Architectural Conservation and Restoration in Norway and Russia

Evgeny Khodakovsky, Siri Skjold Lexau, Evgeny Khodakovsky, Siri Skjold Lexau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351995658
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture générale

Norway and Russia have been closely related through the ages, both geographically and historically, and have experienced similar problems relating to climate, building maintenance and national wooden architecture. As a result, the parallel study of architectural conservation and restoration theories and practices in both neighbouring Northern states makes for a stimulating collective monograph.

Architectural Conservation and Restoration in Norway and Russia delves into the main challenges of historic and contemporary architectural preservation practices in the two countries. The book consists of three main parts: the discovery and preservation of historical architecture in the latenineteenth to earlytwentieth century; contemporary approaches to former restorations and the conservation and maintenance of historical architecture; and, finally, current questions concerning preservation oftwentieth-century architectural heritage which, due to different building technologies and artistic qualities, demand revised methods and historical evaluation.

This is a valuable resource for academics, researchers and students in different areas of architecture (medieval, nineteenth-century, wooden and contemporary architecture) as well as in the fields of art, architectural history, cultural heritage andScandinavian and Russian studies.

Part I

Nation building, assessment of historic monuments and cultural heritage management

1 Norwegian medieval architecture in Russian accounts (late nineteenth to early twentieth century)

Evgeny Khodakovsky and Arina Noskova

After the gradual decline of Late Classicism in Russian architecture in the mid-nineteenth century, a search for new paths of development began in the ideological atmosphere prevailing in the reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), who personally encouraged people to look to national and medieval heritage. Nevertheless, the origins of that heritage were a matter for great discussion among Russian scholars. The Western tendency dominant in Russian architecture since the Petrine revolution of the early eighteenth century was challenged by three others – Oriental, Southern and, of most interest for our present topic, Nordic.

Indeed, in the 1860s–1880s, the “Early Russian” trend, represented by Konstantin Thon and his outstanding Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (constructed in 1839–1883), raised the question of the nature of Russian medieval art itself, positioned between the European and Eastern worlds. The most influential book to discuss this matter was Eugene Viollet-le-Duc’s L’Art Russe, published in 1877, where the subject of Ex Oriente lux in Russian architecture is examined in detail. Although today considered old-fashioned and naïve, this publication encapsulated the general idea of an Oriental impact on Russian national tradition.

At the same time, the Southern or “Byzantine” source for Russian art was provided by Prince Grigorii Gagarin (1810–1893), whose research into Byzantine and Caucasian ornaments and architecture laid the foundation for the Russo-Byzantine style in the late nineteenth century, the taste for which was bolstered by the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 in the Balkans. This tendency naturally merged with the general Oriental trend and viewed Russian art within a general system of Byzantine and Eastern artistic culture.

The powerful Oriental and Southern trends tended to overshadow the Nordic line of Russian scholarly interest, which can be traced back to the late 1850s and early 1860s. Yet this Scandinavian aspect appears entirely natural, given Russia’s geographical location and its traditional “Northern”, even specifically Scandinavian, identity, which came to the fore after the great celebrations for Russia’s Millennium in 1862, measured from the arrival of the Scandinavian prince Riurik and his brothers, mentioned in the chronicles under the year of 862. In this respect, the accounts of Russian travellers, especially architects, who paid particular attention to the national specifics of medieval Norwegian buildings, are of great importance.

The first Russian architect to professionally examine the character of Nordic medieval architecture in the broad context of European art was Ieronim Kitner (1839–1929), who visited Norway for the first time in 1861. Kitner would become an outstanding figure in St Petersburg artistic life in the late nineteenth century and is known for his buildings and also for teaching at the Institute of Civil Engineers.

His accounts of Scandinavia were published in the magazine Zodchii (The Architect) in 1872 and 1874 and present a detailed survey of Norwegian wooden architecture (see Appendix). Recalling his journey in 1861 and opening up this direction for architectural history in Russia, Kitner wrote:

The idea of a journey with an architectural purpose around such a country as Norway may seem at first sight somewhat paradoxical, but on closer acquaintance with this country, apparently totally isolated from the rest of Europe, it emerges that construction practice has always been quite successful on the Scandinavian peninsula and today, too, it does not lag behind the other states of our continent.

(Kitner 1874: 141)

It is remarkable that Kitner manifested his interest and shared it with contemporary readers almost at the same time as Nicolay Nicolaysen was extensively exploring the stave churches of Norway and making them accessible through his drawings and measurements. Indeed, Kitner gives references to publications by J.C. Dahl (1788–1857) and N. Nicolaysen (1817–1911), whose role in spreading knowledge of Norwegian wooden architecture internationally is indisputable. The significance of Kitner’s notes goes further, however, due to his historical assessment of the Nordic phenomena; his account echoes the discussions on the course of development of architecture in Russia, like Norway on the periphery of Europe, and its possible openness to various influences:

A closer acquaintance with Norwegian wooden churches shows that for all their distinctive character they are, nonetheless, not purely Scandinavian architecture, but rather have traces of borrowing clearly to be seen in their construction and ornamentation. There can be no doubt that Romanesque prototypes had a certain amount of influence on the development of Norwegian architecture.

