{"id":202804,"date":"2006-08-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/?page_id=202804"},"modified":"2006-08-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-16T00:00:00","slug":"overview","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/welcome-to-the-archives-of-belarus-website\/subject-guides-to-archival-records\/culture\/architect-langbard-creative-heritage\/overview","title":{"rendered":"Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\nList of archival documents<\/a><\/div>\r\n

Overview<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\"Langbard\"\r\nalign=\"left\"\r\n\r\n

On January 18, 2002 Belarus celebrated the 120th anniversary of Iosif Grigorievich\r\nLangbard (b.1882 – d.1951), architect and pedagogue, Honoured Worker in the arts and\r\narchitecture of Belarus. Langbard ranks among those outstanding figures of Belarus who\r\nmade a significant contribution to the development of Belarusian architecture. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Iosif G. Langbard was born in the town of Bielsk in the former Grodno Province of the\r\nRussian Empire (now Poland). From early childhood he showed an innate gift for drawing and\r\npainting. After finishing a high school in 1901, he studied architecture at the Odess Art\r\nSchool. In 1907 he moved to Petersburg and entered the Academy of Arts there. During his\r\nstudies he worked as an assistant architect on various Petersburg building sites. At the\r\nbeginning of the First World War, Langbard was drafted into the Russian Army, and after\r\ncompleting a military technical course, he became chief engineer in charge of the military\r\nconstruction both at the front and at home. He was also actively engaged in the\r\ndevelopment of civil buildings and participated in various design competitions. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

In the spring of 1918, I. G. Langbard began to work in the construction section of the\r\nPetrograd (later Leningrad) City Health Department. From 1932 he worked in the design and\r\nconstruction of various buildings in the towns of Belarus, Ukraine and other republics of\r\nthe Soviet Union (USSR). In 1935, Langbard was invited to become the Professor of\r\nArchitectural Design at his alma mater – the Academy of Arts. In 1939, the Academy\r\nhonoured his significant contribution to architecture by awarding him a Ph.D. without\r\nrequiring him to defend his doctoral thesis. In 1937 he was elected to the Board of the\r\nArchitects’ Union of the USSR and remained a member until his death. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

The 1930s were the most creative period in Langbard’s life. It was during this period\r\nthat he carried out his most important projects, projects which won him popularity both\r\namong his fellow-professionals and among the general public. \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAt this time, he began to work in Belarus and took part in the organization of the 1st Belarusian Agricultural and\r\nIndustrial Exhibition in Minsk (1929-1931). In 1929, Langbard was awarded the commission\r\nfor the main administrative building in Belarus – Government House. \r\nThis construction was begun in 1930 and completed in\r\n1934. Government House in Minsk is recognized as an important example of the architecture\r\nof the period. In February 1934, the government of Belarus marked Langbard’s great\r\nachievements in the construction and interior design of Government House and awarded him\r\nthe title “Honorary Worker in the Arts and Architecture of Belarus”. <\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n

During this same period, Langbard also produced design projects for other Belarusian\r\ncities. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

The following buildings were constructed according to his design:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n
The Red Army House (now the House of Officers) in Minsk
(1934-1939) <\/td>\r\n 		Belarusian State Theater of Opera and Ballet in Minsk
(1936-1937) <\/td>\r\n 		House of Councils in Mogilev
(1938-1939)\u00a0<\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n

