Arseni Vladimirovich Maximov

Arseni Wladimirowitsch Maximow ( Russian Арсений Владимирович Максимов , scientific transliteration Arsenij Vladimirovič Maksimov ; born July 25, 1912 in Saint Petersburg ; † January 2003 ) was a Russian architect . From June 1945 Maximow was responsible for taking stock of the destroyed city of Königsberg and planning its reconstruction. Maximov's plans and designs influenced later urban planners in Kaliningrad , such as Dmitri Konstantinowitsch Nawalichin in 1949, Michael Naumov in 1954 and Vladimir Chodakovskij in 1960. Maximov lived in Kaliningrad until 1968.

Live and act

He was born the son of Vadim Igorewitsch Maximow ( Russian Вадим Игоревич Максимов ), who restored buildings in Tsarskoye Selo .

Since 1929 Maximov studied at the Leningrad Institute of Civil Engineering (Leningradski inschenerno-stroitelny institut, LISI , today State University of Architecture and Building Art Saint Petersburg ) with Alexei Viktorovich Shtusev . As a military engineer, he constructed a realistic model of the city in preparation for the storming of Königsberg. Maximow stayed in the destroyed Königsberg and worked in town planning. Since June 1945 he was responsible for examining the remains of the destroyed city of Königsberg and preparing for its reconstruction. At the end of 1945 he met Willi Schedler , a Königsberg architect. Together they looked for remains of maps and plans from the Königsberg building archives. The finds formed the basis for further stocktaking. Schedler helped with the systematization of floor plans, plans and maps. The first plans for the destroyed city resulted from this collaboration.

In 1946 Maximow provided the first results and data for the city of Kaliningrad: In April 1945 there were around 6,000,000 m² of available living space in Königsberg. After the capture of Königsberg, only 1,070,000 m² of that remained. About 70% of the streets were still undestroyed or usable. The degree of destruction within the city of Königsberg varied. The area within the inner ramparts was 90% destroyed. Amalienau in the north-west was 65% destroyed, Maraunenhof and Quednau in the north-west to 55% and the settlement Devau and Kalthof in the north-east to 45%. The northwest, like Juditten and Metgethen , was preserved.

The first reconstruction plan for the city of Königsberg resulted from the collaboration with Dmitri Konstantinowitsch Nawalichin. So in 1949 the so-called Nawalichin-Maximow-Plan was created for the reconstruction of the old Königsberg old town, which took up the previous city structure while preserving the castle . However, this plan was not approved by Moscow, which is why it was never carried out. The Navachilin Maximov plan from 1949 was also taken up by the architect Michael Naumov from GIPROGOR , the state institute for urban planning, who included the axis to the south train station in his design.

When in April 1960 the Kaliningrad city architect Vladimir Chodakowski ( Russian: Владимир Ходаковский ; chief architect of Kaliningrad from 1961) suggested that the palace be saved, Maximov wanted to build the Königsberg palace as a people's house or as a house of peace. The castle ruins, however, were blown up at the behest of Leonid Brezhnev .

Awards

Maximov was awarded the Order of the Great Patriotic War, 1st class . The order was handed over personally by Hovhannes Baghramjan .

reception

Maximow's watercolors of the war-torn Königsberg from the 1940s were published in books on the architectural history of Kaliningrad, including Baldur Köster's Königsberg: Architektur aus deutscher Zeit and Markus Podehl's Architektura Kaliningrada . Maximow's drawings and watercolors were made by Ronny Kabus in 1992 in the exhibition catalog for an exhibition in the East Prussian State Museum in Lüneburg under the title Ruins of Königsberg. Pictures by a Kaliningrad architect published. In 2005, an exhibition by Arseni W. Maximov was shown in the Kaliningrad Regional Museum.

Maximov explained the motivation for his watercolors as follows:

“The ruins actually looked terrible, but at the same time so picturesque that they inspired me to do this series of studies in my spare time. My intention was reinforced by the fact that no Kaliningrad painter ever touched on this subject. They passed by without feeling that the ruins were being removed every day and that the stones were being brought across the sea to Leningrad. "

Maximow's work was the motivation for Baldur Köster to write his work Königsberg: Architecture from the German Era.

“In order to give an impetus to deal with the conditions in the destroyed and empty Königsberg after the painful expulsion of the German population, I would like to insert a shocking experience that was at the same time the impetus to deal with the subject of Königsberg and Kaliningrad occupy: It was the study of the book with the watercolor drawings of the Russian architect Arseniij W. Maksimow [...] He came from a family of artists, worked as a military engineer in preparation for the storm on Königsberg with a realistic model of the city, so learned it from illustrations know and loved her. He stayed in the ruined city and worked in town planning. He secretly painted and drew - before they all disappeared - the ruins of his city in a realistic way, as if he wanted to document them photographically. "

literature

• Bert Hoppe : On the ruins of Königsberg. Kaliningrad 1946–1970 (=  series of the quarterly books for contemporary history . Volume 80 ). Oldenbourg, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-486-64580-3 .
• Ronny Kabus: Ruins of Königsberg. Pictures by a Kaliningrad architect . Husum-Druck- und Verlags-Gesellschaft, Husum 1992, ISBN 3-88042-610-4 (two editions).
• Baldur Köster: Königsberg: Architecture from German times . Husum, Husum 2000, ISBN 3-88042-923-5 .
• Markus Podehl : Architektura Kaliningrada: How Königsberg became Kaliningrad (=  materials on the art, culture and history of East Central Europe . Volume 1 ). Herder Institute, Marburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-87969-375-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Арсений Владимирович Максимов (1912; Петроград), архитектор (Russian)
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Podehl, p. 84
3. ↑ Podehl, p. 86
4. ↑ ^{a b} Podehl, p. 102
5. ↑ Podehl, p. 104
6. ↑ Podehl, p. 253.
7. ↑ Hoppe, p. 130
8. ↑ ^{a b} Köster, p. 12.
9. ↑ Kaliningrad remembers its early years , Russland Aktuell , Kaliningrad aktuell, June 3, 2005