Our era in Roman Klein's house is an unusual Moscow museum! To save and populate: how developers are mastering the legacy of the architect Klein, the Garden Quarters residential complex.

Whose creativity was distinguished by great originality. The breadth and variety of his interests in architecture amazed his contemporaries. For 25 years, he has completed hundreds of projects, different both in purpose and in artistic solutions.

The main work of the life of the architect R. Klein is the Moscow Museum of Fine Arts. Pushkin. He brought him wide fame and the title of academician in architecture. The path of this talented person to the heights of mastery was intense and selfless. Information about the biography of the architect Klein will be presented in the article.

early years

He was born in 1858 into the family of Ivan Makarovich Klein. The mother of the future architect, Emilia Ivanovna, was educated and gifted musically. Conservatory students and artists came to their Moscow house, located on Bolshaya Dmitrovka. Subsequently, many of them became celebrities.

At one such evening, Roman Klein made acquaintance with Vivien Alexander Osipovich, an architect. He was very sociable and, together with the boy, attended the construction of buildings, explaining the principles of their construction, showing the drawings.

Youthful dream

Since then, the young man developed a passionate desire to become an architect. At the same time, both his mother and father were against his dreams. The first wanted to see him as a violinist, and the second - to hand him over the merchant business. But he resolutely declared his desire and subsequently did everything to implement it.

In the gymnasium, Klein drew well and became famous for making cartoons of teachers. From the sixth grade, he became a student at the school of painting, sculpture and architecture. After class, he did not want to return home, where strict rules reigned.

Leaving home

The future architect Klein felt independent and left his parents, refusing their material support. He believed that his parents' money would prevent him from becoming a creative person. Roman rented a small room, almost unfurnished. His mother was in despair, she asked him to take at least a bed from his parents' house.

But he refused and brought into his closet a spring mattress he had bought from a dealer. In the room there were only goats of drawing boards, and a mattress was placed on them. In the morning the mattress was placed in the corner and the drawing board returned to the trestle. This is how the novice architect worked.

Junior draftsman

Meanwhile, Roman Ivanovich Klein got a job in the studio of the architect, sculptor and painter V.I. Sherwood as a junior draftsman. He was engaged in the design of the building of the Historical Museum on Red Square.

The future architect copied drawings, acquired the necessary knowledge and skills, learning to skillfully use the architectural techniques of ancient architects in modern buildings, which later manifested itself in his independent projects.

After the first earnings, his workshop room began to transform. First, a cheap carpet was purchased to cover the mattress, and then the makeshift sofa had handles and a backrest. Then he was upholstered with colorful damask and took a seat by the window.

As the wife of the architect Klein recalled, this relic sofa always stood in her husband's study, and he loved to tell a story about her when he had already become famous.

An adherent of eclectic style

After working for two years as a draftsman, Klein was able to save up funds to move to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Academy of Arts. The period of study coincided with the construction boom that began in Russia. In large cities, apartment buildings, mansions, banks, shops began to appear, which were stylized as the architecture of different eras.

This direction in architecture, as it seemed, did not differ in the unity of style, and it acquired the name of eclecticism, which in translation from ancient Greek means “chosen, chosen”.

From a modern point of view, eclecticism, to which Klein was an adherent, is, in fact, an independent style. It includes elements of art inherent in antiquity, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque.

They were used by architects, who took into account the scale and function of modern buildings and the use of such new building materials as concrete, iron, glass. An example of this style is the Livadia Palace in Crimea. It was built in 1883-85. with the participation of the architect Klein.

Private orders

The first private order was completed by Klein when he was 25 years old, in 1887. It was a small church not far from St. Petersburg - the tomb of the Shakhovskys. But in order to truly declare oneself, a large social order was needed. And soon such a case presented itself.

The Moscow City Duma has announced a competition for the development of Red Square. Klein won the second prize for the shopping arcade project and thus attracted the attention of private clients. At their expense, he built a wholesale store, the so-called Middle Rows.

The forms of windows, platbands, high roofs, these rows were linked with the architecture of the Church of St. Basil the Blessed, standing opposite, and were perfectly inscribed in the ensemble of ancient buildings.

The architect Roman Klein has shown himself to be a skilled practitioner. He successfully positioned a large building on a steep slope leading to the river. Now he was provided with standing orders.

