Iossif Yulievich Karakis

Iossif Juljewitsch Karakis ( Russian Иосиф Юльевич Каракис , Ukrainian Йосип Юлійович Каракіс Jossyp Julijowytsch Karakis ; born on 29. May 1902 in Balta , Podolia Governorate , Russian Empire , died on. 23. February 1988 in Kiev , Ukrainian SSR ) was a Soviet architect , Town planner, artist and educator . Internationally known as an architect, he was considered an important representative of the brief epoch of Ukrainian constructivism and an active fighter for the preservation of historical monuments both in the former Soviet Union and abroad .

Life

Iossif Karakis was born on May 29, 1902 in Balta in the family of Julij Borissowitsch Karakis (1879-1943), civil servant and co-owner of a sugar factory in the small town of Turbow, and Frida Jakowlewna Karakais (1882-1968, née Gejbtmann) as the eldest son born. His brother David (1904-1970) decided to pursue the career of a military doctor, made it to the rank of colonel and commanded a hygiene supervision command during the Second World War.

In 1917 Iossif Karakis graduated from secondary school in Vinnitsa . At the same time he attended an evening painting course with the artist AM Cherkassky. From 1918 he worked as a set designer at the Vinnitsa Theater with Matvej Draka for the troupe of Gnat Jura, Amwrossij Butschma and Marjan Kruschelnitskij, from 1921 as an artist in the regional department for political education of the Monument Protection Commission and provided the gallery and library from the art collection of Princess Branizkaya on their estate in Nemirow for the city museum.

In 1922 he settled at the Law Faculty of the Institute of Economics enroll , but moved a year later to the Academy Kiev , where he studied painting. During his studies he worked as a set designer (1925–1926 under the guidance of Nikolaj Buratschek). In 1925, already in his fifth semester, he gave up art studies under the influence of Jakow Sternberg and enrolled at the Faculty of Architecture.

In 1926 Iossif married - without informing his parents (because he was not yet working) - Anna Kopmann (1904–1993), a piano student at the Conservatory. In 1929 Iossif Karakis graduated from the Kiev Art School.

In 1929 he worked on his first building project: School No. 71 (Polewoj-Allee 10) in Kiev. Today the building is a monument. 1931-1932 he delivered together with LN Kissilewitsch the building design for the house for professors and lecturers of the wood technology institute in Golossejewo, which was built in the years 1932-1933. In January 1931 Iossif Karakis was called up for military service, which he did as an engineer-architect in the Kiev military district. At the same time he received an invitation from AM Werbizkij's assistant to work at the Kiev Institute of Civil Engineering, which was founded a year earlier and which is now the National University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, at the Chair of Civil Engineering Design. It was then that he designed a building on his own for the first time: the House of the Red Army and Fleet (today the General Assembly of Officers of Ukraine , a monument to architecture) and was awarded a prize for it.

In 1933 Karakis was hired as an external employee of the Kiev Institute of Civil Engineering and was soon recognized as one of the best lecturers.

1932–1934, according to the project of Karakis with the participation of PF Sawitsch, the Dynamo restaurant (a monument) was built in Petrovskaya Avenue, next to the stadium of the same name (now the Valery Lobanovsky Stadium ).

At the same time, 1933–1936, Iossif Karakis and PG Yurchenko Sozgorod planned and built a district in Krivoy Rog .

1932–1934 Karakis, together with the architects AA Tazij, MF Pokornyj and AM Kasjanow as well as the artist WG Meller, led the reconstruction and expansion of a building on University Street in Charkow , in which the house of the Red Army, "Klim Voroshilov" , opened. It was also called "All-Ukrainian House of the Red Army 'Klim Voroshilov'". Nine years later, during the war, it was destroyed in 1943.

In 1936 Karakis built the house of the Red Army (today the garrison officers' assembly) in the small town of Osjornoje, 10 kilometers south of Zhitomir. This project was carried out in two other places: in Gujwa (not preserved) and in Nowograd-Wolynskij.

In 1933 Karakis designed two residential areas on Janwarskogo Vosstaniya (January Uprising) streets 3 and 5 in Kiev (now Masepa Street), which were built in 1934–1940. Today there are architectural monuments (No. 456-Kw, No. 456/1, No. 456/263).

Karakis advocated the idea of ​​ensemble development, taking into account the special features of the relief and the surroundings, and was against the erection of individual, random structures that did not match each other or the respective landscape.

