching the History of Architecture

Abstract

The teaching of architectural history in present-day Russia is still linked to the Soviet past and its totalitarian approach toward education, which is based on centralization and application of the same standards countrywide. Although the links among the architectural schools in the former Soviet republics were dissolved in 1991, the curriculum continues to follow the Soviet model. Currently, however, there is greater emphasis on national artistic traditions in the Commonwealth of Independent States-an issue that was largely neglected in the Soviet Union. In Russia, the number of architecture schools and departments in polytechnic schools doubled during the last decade, reaching a total of thirty-nine. The majority of architecture departments in provincial institutions were transformed into faculties of architecture, and several departments of architecture in the schools of construction became independent architectural schools (most under the title of Academy). They may display varying strengths in responding to technological changes, but there is no diversity in the courses on architectural history. This situation was legally confirmed by the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation in 2001, with the stipulation that the standards prepared by the Moscow Institute for Architecture (MARHI) be met by all institutions.1 The legal proclamations made no serious change, as MARHI had been responsible for devising programs for other schools since 1934. Nevertheless, there are, and there have always been, differences in the teaching of architectural history in Russia, stemming from the personalities of the professors, not the programs. Even when the schools adopt alternative pedagogical approaches, they mostly use textbooks and other teaching materials from Moscow.2 The teaching of architectural theory flourished in Russia during the 1920s-the time of the Russian avant-garde. In the early 1930s, after the introduction of the obligatory Soviet neoclassicism, theory and history were combined so that views of Vitruvius or Leon Battista Alberti, for example, were discussed in reference to the buildings of their respective eras. Theories of the twentieth-century masters were taught either very superficially or not at all. A decade after the fall of the Communist regime in 1991, there are still no courses that do justice to the richness of the historic l and contemporary architectural theory of different cultural traditions.