In the 90s of the XIX century

During this period, Klein created a number of projects for large industrial enterprises in Moscow. These are the buildings and workshops of such enterprises as:

• Prokhorovskaya Trekhgornaya Manufactory.
• Tea-packing factory of Vysotsky.
• Jaco factories.
• Gujon Factory.

At the same time, he designed many buildings for various purposes, including:

• Mansions.
• Profitable houses.
• Grammar schools.
• Hospitals.
• Trade warehouses.
• Student hostels.

With all the available variety of buildings, they reveal a certain monotony of stylistic solutions and decorative techniques that are characteristic of many masters of that period. But the buildings built by the architect Klein in Moscow are still distinguished by the fact that their planning is very well thought out, and the internal space is rationally organized. An example of an original solution is the buildings of the Shelaputin and Morozov clinics, where the corner towers are covered with glass domes, and under them there are light and spacious operating rooms.

Since then, the support of the architect R. Klein by the Moscow merchants has become constant.

He appeared on Myasnitskaya Street in 1896. This unusual building, designed by Klein, has become famous. To this day, there is a popular tea-coffee shop. At the insistence of the customer Perlov, a large tea merchant, Klein stylized the design and facades of the interior as an ancient Chinese pagoda.

At the same time, the architect himself criticized his creation, noting its far-fetched and clumsy. Nevertheless, the teahouse played a role in the development of the architect's creative principles. Chinese motives successfully set off the purpose of the building. And in the future, the architect Klein did not just hide the brick block of the building behind a stylish facade, but expressed the function of the building in the decor. Soon a very important moment came in his life.

Museum construction

In 1898, construction began on the Museum of Fine Arts, which became the work of the life of Roman Klein. He gave him about 16 years and received the title of academician of architecture. The building was erected in the style of an ancient temple. The columns of its facade resemble the colonnade of the temple in the Acropolis of Athens. According to the author, the classical style and ancient Greek motives best suited the purpose of this structure.

When decorating the facade, the Ionic porticoes of the Ereichtheion were taken as a model. This is a small temple located near the Parthenon. To give the exhibition halls a historical look, the architects designed Greek and Italian courtyards, as well as the white ceremonial and Egyptian halls. In connection with the implementation of such an idea, the interior design itself and the facades of the building turned into peculiar exhibits. The museum was opened in 1912.

Further activities

The auditorium of one of the largest Moscow cinematographs, the Colosseum on Chistye Prudy, built by Klein, was distinguished by a well-developed plan and high technical merits. The architect created a semi-rotunda that successfully concealed the real dimensions of the building, which organically blended into the historical surroundings of the old street.

Another interesting and unusual work of Klein was the one that replaced the old, pontoon, in 1912. Klein brilliantly coped with the task, he applied the design of metal trusses proposed by the engineers. The design of the bridge was dictated by the celebration of the centenary of the victory over Napoleon.

The entrances were decorated with propylaeons (porticoes and columns, symmetrical to the axis of movement) of gray granite. On the opposite side, there are paired obelisks, and the gatherings were given the appearance of bastions. In the same period, Klein created a project of monuments-obelisks on the Borodino field.

Trading house

One of the most daring and innovative creations of the architect Klein in Moscow was the Trading House, owned by the partnership of Muir and Merilis, built in 1908. Now this building houses the TSUM store. This is the only commercial building in the practice of the architect, which he erected on a steel frame.

It was a progressive design by American engineers. By the standards of that time, the building was unusually light and high. In its facades such elements as stone facing of walls and glazing of considerable area are successfully correlated. The building was built in an airy and constructive Gothic style. Its motives can be seen in the profiles of cornices, elongated windows, overhanging corner ledge of the facade.

The Köppen store on Myasnitskaya and the office of the Vygotsky (tea packing) factory, located at 57 Krasnoselskaya, where the Babaevskaya factory is now located, built at the beginning of the 20th century, belong to the Art Nouveau style. They were also artistic new ones.

Antique motives

Completing the path of creative searches, the architect Klein again returned to the motives of ancient architecture, to which he treated with great respect. One of these works was the tomb of the Yusupovs near Moscow, in Arkhangelsk with semicircles of colonnades.