In the years 1934-1935 two movie theaters for 1000 spectators each were built in Kharkov, Krivoy Rog and Vinnitsa. The project was awarded first prize at the all-union competition. In addition, the club in the Chokolowka housing complex near the airport in Kiev was reconstructed from 1933 to 1934.

1935–1936 Karakis designed a residential building for officers of the Ukrainian Defense Area (monument since May 16, 1994) on October 25th (today Institutskaya Street 15–17), which was built in 1936–1937.

Shortly before the war (1938–1941), another residential area was built according to Karakis' design in Institutskaja-Strasse, which was intended for the GOSPLAN (State Planning Commission) in Strasse des 25. Oktober (today Institutskaja-Strasse) 19–21 .

In 1936, according to his project (with the participation of A. Dobrovolsky), a residential building for the general staff in Kiev was designed and built (Zolotovorotskaya Street 2).

1936–1937, Karakis, together with M. Rutschko and W. Sasansky, designed and built a house for the officers of the Kiev military district in Georgievskij Street.

Before the Second World War, there was Musikalnyj Alley in the place of today's house No. 6 on Proznaya Street. Here Karakis had planned and built a music school and a concert hall for the conservatory between 1936 and 1937 (today in the middle of the block).

From March 1937 to 1938, Iossif Karakis was the main architect of the Ukrgrashdan Project Association (Ukrainian civil construction company). 1937–1939 he designed and built the first Ukrainian art school: the Taras Shevchenko Art Middle School in Kiev. Today this building ( Volodymyrska Street 2) houses the National Historical Museum of Ukraine and is a monument.

In 1939 construction began on the Jewish Theater on Khreshchatyk Street (No. 27-29) in Kiev. Karakis had delivered four building designs, but they never came to fruition because the government decided that Ukraine did not need a Jewish theater, and construction was stopped.

In 1938 Karakis carried out a reconstruction of the All-Ukrainian Theater of the Red Army, founded in 1931 on Meringovskaya Street (now Sankovskaya Street) in Kiev. Then in 1939–1940 he designed and built two houses on Streletskaya Street: No. 12 and No. 14–16 (today this building belongs to the Finnish Embassy). In 1939, a residential building was also designed and built for the trial operation on Nemetskaya Street. A year later, in 1940, another house was built for this company: on Laboratornaja Street. In 1940, Karakis also planned and built a new assembly workshop for the test facility in Kiev and a school in Voroshilovgrad.

1939–1941 (and later in 1949) Karakis designed gallery-like houses. In 1941 he built a house in the center of Kiev: Kreschtschatik 29. At the end of September 1941, after the German occupation, it was blown up.

In August 1941, Iossif Karakis was posted to Rostov, where he was involved in the construction of heavy machinery in the Rostank project. Then he went to Central Asia, where he soon became one of the leading architects of Uzbekistan . According to his project, the grinding wheel factory in Tashkent and a number of other objects were built in 1942 . From February 1942 to 1944, Karakis was the main architect and head of the architecture office of the Farhad hydropower plant (Bekobod, Uzbekistan). Here, according to his project, the Farhad hydropower plant was built, which included the dam, the power plant hall, the diversion canal (22 km), the aqueduct of the hydropower plant (1942–1944) and residential complexes.

On October 23, 1945, the board of the Association of Architects of Ukraine proposed Iossif Karakis to be accepted into the Academy of Architecture of the Ukrainian SSR. His appointment as an academy member was also supported by his colleagues, but he could not receive this title because of the Jewish determination, according to which only one of two eligible Jews was allowed to receive the title (in this case it was Karakis' teacher, Jakow Steinberg).

In 1948 Iossif Karakis became section head at the Institute of Art Industry of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR, but at the same time taught at the KISI (Kiev Building Institute).

1944–1947, Iossif Karakis designed the Hotel Ukraine, which was built in 1945–1952 at 3 Pushkin Street in Lugansk (today a monument). The museum director O. Prikolota called the building "Lugansk's calling card". Because of this project, Karakis was accused of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism” and a little later of “cosmopolitanism” and was no longer allowed to teach. Nobody cared that he was a Jew and had nothing to do with Ukrainian nationalism - yes, that nationalism and cosmopolitanism are two opposing terms. It was a serious accusation then. Many students who raved about their teacher couldn't come to terms with the fact that Karakis was no longer allowed to teach, recalled AJ Horchot. Karakis' dismissal hit the students painfully, wrote his student Tamara Ustenko (later a member of the Ukrainian Academy of Architecture). His best students wrote a letter that went down in history as the "Letter of the Thirteen". This letter said that the ban on such educators as Karakis meant the end of school. Michail Budilovsky was in charge of collecting signatures. Several party meetings were held, but the matter petered out.

