The Director's office: in memoriam
A firm believer that architects should be gardeners not morticians enshrouding a city in cement, David Sarkisyan, Director of the Shchusev Museum of Architecture in Moscow, has been featured in the new issue of the Russia Now supplement to the Daily Telegraph, published today. Under David Sarkisyan's administration, the Shchusev museum became the centre of Moscow’s architectural and artistic life and now his old office is a memorial of his life's work.
Prominent Russian architect, artist and curator Yuri Avvakumov writes 'David was an omnivore, accepting young and old, respecting fame and loving newcomers, not dividing into high and low but trusting his own taste for talent, wherever it might come from'. The article details how David Sarkisyan offered the museum as a base for all those against the flood of deconstruction and fake replicas in Moscow and turned it into a safe haven for objects from demolished buildings of historical value. Many of these objects found their way into Sarkisyan's office, which by his death had become 'an artistic installation in itself'.
In a wholly unprecedented act, dozens of distinguished Moscow museums curators, art historians and architects united to write a letter to the minister of culture, requesting that David’s office should be preserved. The request was supported and an exhibition entitled “The Director’s Office” has opened to the public. As Yuri Avvakumov concludes, 'David’s office became a kind of lesson, or homework, left by Sarkisyan to Moscow’s architects and to the city’s authorities. It is something organic that belongs to living people, not to workshops, guilds, trade unions or ministries'.
Russia Now is a monthly supplement about Russia distributed with The Daily Telegraph.
It gives an in depth analysis and represents various viewpoints on modern Russia, its business, society and culture.
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