And also it is the Geological Institute on Mokhovaya Street. Its building faces the red line of the street. Its façade is stylistically connected with neighboring buildings dating back to the 18th-20th centuries.

When turning to strict classics, the already formed architectural ensemble is not disturbed. The architect managed to fit the new building with his usual tact. This reflected the highest level of the master's culture, his delicate taste, which never betrayed him.

Last years

The architect lived in Olsufievsky lane. The entire second floor of his house was occupied by a workshop. The house was built gradually, starting from an inconspicuous log house to a mansion with outbuildings, stone first and second floors. The overall façade has been decorated in a Tuscan style. All the creations that made the glory of the architect were conceived and designed precisely in the house-workshop located on the Devichye Pole.

After 1917, the architect Klein was in demand among the new government. He worked until the end of his life, was on the staff of the Pushkin Museum as an architect, headed a department at the Moscow Higher Technical School, was a member of the board of the Northern and Caucasian Railways. He died in Moscow in 1924.

160 years ago, on March 31, 1858, the architect Roman Klein was born - one of the most demanded architects in Russia in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. It was he who erected the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts), the Muir and Meriliz store (now the Central Department Store), Borodinsky Bridge and dozens of apartment buildings. From the stylizations and eclecticism of his early works, he subsequently came to the neoclassical style. Having opened a private practice in 1888, he actually turned it into a school through which many talented architects, such as A.Ya. Golovin, I.I. Rerberg, V.G. Shukhov and others.


Roman Klein, 1890s

Roman Klein was born into a large merchant family. He was the fifth of seven children of the Moscow businessman Ivan Klein. The house was large and hospitable - it was constantly visited by writers, musicians, artists. The boy's personality was formed in a creative and culturally educated environment. He early showed a penchant for drawing and music, and the patronage and friendship of the famous architect Vivien played a decisive role in his choice of profession.
In 1879, Roman Klein graduated from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, in 1882 - from the Imperial Academy of Arts with the title of class artist-architect of the 3rd degree. Then Klein trained in Italy, studied European architecture, art museums and monuments. He began his practical work as an assistant architect during the construction of the Historical Museum in Moscow. One of the first independent buildings of Klein - the Middle Trading Rows on Red Square, stylized as old Russian architecture. Their construction on the site, formerly occupied by many small dilapidated shops and warehouses, was a striking event of that time.
If you mentally collect on one territory all the buildings built in Moscow by Klein, you get a whole small city with its center. Klein remained in revolutionary Russia and was quite in demand by the new authorities, but did not live to see the construction boom in the mid-1920s.
From 1918 until the end of his days, he worked as a staff architect of the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, served on the boards of the Kazan and Northern Railways, and headed the department of the Moscow Higher Technical School. The last four months of his life he headed the design bureau of the People's Commissariat for Education.
Roman Ivanovich Klein died on May 3, 1924 in Moscow, where he was buried at the Vvedenskoye cemetery. In total, the architect built more than 60 large buildings in Moscow, all of his projects are difficult to show, here are only 16 of them.

1. The neoclassical mansion at Vozdvizhenka, 14 was built in 1886-1888 by the architect R.I. Klein for the famous Moscow public figure, entrepreneur and patron of the arts, the owner of the Tver manufactory and the representative of two famous merchant families, Varvara Alekseevna Morozova. This mansion became one of the first independent works of R.I. Klein, then a novice architect.

Morozova's mansion. Vozdvizhenka street, house 14. 1886

2. In 1887, the site at the current address Olsufievsky Lane, 6 was acquired by Roman Klein. There was then a wooden house and several courtyard buildings. In 1889, the architect slightly modifies this building, and in 1896 he added a second floor and placed there a drawing workshop and a personal library.

House of the architect R.I. Klein. Olsufyevsky per., House 6, building 2. 1889-1896

Since that time, all of Klein's subsequent architectural projects were created within these walls. Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, the initiator of the creation and the first director of the Museum of Fine Arts, came to this house, on the project of which Roman Ivanovich worked here.

3. House number 3 on Vspolny lane - the mansion of A.V. Edzhubova, built in 1889. In this very modest one-story mansion, you can recognize the traits of Klein's eclectic style.

