The House of Architect A. D. Kryachkov () is a monument of urban planning and architecture of federal significance in Tomsk, Siberia, Russia. The wooden mansion in the Art Nouveau style was built in 1910–1911 to a design by the Siberian architect Andrey Kryachkov. The building is located in the historic centre of Tomsk, along the red line of Kirov Avenue, with a courtyard garden, and forms part of the historic streetscape of one of the city's main thoroughfares.
Kryachkov initially designed the mansion in the Neo-Russian style, but in the final version preferred the rationalist tendency of Art Nouveau, which was popular at the time. According to this rationalist aesthetic, the house received restrained, austere, and geometrically conceived decorative treatment of both its exteriors and interiors.
The architect conceived the construction of the mansion as an experimental project, intending to demonstrate that wood as a building material was modern, economically justified, and aesthetically appealing. The house became the first residential wooden building in Siberia with the most advanced engineering and utilities of the time: hot-water heating, running water, sewerage, and ventilation.
The mansion remained in the Kryachkov family until 1959, when it was donated to the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute. The building is associated with a number of prominent Tomsk residents: architects Konstantin Lygin and Vikenty Orzheshko; and academics and scholars Vladimir Obruchev, Nikolai Chizhevsky, Vladimir Kuznetsov, Mikhail Usov, Nikolai Gornostaev, Nikolai Gutovsky, and Alexander Koshurnikov.
Today the house is home to a branch of the Tomsk Regional Art Museum — the Museum of Wooden Architecture named after A. D. Kryachkov. The building is the only former wooden residential mansion in Russia that houses an architecture museum.
Design and construction Andrey Kryachkov was born in 1876 in the family of a Yaroslavl peasant, Dmitry Iosifovich Kryachkov. In 1888, he completed a three-year school and left to do seasonal work at a tobacco factory in Vyborg. Having demonstrated abilities in drawing and languages at evening courses, Kryachkov was able to enter a real school in 1890, graduated in 1896, and the following year enrolled at the St. Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers. In 1902, due to the institute's recommendation, he moved to Tomsk, where he began working as a junior engineer in the construction department of the Tomsk Provincial Administration and as a full-time lecturer at the Technological Institute in architectural design and drawing. Participating in the construction of buildings at Tomsk University and the Technological Institute, the architect underwent rigorous engineering and construction training. In his early years he served as an assistant to Fortunat Gut, and later himself headed the construction of the entire complex of buildings.
In the rapidly developing cities of Western Siberia at the beginning of the 20th century, the small number of architects and engineers had considerable opportunities to realise their talents. By the early 1910s Kryachkov had already become a well-known and sought-after architect, designing projects not only for Tomsk but also for Kuznetsk, Kainsk, Omsk, Novonikolayevsk, Barnaul, and Berdsk.
Kryachkov, as an architect and engineer, was interested in the use of wood in construction. He believed that Siberia's vast timber reserves were not used to its full potential, and that architects and builders should direct their efforts towards designing new, rational types of wooden buildings. He decided to build the mansion for his own family in Tomsk as an experimental project, intending to demonstrate that three-storey wooden residential buildings equipped with central heating (which was forbidden at the time for all wooden structures) were justifiable both functionally and economically. The central idea of the mansion's architecture was that it should be the first wooden house in Tomsk with an autonomous utility system (steam heating), proving that wood was a modern building material and that a house built from it could be combined with all the scientific and technological achievements in the domestic sphere of the early 20th century.
The architect completed the design of the mansion by 10 August 1909. It was already approved with signatures at the city council on 7 September. The allocation of the building plot was approved by architect Tovy Fishel. The papers were then sent for approval to Saint Petersburg, where the project was rejected on the grounds that the proposed building was effectively three storeys (two floors plus a semi-basement and a residential mezzanine were counted as three), while fire safety regulations of the time allowed no more than two. A long process of discussion and revision of the project ensued. The Technical Construction Committee in St. Petersburg ultimately approved it on the basis that a hot-water heating boiler room was to be installed, above which fireproof brick vaults on seven iron beams were to be placed. The committee also required the mandatory installation of cast-iron stoves in the kitchens. Thus, the mansion had already become known as a unique phenomenon in the Siberian architecture of its time even at the design stage.
