1. Ivan Fomin began his career in 1899 in Moscow, working in the Art Nouveau style.
25 Facts About Ivan Fomin
1. 2.
Ivan Fomin worked for Lev Kekushev and Fyodor Schechtel, two leading masters of Art Nouveau.
3.
Ivan Fomin continued working for the Reck family, who sponsored Art Nouveau.
4.
Ivan Fomin contracted top-level furniture makers, foundries and ceramic plants for his own designs, but displayed works by guests like Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Koloman Moser and Russian artists.
5.
Ivan Fomin acquired a solid reputation, but did not have an architect's license yet.
6.
Ivan Fomin returned to StPetersburg in 1905 and completed Leon Benois' course at the Academy of Arts in 1909, winning a one-year study tour to Greece, Egypt and Italy.
7.
Ivan Fomin's turn to Neoclassicism is traced to 1903, when he applied to the contest for Count Volkonsky estate with a neoclassical draft.
8.
In 1904, Fomin published his Revival Manifesto in Mir Iskusstva magazine, pledging to architectural legacy of Catherine and Alexander I "These days, everyone wants to be individual, to invent his own, and in the end we cannot see neither a dominant style, nor a trace of those who can eventually create it".
9.
Ivan Fomin believed in a universal idea uniting everyone, and in an architectural style that could serve it.
10.
Ivan Fomin promoted the academy's exhibitions in "History of Russian Art" and "History of Architecture", as vigorously as he did his Art Nouveau shows.
11.
Ivan Fomin was an outspoken advocate for building preservation, leading a campaign against the conversion of historical mansions into rental apartment buildings.
12.
Ivan Fomin completed numerous interior renovations, and two new buildings.
13.
Ivan Fomin wanted to recreate the monumental imperial classics in a middle class community.
14.
Ivan Fomin managed to secure the chair of Petrograd Zoning commission, and designed the Field of Mars landscape.
15.
Ivan Fomin asserted that a universal architecture must borrow essential principles from classicism, but the details of classicism are not important.
16.
The building, using steel frame and concrete slab floors, looks like an industrial object, but the paired columns, Ivan Fomin's trademark, give away its classical origin.
17.
In 1933, when all Moscow architects were assigned to 20 Mossovet workshops, Ivan Fomin is appointed to lead Design Workshop No 3.
18.
Ivan Fomin eventually disposed with it in favor of true neoclassicism.
19.
Ivan Fomin took part in all of the major architectural contests of his time:.
20.
Ivan Fomin did win and completed one of the Metro jobs.
21.
Ivan Fomin competed on the Krasniye Vorota against former constructivist Ilya Golosov, whose entry appeared to be a true Doric Greek classic.
22.
Ivan Fomin designed one more station, Teatralnaya, which was completed two years after his death.
23.
Ivan Fomin knew very well that a 25-meter bare column will look unnatural; the quilt warms up an otherwise dull shape.
24.
Ivan Fomin died of a sudden stroke in 1936 and was interred at Novodevichye Cemetery; Teatralnaya and Government of Ukraine were completed by other architects.
25.
Fomin's son, Igor Ivanovich Fomin was born on 1904 and became an architect, working primarily in Saint Petersburg.