A.V.'s mansion Edzhubova. Vspolny lane, house 3. 1889

4. The exotic Chinese-style building known as the Tea House was renovated by the architect Karl Gippius under the direction of Robert Klein. The facade is decorated with stucco images of Chinese animals and other historical symbols, stylized as Chinese characters with inscriptions, and on the roof there is a turret in the form of a two-tiered Chinese pagoda.

Tea house. Myasnitskaya street, 19. 1890 -1893
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5. According to the project of the architect R.I. Klein in the center of Moscow in 1889-1893, the Middle Trading Rows were built. They were part of the architectural ensemble together with the Upper Trading Rows. The western façade overlooks Red Square. The complex of buildings is currently under reconstruction.

Average shopping malls. Red Square, building 5. 1890-1893
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6. In 1893, at the expense of P.G. Shelaputin, the Gynecological Institute was founded. The architect of the institute was R.I. Klein. The building occupied the corner of Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street and Olsufyevsky Lane. It is L-shaped. The Institute building opens onto Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street with a deep balcony decorated with four light columns and an openwork fence. The corner is crowned with a glass dome.

Bolshaya Pirogovskaya Street, 11, C1. Gynecological Institute named after A.P. Shelaputina. 1893-1895

7. The building near the Krasnaya Presnya metro station was built by 1895 at the initiative of Professor A.P. Bogdanov for the bacteriological and agronomic station of the botanical garden of the Imperial Society for the Acclimatization of Animals and Plants. The architects of the building are R.I. Klein and A.E. Erichson. The construction and research carried out by the station was financed by the owner of the most famous pharmacy in pre-revolutionary Russia - Master of Pharmacy, philanthropist and scientist V.K. Ferrein.

Station of the Botanical Garden on Krasnaya Presnya. 1895
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8. In 1898, the then fashionable architect Roman Klein rebuilt the old building on Petrovka for the Despres family. The elegant house with elements of French architecture has been equipped with the latest innovations. On the ground floor there was a "Shop of foreign wines and Havana cigars, supplier of the highest court of C.F.Depres".

House of the wine merchant Despres. Petrovka street, house 8. 1898
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9. The four-storey building No. 19 on Kuznetsky Most is known in the architectural world as a tenement house with shops of Prince Andrei Gagarin, built in two stages: first by architect Viktor Kosov, then by Klein.

Passage "Kuznetsky Most". Kuznetsky Most Street, 19. 1898
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10. The Vysotsky Tea Industrialists' House at 6 Ogorodnaya Sloboda was built in 1900 according to Klein's design. The talented stylist R.I. Klein managed to combine elements of a medieval castle and a Renaissance palace in this house.

House of Vysotsky. Lane Ogorodnaya Sloboda, building 6. 1900
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11. The building in the neo-Gothic style with elements of Art Nouveau, which now houses the Central Department Store, in its present form was built in 1908 by the project of the architect Roman Klein for the company "Mur and Merilis".

Department store "Muir and Merilies". Petrovka street, house 2.1906-1908
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12. At the end of 1896, the founder of the museum, Professor of the Department of Theory and History of Art Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, developed the conditions for a competition for the architectural project of the Museum of Fine Arts at the Imperial Moscow University. The university board, according to the terms of the competition, had the right to choose any project for construction and invite an architect at its own discretion. A relatively young but well-known Moscow architect Roman Ivanovich Klein was elected. Engineer Ivan Ivanovich Rerberg has been involved in the construction of the building since 1898.

Museum of Fine Arts. Volkhonka street, house 12.1898-1907

Klein worked out the final design to meet the requirements of the Board and the Museum Committee.

Klein's project was based on the classical antique temples on a high podium with an Ionic colonnade along the façade. For the construction of the Museum of Fine Arts, Klein was awarded the title of Academician (1907).

13. Notable work of Klein is the reconstruction of an old building on Ilyinka, house 12, by order of the Serpukhov city society. The building is based on the house of the merchant Khryashchev, erected by the famous architect Matvey Kazakov in 1778.

Profitable house I.G. Khryashchev. Ilyinka, house 12. 1901-1904

Klein transformed the façade with a number of changes. The compositional center of the house is three large arched windows on the second and third floors.

14. In 1899-1902, the same Roman Klein built a large apartment building with a company store and large basements on Petrovsky Boulevard for the KF Despres Partnership.