(Kitner 1872: 26)

Being a child of his time, Kitner brings in the Oriental aspect here as well, linking some of the decorations with the possible Eastern influences:

The patterns in some decorations are reminiscent of the most ancient ornaments of the Northern pagan world, carried thither perhaps as a tradition of the Goths from Asia.

(Kitner 1872: 26)

At the same time, Kitner makes a noteworthy observation relating to Byzantine features in Norwegian stave church architecture, pointing out:

The centralized plan and general arrangement of the parts bear the mark of Byzantine influence, which is to some degree explained by the Norsemen’s contact with the Greeks back in the times when the Varangians waged their campaigns against Constantinople by way of Early Rus’.

(Kitner 1872: 26)

Finally, discussing the Urnes carvings on the columns in the nave, he compares them to illuminated manuscripts, pointing in the right direction for the discussion of the origins of these masterpieces of Norwegian medieval art. Kitner expressed concern about the evident tendency to renovate the old wooden structures, advocating the idea of preserving these unique masterpieces:

If the centuries have spared these edifices, then our own time should exert every care for their preservation, otherwise, under the influence of the spirit of innovation and change that is constantly growing in society, they might easily disappear altogether and we shall be forever deprived of the precious remnants of old Norwegian architecture.

(Kitner 1872: 26)

Thus, the first professional accounts made by a Russian architect of Norwegian stave churches indicate highly important directions for the further study of the subject, such as the European (Romanesque) context, external influences (Byzantine, Oriental), and the carvings in their relation to manuscript tradition, and, most significantly, they also express a sincere and deep concern for the past, proclaiming the necessity for preservation and maintenance, which was not so evident in that period.

It is not surprising that in Russia, where from the early 1870s an interest in the country’s own wooden architecture had been emerging ever more strongly, attempts were almost immediately made to view Russian wooden construction in the broadest context of European architecture. A historical and comparative review of Scandinavian wooden architecture was presented by Count Alexei Uvarov (1825–1884), whose name is one of the best known in mid-nineteenth-century Russian archaeology. He is remarkable for his extensive researches into the antiquities of Southern Russia in the Crimea, as well as early burial mounds in the Suzdal area. Uvarov played an essential role in organizing and administrating archaeological researches in Russia. He was one of the founders of the Moscow Archaeological Society and also the first person to put forward the idea of archaeological congresses, bringing scholars together to share their research. Uvarov’s paper On the Architecture of the First Wooden Churches in Russia, presented at the 2nd Archaeological Congress in 1871, can be considered a pioneering attempt to comprehend the phenomenon of wooden architecture of Christian Europe in general, beyond the borders of the Russian lands. Uvarov compares the chronology of church construction in Russia and Scandinavia in the tenth and eleventh centuries, at the time of Harald Bluetooth, Olaf the Saint and Harald Hardråde. In his survey, the count focusses on the principal difference between Slavic and Scandinavian building techniques, explaining in detail the method of vertical stave frame construction. Both Uvarov and Kitner refer to Nicolaysen’s drawings of Hurum (Høre) stave church as a typical example of this kind of architecture. Uvarov claims that stave construction is best suited to elongated buildings, such as basilicas, finding confirmation in a reference to King Cnut’s “in lignea basilica” in medieval sources. The Slavic log framework, forming a rectangular volume of horizontal rows, produces quite another vector for the compositional development of the architectural space. Uvarov states that

all these examples clearly show that both the actual method of building the Scandinavian churches and their outward appearance are entirely different from our churches and have nothing in common with them.

(Uvarov 1876–1881: 8)

Indeed, the question of the relationship between the two traditions of building with wood in northern countries becomes of great importance, since Russia and Scandinavia seem to have similar conditions for the development of timber construction in terms of climate, types of forest, and close economic and political contacts in the Viking age and later. These factors made it very tempting to speculate about cross-currents and connections between Russian and Scandinavian timber buildings. In spite of the earlier hesitations on these issues, expressed by Count Uvarov, who had produced a theoretical study on Christian wooden building in Europe, his younger contemporary Vladimir Suslov applied to the Imperial Academy of Arts for finance to make a journey to Sweden, Norway and North Russia to gain empirical knowledge on the art of the neighbouring countries in relation to Russia’s Northern art.

Suslov’s journey resulted in a large book, Travel Notes on Northern Norway and Russia, published in St Petersburg in 1888. From the very beginning of his route, while exploring the art collections of Stockholm’s Nordic Museum with the kind permission of Artur Hazelius himself, Suslov noted that pieces of peasant applied art (carved distaffs, cups, furniture and other household articles) were strikingly similar to ones he had seen previously while travelling in the Russian North, mentioning, among other things, a possible Indian origin for a pattern on a cup seen in both Russian and Scandinavian carvings. In church architecture, Suslov detected no likeness, linking the roots of Scandinavian architectural tradition with Western Europe, while he considered the way of decorating churches with fantastic images and plants to be of the local origin, dating back to the Bronze Age. Meanwhile, making his way north-westwards, Suslov displayed a great interest in the structure of Scandinavian farmhouses, since he was one of the first scholars to consider the question of peasant architecture in Russian architectural history. In this respect, his attitude to the neighbouring tradition was quite reasonable.

