"Matvey Kazakov and pre-fire Moscow"

State Museum of Architecture named after A.V. Shchuseva presents an exhibition project for the 280th anniversary of the birth of the great Moscow architect Matvey Fedorovich Kazakov (1738 - 1812). The exhibition "Matvey Kazakov and pre-fire Moscow" will be the first retrospective of the architect’s work in recent decades.

Matvey Kazakov is an outstanding Russian architect, one of the founders of Russian classicism and the most famous representative of Russian pseudo-Gothic. Studying at the architectural school of Dmitry Ukhtomsky, he comprehended the basics of architecture according to the treatises of Vitruvius, Palladio and Vignola. Cossacks absorbed love for ancient Russian architecture. He honed his talent with hard work and deep study of the work of his predecessors. Thus, a characteristic feature of Kazakov’s creative style was formed - a combination of classical and ancient Russian architecture. First working under the leadership of Vasily Bazhenov in the Expedition of the Kremlin building, by 1786 Kazakov led the Expedition and actually became the leading architect of Moscow, presenting it with the Senate building in the Kremlin, the new building of Moscow University, the House of the Noble Assembly, Golitsynskaya and Pavlovskaya hospitals, Petrovsky Palace, manors Demidov, Gubin and Baryshnikov, and many other structures, firmly included in the list of architectural sights of Moscow.

Genuine author’s projects, architectural graphics, prints and a series of Kazakov’s drawings, three-dimensional models of the most significant buildings - many materials will be presented to the general public for the first time. Especially valuable exhibits of the exhibition will be the famous “Kazakov Albums” stored in the Museum of Architecture. Six of them - with drawings of private buildings and seven - with public ones - were created under the guidance of an architect in the framework and are a real encyclopedia of architecture of pre-fire Moscow at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries.

The architectural graphics and watercolors of Kazakov’s contemporaries constitute the richest material on the history of many public and residential buildings of the city in the second half of the 18th century. Pre-fire views of the city will allow today, at the beginning of the XXI century, to visually restore the appearance of the long-gone, "Kazakov" Moscow. Visitors will see how “Gothic” and “Russian” trends penetrated into fashion in the strict era of classicist architecture, and thanks to genuine objects of decorative and applied art and furniture of that time, they will be able to feel the spirit of Moscow life the century before last.

The basis of the exposition will comprise works from the funds of the A.V. State Museum of Architecture Shchusev, as well as graphic materials from the collections of the State Historical Museum, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, the State Hermitage Museum, the State Russian Museum, the Research Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, the All-Russian Museum of A. Pushkin, the Russian State Historical Archive and the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts.

In honor of the architect’s 280th anniversary, the Museum will issue a catalog that includes articles by leading researchers in the field of history and art history, which will present most of the creative graphic heritage of Matvey Kazakov.