Apartment house. Petrovsky Boulevard, 17. 1902
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15. In 1906, Klein built a mansion for the entrepreneur Ivan Nekrasov. The house was built in the best traditions of the English neo-Gothic, the features of which are reflected in the ornament of the upper bay window, the vaults of the main staircase and other elements.

I. I. Nekrasov's mansion. Khlebny Lane, 20. 1906

16. In 1912, the wealthy furrier A.P. Guskov ordered R.I. Klein a project of a new type of building for the beginning of the 20th century - a cinema called "Colosseum".

Cinema "Colosseum". Chistoprudny Boulevard, 17. 1914

As the name suggests, it was built using elements of ancient architecture. The colonnade that encloses the entrance area is very successful. The restoration of the building is currently being completed.

Architect Roman Ivanovich Klein (real name and patronymic - Robert Julius) was born in March 1858 in the city of Moscow into a Jewish merchant family who lived at that time on Malaya Dmitrovka.

Such famous people as the composer and conductor Anton Rubinstein with his brother Nikolai, a virtuoso pianist, architect Alexander Osipovich Vivien and many representatives of the cultural community (artists, writers, poets and musicians) often visited his parents.

Most likely, classes with Alexander Vivienne determined the future choice of Roman Ivanovich's specialty.

Then he studied at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, which Roman Ivanovich graduated in 1882 with the title of "Class artist of architecture". To improve his skills, he was sent on a pensioner (boarding) trip to Europe from this institution.

There he was fortunate enough to work with such a master of architecture as Charles Garnier, who was then involved in the construction of buildings for the Paris Exhibition, held in 1889.

After his return to Moscow in 1885, the architect Klein worked as an assistant in the architectural workshops of Vladimir Sherwood and Alexander Popov.

Since 1888, Roman Ivanovich begins his independent practice. The first building was the house of Morozova on Vozdvizhenka Street. It is thanks to Varvara Alekseevna that the young man gets to know the representatives of the Old Believer merchants - the Shelaputins, Prokhorovs, Morozovs and Konshins.

The architect Klein dedicated twenty years of his life to one of his most significant creations - the Museum of Fine Arts. Alexander III (now - The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts).

Roman Ivanovich is also recognized as a specialist in industrial architecture. According to his designs, industrial buildings were erected for industrialists in Moscow - Julia Gujon, Albert Gübner, the Giraud family and many others.

The architect made a great contribution to the appearance of the southern part of the Kitay-Gorod district. There, according to his designs, the buildings of several banks and the Middle Trading Rows were built.

After the 1917 revolution, Klein remained in Russia and continued to engage in architectural activities, but did not manage to create something significant. In 1924, Roman Ivanovich died. The master was buried on.

Photo 1. Cinema "Colosseum" on Chistoprudny Boulevard, 17

Photo 2. The apartment building of Countess Miloradovich on Povarskaya, 22

Born into the family of a merchant of the first guild Ivan Makarovich Klein and his wife Emilia Ivanovna. There is a version that Klein's parents were baptized German Jews. It is known that since 1878 they owned the house of I.G. Grigorieva - V.P. Pisemskaya on Malaya Dmitrovka, where I.S. Aksakov. The Kleins were visited by musicians Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein, architect Alexander Vivien, who began to carry ten-year-old Roman to construction and show architectural drawings, artists, writers, poets, musicians.

In 1873 - 1874, Roman Klein studied at the Kreyman gymnasium and attended courses at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he was awarded two awards for his academic success.

In 1875, the future architect decided to separate from his parents. He refused financial support and, having rented a tiny unfurnished closet with a friend, slept on a box-spring mattress he had bought from a junk dealer. The mattress was put on the drawing box at night, and removed during the day. At this time, Roman Klein began working as a junior draftsman in the studio of the architect V.O. Sherwood, who built the building of the Historical Museum on Red Square.

In 1877, Roman Klein entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, from which he graduated in 1882 with the title of class artist of architecture of the 3rd degree. After that, he went on a retirement trip to Italy and France, where he participated in the creation of pavilions for the Paris Exhibition of 1889 in the studio of the architect Charles Garnier.

Returning in 1885, the young architect worked as an assistant in the architectural workshops of V.O. Sherwood and A.P. Popov.

