I went to Florence and didn’t see the Uffizi, I went to Brugge and didn’t see the Leonardo Madonna, and I went to Moscow and didn’t see Lenin’s Tomb, though it was no fault of my own – that part of Red Square was closed off to prepare for a national holiday. But I felt more torn up about not seeing the house of modern architect Konstantin Melnikov, which had been preserved as a museum like the John Soane house in London. Melnikov’s house, just off Arbaty, Moscow’s main shopping street, was closed. Nonetheless I lingered around the sidewalk in front and took some unremarkable through-the-fence-and-foliage photos of it.
A gentleman passing by explained that Melnikov’s family owned the house and were currently raising funds to have it refurbished. It looked terribly run down, with peeling paint and boarded windows, and spookily overgrown trees and bushes. The house consists of two cylinders stacked like the figure 8 in plan. They’re built entirely of brick, and adorned with rows of small, space-age hexagonal windows. Only the back of the house, which faces a yard, is opened with a large picture window. From archival photos what’s most fascinating is the way the acoutrements of everyday life (curtains, tables, lamps) rest so uneasily inside the structure. At Soane’s house there’s no distinction between architecture and furnishing, between building and life; the place is one thick, voluptuous substance. The Melnikov House seems inviolable, as if it wouldn’t lend itself so easily to occupation.