Authors

Lisitsyna Yana Yu.
COMBINATORIAL TOOLS FOR ARCHITECTURAL FORM GENERATION BASED ON YAKOV CHERNIKHOV’S METHOD OF NON-OBJECTIVE ELEMENTS

Architecton: Proceedings of Higher Education №3 (35) September, 2011

The article is devoted to the systematization of basic combinatorial elements, the so-called "non-objective" ones, which Yakov Chernikhov, architect and artist, used as tools for architectural form generation based on his own method of "creative composing”.

The article presents a description and analysis of all combinatorial tools mentioned by Ya.Chernikhov in his published works: «The Art of Graphic Representation» (1927), «Fundamentals of Contemporary Architecture» (1930 – 1st ed., 1931 – 2nd ed.), «The Construction of Architectural and Machine Forms» (1931), «Architectural Fantasies. 101 Compositions» (1933). When interacting among themselves, non-objective elements provide a variety of architectural forms. This method allows one to develop spatial thinking, as Ya.Chernikhov states in his theoretical works and as his teaching practice confirms. Essentially, the issue is that the range of and interrelations between non-objective elements are not presented systemically in the works of this architect and artist because Ya.Chernikhov's method was developing and getting increasingly more complex with time. The systematization of combinatorial elements is necessary for understanding the essence of this method.

Ya. Lisitsyna’s article consists of three parts. At the beginning of the article, the author provides arguments for the need to study the combinatorial tools of architectural form generation as practiced by Ya. Chernikhov. Then she proceeds to listing all non-objective elements that appear in Ya.Chernikhov's published works. In the final part, a systematization of non-objective elements is provided, and their total number is given. The article is concluded with a table in which all basic elements are divided into groups by how they are applied in the three versions of Chernikhov’s compositions.