In 1886-1888, Roman Klein carried out his first independent project - the mansion of V.A. Morozova on Vozdvizhenka, 14. This building introduced him to the circle of customers of merchants-Old Believers.

On November 11, 1888, a competition was announced for the construction of the Upper Trading Rows, and on February 26, the competition commission awarded the first prize of 6,000 rubles to the project called “Moscow merchants” by A.N. Pomerantseva, the second prize of 3,000 rubles under the title "According to the program" - R.I. Klein, the third prize of 2,000 rubles went to the project entitled "With God" by the architect A.E. Weber.

In 1889, Roman Klein, thanks to this award, received an order for the construction of the Middle Trading Rows on Red Square.

In 1888 - 1889 he also rebuilt the building for the Siberian and Russian banks for Foreign trade of banks at 12/2 Ilyinka.

In 1888 - 1903 the Trading House of the Serpukhov City Society was built in Ipatievsky Lane.

In 1890 - 1892 the Trade House "Varvarinskoe Podvorie" was built at the corner of Varvarka, 7 - Nikolsky lane, 11.

In 1893 - 1896, the architect Roman Klein builds the Gynecological Institute. A.P. Shelaputina at Moscow University.

In 1896, the Academy of Arts announced a competition for the projects of the building of the Museum of Fine Arts named after A. Alexander III. Roman Klein received a gold medal and for almost twenty years erected a building that combined the functions of a university and an art museum - an educational center. The Museum of Fine Arts was built with the participation of architects G.B. Barkhina, I.I. Rerberg, A.D. Chichagov, engineer V.G. Shukhov, artists I.I. Nivinsky, P.V. Zhuskovsky, A. Ya. Golovin, sculptor G.R. Zaleman on Volkhonka, 12, in 1912.

In 1901 - 1902, the Middle Trading Rows were built on Red Square, 5. A Moscow guidebook of that time reported: “The main building of the building is an irregular quadrangle facing 4 surrounding streets, forming a courtyard with the remaining 4 buildings inside. The main circular building has three floors, in places with tents. In the inner buildings there are two floors and also with tents. The two inner buildings are separated by glass-covered corridors. External entrances on the surface of the courtyard are located on three sides. " “The area occupied by the rows extends up to 4000 fathoms. The building accommodates more than 400 retail premises and, together with the land, is estimated at 5 million rubles. "

In 1900-1903, Roman Klein built the Morozov Institute for the Treatment of Malignant Tumors by order of Moscow University at 20 Malaya Pirogovskaya.

In 1900, he built his own house at 6 Olsufievsky Lane.

Between 1905 and 1907, the architect Roman Klein built a power plant for the Electric Lighting Society at 8 Raushskaya Embankment.

In 1908 - 1910 he built an innovative building on an iron frame invented by American engineers - the Trade House of the Muir and Mereliz partnership, which later became the TsUM store, on Petrovka, 2.

In 1903, in industrial architecture, Roman Klein expanded the building of Trekhgorny brewery association at 12 Kutuzovsky Prospect with annexes. In 1906, 1909-1910 he rebuilt the elevator and the water tower there.

In 1907 - 1914, he built eight production buildings of the silk factory K.O. Fat on Timur Frunze street, 11.

In 1915 - 1916, Roman Klein built the factory buildings of the Joint Stock Company "Kauchuk" at 11 Usacheva Street.

After 1917 and the change of government, the architect Roman Klein tried to continue his work in architecture. He worked as a staff architect of the Pushkin Museum, was on the boards of the Kazan and Northern Railways, and headed the department of the Moscow Higher Technical School.

In 1924, having begun to lead the design bureau of the People's Commissariat for Education, four months after the appointment, the architect Roman Klein died. P is guarded at the Vvedenskoye cemetery.

Former tenement houses, factories, trade enterprises, built according to the projects of the famous architect, are now turning into elite residential complexes

Roman Klein is one of the most important and recognizable Russian architects of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. For almost 40 years of work, he designed more than fifty buildings in Moscow alone, including the building of the Trading House of the partnership "Muir and Mereliz" (now TSUM), the buildings of the Trekhgorny brewery and the Borodinsky bridge. The architect became world famous for the building of the Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow (now the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts).