Suslov had his drawings printed in the margins of his book, depicting some of the most characteristic objects of Scandinavian architecture – the Swedish bell-tower in Oro, the ground-plan of a typical farmhouse, Borgund stave church, Trondheim fortress and barns. This first-hand Scandinavian experience was of great significance for Suslov, shaping a comprehensive approach to the study of Nordic artistic culture. Although he confirmed the earlier observation of Count Uvarov about the inherent differences between Russian and Scandinavian architecture, his close attention to detail and pattern brought him to a broader and deeper understanding of the nature of a wooden structure in general. In the late 1880s to early 1900s, he played a major role in researching historical buildings (both masonry and timber), making drawings, discovering historical records and, finally, revealing the wide panorama of Russian medieval architecture. His approaches to the task of working out the appearance of a traditional church could be compared with Peter Andreas Blix’s restorations of the 1880s. Both Suslov and Blix cared for the past for the sake of its revival, evoking the deepest national feelings, making their contemporaries able to read the message of the traditional architectural form. Since most of the medieval objects in Norway and Russia suffered severe alterations and losses, hidden or damaged architectural details could distort the ideal look of a church, which in turn embodied the image of national history itself. This attitude, displayed by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, was shared by most of the restorers of the nineteenth century and led to stylistic renovations of historical buildings.

Although Suslov had no direct contacts with Blix or Nicolaysen and hardly any of his restoration projects for wooden churches were actually implemented, they can be regarded in relation to a common approach to the task of revealing the image of the wooden church as an expression of a pure national style, accomplished by Blix and Nicolaysen in those culminatory decades in Norwegian history. A comparison of Blix’s restoration in Hopperstad (1885–1891) and the series of projects devised by Suslov and published in the late 1890s (Suslov 1895–1901) clearly brings out shared principles of caring for the past, and balance between romantic stylization and an archaeological approach. They both draw on analogues, preserving the authentic details. Blix re-creates turret, dragons and gallery, which derive from the Borgund church. In designing the stepped porch for the Nenoksa church, Suslov was evidently inspired by the Maloshuika church that retained the characteristic bochka (barrel) roof in the mid-1880s. The proximity of the restored projects to these analogues was an important consideration: the location of Hopperstad and Borgund in the Sognefjord area, and of Nenoksa and Maloshuika on the White Sea coast, justify the inclusion of the specific corresponding features. But the most important and remarkable thing is that, in general, both Norwegian and Russian architects follow the stylistic approach of Viollet-le-Duc in their fantasies about the architectural form of the national wooden church, yet at the same time they follow the empirical, historical method by, for example, restoring the galleries from the traces of the joints.

Russian interest in the architectural heritage of neighbouring Norway was not, however, confined exclusively to works of wooden architecture. Norway of the era of Ibsen and Grieg, a country which was building up strength so as to be reborn in 1905 as an independent, sovereign state, acquired in the eyes of Russian architects and ordinary travellers ever-greater individuality, while at the same time its ancient edifices were increasingly becoming perceived as a part of the history of common European architecture.

The sight mentioned ahead of any other by the authors of descriptions and guidebooks was unquestionably the grand cathedral in Trondheim, the ancient spiritual and political centre of Norway. Its restoration began in 1869 and became a symbolic reflection of the restoration of Norwegian statehood. Sof’ia Shil’, the author (under the pen-name Sergei Orlovskii) of a guidebook to Scandinavia published shortly before the proclamation of Norway’s independence, indicates that in that imposing edifice “at present much has already been restored and put right, so this cathedral is worth viewing” (Shil’ 1903: 123; see also Appendix). As early as 1911, in the words of another Russian traveller,

the majestic cathedral, constructed in 1160–88 by Bishop Øystein, stands in all its medieval splendour with its shapely vault and its pillars, where each stone has been carefully carved and put in its place. The Bishop’s Palace is also a very interesting building.

(Anon. 1911: 83)

In the 1910s, Russian travellers were strongly recommended to visit not only such well-known buildings as the cathedral in Trondheim but also Stavanger, “where another splendid cathedral has survived from the Middle Ages, giving us possibly a more powerful mood than any other church in Norway, despite the fact that it does not have the impressive grandeur of the cathedral in Trondheim” (Norvegiia s.a.: 51; see also Chapter 5 on the restoration of Stavanger cathedral), or Bergen to see “St. Mary’s Church (the German Church), a reminder of German dominion in the city”. Before the First World War, Russian-language guidebooks listed even such edifices as might seem of secondary significance, such as the monasteries of Lysekloster outside Bergen (Moskvich 1914: 269) and Selje in the Sogn region (Norvegiia s.a. 102), and also the ruins of the cathedral in Hamar (Norvegiia s.a.: 98).

These experiences of Russian travellers and their accounts of Scandinavian architectural monuments ...