"The Genius of the Place:
from the Exercirhaus to the exhibition hall. 200 years in history"

The exhibition “Genius of the Place: from the Exercirhaus to the Exhibition Hall opens in Moscow. 200 years in history, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Manege. "

The exposition will include works and documents telling about the history of the Moscow Manege.

The anniversary exhibition in the halls of the Manege reflects all stages of its history, filled with dramatic events. The exhibition includes architectural plans and models, archival documents and photographs, portraits and uniforms of prominent figures directly related to the history of the Manege, works of art and exhibits that were once exhibited on this site. The Military Historical Archive, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the State Historical Museum, the Moscow Architecture, the Multimedia Art Museum, the M. Glinka All-Russian Museum Association of Musical Culture, the Museum of Railway Transport, the Museum Museum of Moscow, Museum B take part in the exhibition project A. Tropinin and Moscow artists of his time, Polytechnic Museum, Russian State Library, State Tretyakov Gallery, Research Museum of Russia Academy of Arts, Tsaritsyno State Historical, Architectural, Art and Landscape Museum-Reserve, A. V. Shchusev State Research Museum of Architecture and the Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Museum of Railways in St. Petersburg, the State Central Archive and other archives in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

For two hundred years, the country’s political and cultural life unfolded in the immediate vicinity, and sometimes even inside the building itself. The architectural structure, erected in 1817 on the occasion of the celebration of the fifth anniversary of Russia’s victory over Napoleon, was originally intended for army exercises and was proudly called the Exercirgauz. The unique project of the Spanish engineer Augustine Betancourt allowed to conduct classes freely indoors, devoid of traditional columns and partitions. Betancourt has developed an original construction of wooden rafters, which has no analogues in the world, capable of covering the span of 44, 86 meters without supports. The whole structure rested only on the outer walls. The suspended ceiling (first used in our country in this project) was attached directly to the roof and hid the openwork system of the trusses. Enormous windows gave excellent illumination, the area of which was one third of the total area of the walls. In 1825, the famous Moscow architect Osip Ivanovich Bove decorated the building with stucco and stucco decorations on a military theme.

However, on this "military" history of the Manege ended. After the death of Emperor Alexander I, the building was used exclusively for peaceful purposes. The Manege has turned into an elite center of folk festivities for Easter, Maslenaya week and Christmas. While ordinary people were freezing on Maiden’s Field, a wealthy audience at that time for rather big money (in the morning - 50 kopecks, in the evening - a ruble or more) could enjoy caramel cockerels, carousels and booths in warmth and comfort. On other days in the Manege, it was possible to watch horse riding, to receive horse riding lessons, and later cycling. Among the visitors who completed the full training course belonged to Count Leo Tolstoy. In his youth, he learned to manage a horse in the Manege, and at the age of 67, much to the delight of his fans, he mastered the two-wheeled “horse”.

In the second half of the XIX century, the status of the Manege significantly increased. Coming from a merchant milieu, and now a prosperous bourgeoisie and representatives of the wealthy middle class, were not only worthy connoisseurs of science and culture, but also generous patrons. In the Hall of the Manege regularly held "Everyone accessible Golitsyn concerts" and Public accessible concerts ", and in 1867 a triumphant performance by Hector Berlioz took place. Since the 60s of the 19th century, the Manege increasingly began to fulfill not only an entertaining, but also an educational role. Lectures and exhibitions allowing one to live to see the triumph of the human mind over nature were extremely popular and the Manege successfully hosted the Ethnographic (1867) and Anthropological (1879) exhibitions. But the Polytechnic Exhibition of 1872, organized on the principle of the famous World Exhibitions in Paris and London, had the greatest public resonance. The Polytechnical Museum in Moscow owes her birth to her. Another landmark event in the exhibition life of the Manege was the exposition “30 years of MOSH”, which opened in 1962. The scandal surrounding the works of artists of the studio Belyutin, Ernst Unknown and other sixties opened a new page in the life of the Moscow art underground.

Over the past centuries, the Manege building has undergone many shocks: beams of precious larch cracked and collapsed, a bomb that burst in October 1941 in the immediate vicinity of the building significantly damaged stucco molding. In the Soviet era, there was a government garage. The walls of the building were disfigured by technical extensions. Finally, on March 14, 2004, a strong fire broke out in the building, destroying the unique ceilings.

But the very next day it was decided to restore the Manege. In the process of reconstruction, a minus second floor was made, which increased the exhibition area to 6000 square meters. On April 18, 2005, the new Manege opened its doors to Muscovites again. Today, the Central Manege is one of the largest exhibition halls in Moscow.