ABSTRACT
SELIM KHAN-MAGOMEDOV: In the twentieth century architects have been concerned with the problems of the general population’s living conditions. In our country this was especially evident in the 1920s and 1930s, and, to some extent remains so to this day. Today, everything in the past is being criticized. The denial of that which preceded is characteristic for the Russian mentality-this was the case in the time of Prince Vladimir Krasnoe Solnyshko, and in the time of Peter the Great and later, in the classical epoch, when the majority of traditional boyars’ palaces were disfigured in attempts to mimic European styles. Nevertheless, architecture is basically a positive form of art always reacting in a positive way to any assignment, even if it is an imperial one. We must realize that in architecture, unlike literature or painting, there can be no such thing as ‘critical realism’.