The main part of Klein's Moscow legacy is numerous apartment buildings and former factory buildings, which are now being rebuilt into luxury housing. RBC Real Estate talks about some of these examples.

Klein's apartment building

One of the first renovation projects of the Klein buildings was the reconstruction of the former Klein apartment building (1889, 1896), located at 6 Olsufievsky lane, building 1. After the revolution, the three-story building suffered the fate of most apartment buildings - it was redesigned and adapted for communal apartments. In 1993 the company "Restoration N" resettled the building and started its reconstruction. “As a result, a new and unusual type of housing was created for the mid-1990s - an elite house with spacious apartment layouts, the most modern engineering at that time and an original interior of the entrance group. By the way, this is one of the first buildings in the capital, the entrance of which in the 1990s again began to be called the front door, ”says Enver Kuzmin, general director of the development company Restavratsiya N.

"Depre Club House on Petrovsky Boulevard"

The development company KR Properties is engaged in the reconstruction of several objects of Roman Klein at once. One of them is the building of the former "Trading House of K. F. Despres" on Petrovsky Boulevard, 17/1. The one-story Art Nouveau building was built in 1899-1902 for the "Trading House of C. F. Despres", the official supplier of wines to the imperial court. Before the revolution there was a company store of the enterprise, and in the Soviet years - a bottling plant for Caucasian wines and cognacs "Samtrest". In 1993, the building was extended with a second floor. Now the Kleinovsky house is being reconstructed, the project is called “Depre Club House on Petrovsky Boulevard”. The developer promises to restore the architectural appearance of the building according to the original sketches of Roman Klein more than a century ago.

Loft "Dawn"

The building of warehouses and exhibition buildings of the trading house "Muir and Merilis", the official supplier of the imperial court, at the beginning of the twentieth century was considered one of the most technologically advanced. The building of the 1910s, stylized as English Gothic, was made of metal structures designed by engineer Vladimir Shukhov and equipped with electric lifts. In Soviet times, the Rassvet machine-building plant was located here, one of the buildings of which, at 3 Stolyarny Lane, is now being reconstructed for a residential project.

KR Properties was invited by the Russian bureau DNA ag. The facade of the elongated industrial building is visually divided into several volumes, reminiscent of medieval houses. Concrete panels have been replaced with brickwork of different tones and textures. The conventional "house" on the facade corresponds in plan to a large loft - overlooking the museum on the western side of the building and two smaller ones - on the eastern side. The houses are distinguished by the texture of brickwork, framing of windows and balconies. In addition, the western and eastern facades have different widths, proportions and the number of windows. After reconstruction, it is planned to place two-level apartments and townhouses here as part of the Rassvet club complex.

Residential complex "Sadovye kvartaly"

In 1915-1916, according to the project of Roman Klein, the buildings of the factory of the joint-stock company "Kauchuk" were built on Usachev Street, of which today only one has survived - the six-storey building of the plant management (building 3.9). It is located on the territory of the elite complex of club houses "Sadovye Kvartaly", erected on the site of a factory by the project of the architectural bureau "Sergey Skuratov Architects" (developer - GC "Inteko"). The architects have retained only the facade of the historical building - the main volume, faced with four shades of clinker bricks, was rebuilt.

“Unfortunately, only one wall from the Klein building was preserved, and that with great difficulty, because it was in a very poor technical condition. For almost a century, a rubber factory was located there, and harmful chemical fumes, settling on the walls, destroyed them. The Moscow Heritage Committee did not recognize this building as an architectural monument, therefore the preservation of the only wall and the outline of the building (including height, width, area) was my personal initiative, - says Sergey Skuratov. - We have invited restorers to restore the historical facade and the original shape of the windows. Roman Ivanovich Klein is one of the best Russian architects, and it is a great honor to work with his legacy. But at the same time, this is an extremely difficult task, because it is not always easy to explain to a developer why a dilapidated factory building or a dilapidated apartment building needs to be preserved. Rebuilding old buildings is more difficult and more expensive than building new ones. " After the completion of construction work, one of the residential buildings with only 15 apartments will be located in the former plant management building. Near the "Garden Quarters" there are over a dozen other buildings of the famous architect, in memory of this, the square between Bolshaya and Malaya Pirogovskaya streets was named the Alley of Architect Klein.