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  • David Sarkisyan obituary

    David Sarkisyan obituary | Culture | The Guardian

    February 4, 2010


    David Sarkisyan in his cluttered office


    David Sarkisyan, who has died of cancer aged 62, was the charismatic
    director of the Russian State Museum of Architecture (MUAR). By using
    its resources for explorations of the past and present, he became one of
    the most significant figures on the Russian architectural scene.

    A repository for hundreds of thousands of drawings, photographs and
    artefacts, the museum was founded in 1934, and until 2002 was known as
    the Shchusev State Museum of Architecture, after Aleksei Shchusev, the
    architect of, among other buildings, the Lenin Mausoleum. In the
    post-communist era, major changes took place at the museum. First, a
    collection of 364 old master drawings looted in Bremen in 1945 by Viktor
    Baldin, the museum's head for 25 years, was brought to light amid great
    controversy. Then, the MUAR's massive archive was relocated from the
    suburban Donskoy monastery into the main museum premises in central
    Moscow where, in dire conditions because of a severe lack of funds, they
    continue to be kept.

    Sarkisyan was appointed as director of the MUAR at the turn of the
    millennium. In its main galleries in the 18th-century Talyzin mansion on
    Vozdvizhenka Street, he presented Russia's architectural history, with
    particular emphasis on the avant-garde movements of the 1920s and 30s.
    When lack of funds prevented the restoration of a dilapidated part of
    these premises, Sarkisyan made a virtue out of its ruinous condition.
    Unheated, windowless and using rough-sawn boards laid as a walkway
    across the exposed brick vaults, the appropriately named temporary
    exhibition space (The Ruins) was opened by Sarkisyan in freezing winter
    weather as a temporary exhibition space. It quickly became one of the
    most sought-after spaces in Moscow, hosting fascinating, edgy
    exhibitions visited by audiences wrapped in their overcoats.

    In 2005, Sarkisyan also involved the MUAR in the First Biennale of
    Contemporary Art in Moscow, and developed a series of exhibitions
    introducing Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas and other contemporary architects
    to the Russian public, thanks to shrewd alliances with western
    institutions such as Vienna's Museum of Applied Arts. In 2002, he was
    responsible for the Russian contribution to the Venice Architectural
    Biennale and, two years later, he curated the Moscow-Berlin 1950-2000
    show.

    Sarkisyan's flamboyant yet deeply committed leadership established the
    MUAR as a thriving centre for exhibitions and public events and ensured
    dedicated, high-profile advocacy for the preservation of historic
    architecture in Russia. With a group of fledgling preservationist
    associations active in efforts to protect Moscow's heritage, Sarkisyan
    led campaigns against the demolition of the 1960s hotels Intourist and
    Rossia, the Voentorg department store, and the gutting of the Detsky Mir
    store.

    The house that Konstantin Melnikov built in 1929 He was one of the main
    forces pushing for the restoration of Moisei Ginzburg's Narkomfin House,
    a landmark of constructivism which remains in a dire condition.
    Sarkisyan also adamantly opposed the erection of the Gazprom tower in St
    Petersburg.

    His death is likely to have a significant impact on the fate of another
    modernist masterpiece, the house that the architect Konstantin Melnikov
    built for himself in Moscow in 1929. Sarkisyan was a passionate
    supporter of one of Melnikov's granddaughters in her fight against the
    oligarch Sergei Gordeev's project to create a private foundation in
    charge of the house and its collections, and, together with many
    intellectuals and architects, proposed that the house should be the
    focus of a state museum devoted to this unique building and the career
    of its architect.

    Sarkisyan's outspoken criticism of the fate of buildings of historic
    significance in Moscow - from the demolition of the hotel
    Moskva, which was replaced by a wan copy camouflaging a new structure,
    to the insertion of a spurious historical fake within the uncompleted
    shell of the 18th-century Tsaritsyno palace - made him no
    friends within the municipality. An outspoken critic of the mayor Yuri
    Luzhkov's decisions concerning the fate of the city's built heritage,
    Sarkisyan had biting words to use against the transformation of Moscow
    into "a symbiosis of Disneyland, Las Vegas and a Turkish resort". It is
    reported that his burial in the Armenian cemetery of Moscow was barred
    by city officials, a clear indication that Sarkisyan's views could still
    upset the bureaucracy, even from beyond the grave.

    Born in Yerevan, Armenia, Sarkisyan studied biology and human physiology
    at Moscow State University. His first career, in pharmacology, produced
    innovative treatments for Alzheimer's disease. He then moved on to the
    world of cinema, shooting close to 20 documentaries, including the
    acclaimed Comrade Kollontai and Her Lovers (1996). In 1991, he was first
    assistant director during the filming of Yuri Klimenko and Rustam
    Khamdamov's Anna Karamazoff, starring Jeanne Moreau. The end of that
    year saw the collapse of the Soviet Union. He then wrote film criticism
    for several Russian newspapers and, in 1994, founded the Nashchokin's
    House gallery in Moscow.

    A visit to Sarkisyan in his office at the MUAR was an exotic experience.
    A dark grotto, filled beyond capacity with posters, movie memorabilia,
    piled-up books, Stalinist kitsch, children's toys, and works of art of
    all kinds, it hosted vibrant and frequently uproarious meetings of
    leading intellectuals and architects. Frequently sleeping on the
    premises, the director would often greet his guests in his pyjamas.

    Sarkisyan was a brilliant museum director, an exceptional cultural
    entrepreneur, a gifted curator and a committed defender of true and just
    causes, fighting a desperate rearguard action for the preservation and
    professional restoration of many historical landmarks from both
    pre-revolutionary and Soviet times. The expression of feeling prompted
    by his death could prove to be a turning point in the public awareness
    of Russia's most creative recent past.

    Sarkisyan had married a fellow student while at university. They were
    divorced in the 1990s.

    - David Ashotovich Sarkisyan, pharmacologist, film-maker and
    architectural conservationist, born 23 September 1947; died 7 January
    2010

    This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 18.15 GMT on Thursday 4
    February 2010. A version appeared on p42 of the Obituaries section of
    the Guardian on Friday 5 February 2010.
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