From 1952 Iossif Karakis worked in Giprograd (State Institute for Urban Development) on type design. During this period, 1953–1954, he was able to realize numerous projects, including building some schools in Kiev. In 1954 he designed and built a school in Kharkov (Louis-Pasteur-Straße 4), 1958–1960 the experimental school No. 80 in Kiev Boulevard Druschby Narodow 12b.

1959–1961 a house for the cardboard box factory was built on Nekrasovskaya Street according to his design. In 1962 he built an experimental school in Kramatorsk . Many schools were built in the Soviet Union in 1962–1967 following this project. In the years 1953–1963 alone, over 4,350 school buildings were built in various cities and republics of the Soviet Union.

In 1963, Iossif Karakis received an invitation from the Kiev Research Institute for Civil Construction to head the newly established department for designing school buildings. He accepted the invitation and brought some of his former colleagues with him. The design of school buildings in the Giprograd was discontinued and all schools were now designed in the above-mentioned Kiev Civil Engineering Research Institute, in Karakis' department, which he headed from 1963 to 1976. During this period, he and his collaborators worked on dozens of projects that were implemented several times in different republics of the USSR.

Karakis' work was known not only in the former Soviet Union, but also abroad. Despite many invitations from foreign companies, he was not allowed to leave his home country because he was banned from traveling for political reasons.

Iossif Karakis died on February 23, 1988 and was buried in the Baikowe Cemetery in Kiev next to the grave of his mother, whose tomb he had made and erected by hand in marble (as was the tomb for his father in Tashkent).

Today practically all buildings in Karakis (apart from type buildings) are monuments of republican importance and are under monument protection.

The architect and furniture designer Irma Iossifowna Karakis is Karakis' daughter.