\"House<\/td>\r\n

\"Belarusian<\/td>\r\n

\"House<\/td>\r\n <\/tr>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n

Langbard designed various elements for the facade of the Main Building of the Academy\r\nof Sciences of Belarus in Minsk (1935-1940), and he headed the reconstruction of the Ianka\r\nKupala Theater in Minsk (1938). <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Langbard produced designs for the Complex of Theater and Cinema in Orsha (1930) and the\r\nRegional Drama Theater in Mogilev (1939), as well as competition designs for the buildings\r\nof the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks (CC CP(B)) of Belarus in the\r\ncities of Minsk and Mogilev (1938).
\r\n
\r\nLangbard remained in Leningrad during the early days of World War II and took an active\r\npart in designing\u00a0 camouflage for the city’s major buildings. Throughout the Autumn\r\nof 1941, he continued lecturing at the Academy of Arts. In February 1942, Langbard\r\ntogether with a group of the Academy’s teachers, was evacuated to the Yaroslavl Region,\r\nwhere he lived on the former estate of the famous Russian poet N.A. Nekrasov. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

In August 1944 after Minsk’s liberation from the occupying Nazi forces,\u00a0Langbard\r\nworked at the Commission for Architecture under the USSR Council of People’s Commissars\r\nand occupied himself with the issues concerning the restoration of Belarus’s capital. He\r\nparticipated in the development of the city’s new master plan and directed a design\r\ndocumentation workshop for the reconstruction of houses and public buildings destroyed in\r\nthe War. In addition, he headed the restoration of the buildings constructed according to\r\nhis designs before the war: the Theater of Opera and Ballet, the District House of\r\nOfficers, and the Academy of Sciences. In collaboration with the architect M.I. Baklanov,\r\nhe produced a design for the “Pobeda” Cinema in Minsk, which was built in 1948.\r\nLangbard participated in various design competitions of the Soviet Union for the expansion\r\nof the center of Minsk. In 1949, the architect was awarded the Order of “Sign of\r\nHonour”. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

His view of architecture embraced the critical use and mastering of past traditions. In\r\nClassicism, he appreciated architectural discipline and order, the proportionality of the\r\nvarious forms. He wanted to develop one of Belarus’s architectural traditions – the\r\nsimplicity and clarity of composition, theconciseness and moderation in decorative\r\nfurnishing. The buildings constructed according to Langbard’s design and his competitive\r\nworks are noted for their precision, their “business-like manner”. He used to\r\nrepeat: “It is better not to know how to decorate the building rather than to make\r\nsome unnecessary elements in it”. At the same time he paced great emphasis on a\r\ncontinuous renewal in architecture, and on the creation of new forms.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Langbard played a significant role in the formation and development\r\nof Belarusian architecture. He greatly assisted in the founding of the Union of Belarusian\r\nArchitects. During his lifetime, he produced more than one hundred designs for various\r\nbuildings, monumental works and architectural fantasies<\/a>. He was\r\noften a winner at various architectural competitions. He realized fifteen architectural\r\nprojects, eight of which are in Belarus. These architectural works still decorate our town\r\nlandscape and remain a fine example of the search for human creativity. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

Our site presents the material concerning the creative heritage of Iosif Langbard,\r\nwhich is held in the Belarusian State Archives of Scientific and Technical Documentation\r\n(BGANTD) and in the personal archive of the architect (fond 25). These are the designs for\r\n48 buildings and 24 architectural fantasies. In addition, the architect’s archive contains\r\na personal file of I.G. Langbard (file 132, 18 sheets). The summary tables contain data on\r\nthe building’s name, technical documentation, design date, project execution and\r\nevaluation, file number, the type and total number of documents in the file. In all, our\r\nsite gives information on 131 files totalling 276 documents. The dates of documents cover\r\n1914-1916, 1919-1920, 1924-1927, 1929-1939, 1945-1948, and the early 1950s.
\r\n
\r\nInformation on Langbard and the survey of documents referring to his personal archive was\r\nprepared by G. I. Shostak, Head of the Preservation Department at the Belarusian Archives\r\nof Scientific and Technical Documentation.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"List of archival documents Overview On January 18, 2002 Belarus celebrated the 120th anniversary of Iosif Grigorievich Langbard (b.1882 – d.1951), architect and pedagogue, Honoured Worker in the arts and…","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":327334,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-202804","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/202804"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/202804\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/327334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.gov.by\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}