Selected Works

• 1929: Model School No. 71, Kiev
• 1931: House of the Wood Technology Institute (in collaboration with other colleagues), Kiev
• 1933: House of the Red Army and the Navy (now the General Assembly of Officers of Ukraine, a monument of architecture)
• 1934: Reconstruction of residential buildings and the establishment of Sozgorod, a district in Krivoy Rog
• 1934: House of the Red Army (in collaboration with other colleagues), Kharkov (not preserved)
• 1934: Dynamo restaurant (in collaboration with other colleagues), Kiev
• 1934: Club in the Chokolowka residential complex near the airport in Kiev
• 1934: House of the Red Army (today the garrison officers' assembly) in the small town of Osjornoje
• 1934: Music School, Komsomolsk
• 1934–1935: Film theater for 1,000 spectators, Krivoy Rog
• 1934–1935: Film theater for 1,000 spectators, Vinnitsa
• 1934–1935: Film theater for 1,000 spectators, Kharkov
• 1936: House for the general staff in Kiev (Solotovorotskaya Street 2, in collaboration with other colleagues), Kiev (rebuilt several times)
• 1936: Academy of Architecture of the USSR, Kiev (not preserved)
• 1936: House of the Red Army, Novograd-Volynsky
• 1936: House of the Red Army, Gujwa (not preserved)
• 1937: House and residential area on Masepa Street (No. 3), Kiev (Janwarskogo-Vosstaniya (January Uprising) street in Kiev (today Masepa Street) (rebuilt several times)
• 1937: House for officers of the Ukrainian Defense Area (Institutskaja Street 15-17), Kiev (rebuilt several times), today the KOWO residential complex
• 1937: House for the officers of the Kiev military district in Georgijewskij-Gasse (No. 2, in collaboration with other colleagues), Kiev (rebuilt several times)
• 1937: Music school on Musikalnyj-Gasse, Kiev (not preserved)
• 1937: Concert hall for the Conservatory, Musikalnyj Street, Kiev (not preserved)
• 1938: All-Ukrainian Theater of the Red Army on Sankovskaya Street (No. 8), Kiev (reconstruction) (not preserved)
• 1939: Jewish Theater on Kreschtschatik Street (No. 27-29), Kiev (not preserved)
• 1939: Residential building for trial operation on Nemezkaya Street, Kiev (not preserved)
• 1939: Kindergarten No. 1 (Orljonok) on Masepa Street, Kiev
• 1939: Taras Shevchenko Art Middle School on Vladimirskaya Street (No. 2), Kiev (now the National Historical Museum of Ukraine )
• 1940: House on Streletskaya Street (numbers 12 and 14-16; today this building belongs to the Finnish Embassy), Kiev
• 1940: residential area on Masepa Street (No. 5), Kiev (rebuilt several times)
• 1940: The test facility's house on Laboratornaya Street, Kiev
• 1940: Assembly workshop of the test facility in Kiev
• 1941: House on Krschatik Street (No. 29), Kiev (not preserved)
• 1941: GOSPLAN (State Planning Commission) residential area on 25th October Street (today Institutskaya Street, nos. 19–21), Kiev
• 1941: Gallery-like residential building with 50 apartments on Vyshgorodskaya Street, Kiev
• 1942: Abid-Sakirow-Strasse 8 Abid-Sakirow-Strasse, Tashkent
• 1942: Grinding wheel factory No. 2, Tashkent
• 1943: House for the construction workers of the Farhad hydropower plant ( Bekobod , Uzbekistan )
• 1944: Farhad hydropower plant (dam, power plant hall, diversion canal (22 km) and aqueduct of the hydropower plant (1942–1944)), Bekobod, Uzbekistan
• 1945: Housing complexes of the Farhad hydropower plant for 1,000 and 500 residents, Bekobod
• 1949: Gallery-like with 50 apartments on Nekrasovskaya Street, Kiev
• 1952: Hotel Oktober (now Hotel Ukraine), 3 Pushkin Street, Lugansk
• 1953–1955: Model schools, USSR
• 1954: Louis Pasteur School No. 4, Kharkov
• 1958–1960: Experimental Middle School No. 80 and green area with fountain in front of the school, Boulevard Druschby Narodow (Friendship of Nations) 12b, Kiev
• 19 ??: Schools nos. 24 and 42 in Voroshilovgrad
• 1962: Experimental schools in Kramatorsk
• 1963: Experimental schools for ICP children in Odessa
• 1963: Experimental schools for ICP children in Berdyansk
• 1965: Experimental School № 5 for 2,032 students, Donetsk
• 1965: School with square classrooms in Kramatorsk (needs restoration)
• 1964: Experimental school for mentally retarded children in Zaporozhye
• 1966–1969: Large-scale experimental schools in Makhachkala , Baku , Voroshilovgrad and Dnjeprodzerzhinsk
• 1969: Taras Shevchenko School No. 110 for 2,600 students, Tashkent

Web links

Commons : Iossif Juljewitsch Karakis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx by bz ca cb cc cd} Oleg Junakow: The architect Iossif Karakis . Almas, New York 2016, ISBN 978-1-68082-000-3 (544 pp., Russian: Архитектор Иосиф Каракис .).
2. ↑ Тинченко : Замах на Каракiса . In: Полiтика i Культура . No. 20 (151), June 2002, pp. 36-37.
3. ↑ Владимир Платонов: Юрий Химич: Портрет на фоне куполов Archived from the original on March 25, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Зеркало недели . 15 (288), p. 11. "Вслед за Штейнбергом уволили из института и архитектора мирового класса И.Каракиса ..." 
4. ↑ Сергей Бабушкин: Сегодня в Киеве мы можем реализовать самые смелые архитектурные решения . In: Архитектура. Строительство. Дизайн . 1 (29), 2003. “Архитектора Иосифа Каракиса обвиняли в своё время, в украинском национализме. Сейчас его здания, выполненные в стиле классицизма, являются учебными пособиями для архитекторов “.
5. ↑ Елена Олейник : Архитектор, который решил формулу Киева . In: Архитектура. Строительство. Дизайн . 2 (22), 2002, p. 114.
6. ↑ Борис Ерофалов : Печерск Иосифа Каракиса . In: А.С.С. . 6, 2002, pp. 46-47.
7. ↑ "" . In: Соціалістичний Київ . No. 5-6, 1934, p. 18.
8. ↑ Andrei Puchkov : The architect Iossif Karakis . Almas, Kiev 2002, ISBN 966-95095-8-0 (102 pages, Russian: Архитектор Иосиф Каракис: Судьба и творчество .).

Remarks