Construction of the building lasted for two years, from 1910 to 1911. The mansion became the first fully appointed wooden house in Siberia, with a steam boiler room in the basement and bathrooms and toilets on both floors. The appearance of the completed building differed from the design: the pyramidal roof section that had overhanged the main entrance was removed, and the decorative treatment of the facades was altered. The architect himself later described the house as follows:This house represents an economical to build and operate house, compact in plan and volume while making full use of the semi-basement and attic space. Central heating was applied in a wooden house in Siberia for the first time. Its details aresimple; the cornice with its large overhang, necessary under Siberian conditions, is its main ornament.
1910s–1970s: the mansion as a residential house Marcel Garipov (the author of the historical register about the house) suggested that the mansion was occupied almost immediately after the completion of construction work, as evidenced by the interior finishing — cladding in wood and decorative fabric. Wooden houses at the time were usually plastered only after settlement, which sometimes took a considerable period of time. The architect's family occupied the entire first floor of the house: it contained a dining room, a drawing room, children's rooms, a kitchen, a study, a draughting room, a bedroom, and a bathroom with a toilet. The remaining rooms of the mansion were let out.
Kryachkov's study housed the library of the Society of Siberian Engineers; Saturday meetings of the Society were also held there, attended by Tomsk architects and other prominent scholars and public figures. The Kryachkov house was visited by architects Konstantin Lygin and Vikenty Orzheshko, and by academics Vladimir Obruchev, Nikolai Chizhevsky, Vladimir Kuznetsov, and Mikhail Usov.
After the 1917 Revolution, the house remained in Kryachkov's ownership, which was unusual for the time. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the architect began considering the possibility of moving from Tomsk to another city. The Novosibirsk publication Gorodskoy chislennik wrote: "...these years Kryachkov is being 'squeezed out' of the bureaucratic and arrogant Tomsk, was actively looking at other Siberian cities in search of work". In the end, the Kryachkov family moved to Novosibirsk in 1930, and the house was rented out to the Polytechnic Institute.
In different times, prominent Siberian scholars and their families lived in the mansion — Mikhail Urusov (in the mansard storey), Nikolai Gornostaev, Nikolai Gutovsky, Alexander Koshurnikov, and others. After Kryachkov's death, his widow donated the mansion to the Polytechnic Institute in March 1959.
The house was placed under state protection as an architectural monument of local significance in 1978. By the time preparatory work on the first restoration of the mansion began in 1979, the house had been divided into apartments and was home to twelve families.
1980s: fire and restoration In the 1980s, the house passed under the management of the research institute Giprotyumenneftegaz. In 1980, the institution commissioned a restoration and adaptation design for the building as an institute branch from the design department of the specialist scientific restoration studio Tomskrestauratsiya. The project was the studio's first. The project's author, architect Larisa Romanova, received specialist training in March 1979 at advanced courses at the Rosrestavratsiya association. The authoring team also included postgraduate student M. M. Garipov (compilation of the historical note), engineer T. I. Dregvaleva (schematic drawings), architectural technician L. N. Pavlova (preparation of project documentation), and quantity surveyor E. S. Gustova (preparation of cost estimates).
The presence of residents in the house complicated the monument's survey, so the measured drawings of 1977, made by students of the architectural faculty of the Tomsk Engineering and Construction Institute, were used as the basis. Analysis of archival documents and visual inspection revealed that the landscape composition of the estate had not survived: many plantings and the historic fence had been lost. The wooden outbuildings, built to Kryachkov's design from plank boards in the Art Nouveau style, had suffered losses. Overall, losses to the original appearance of the house amounted to no more than 30%, including the balcony and terrace on the south facade, the railing and floor of the balcony on the north and west facades, individual decorative details, and the original drainpipes with funnels, all of which had disappeared by that time. The original interiors were entirely lost. The adaptation plan envisaged accommodating the administrative apparatus and design departments on the two floors and the mansard, and a documentation and technical bureau in the semi-basement. The project's author took into account and partially preserved the changes to the layout that had arisen from the residence of Tomsk Polytechnic Institute staff families in the mansion.
The sketch restoration design envisaged restoring the original appearance of the house on the basis of surviving similar elements, their traces, and photographs. The colour scheme was built on the palette characteristic of Art Nouveau. The choice of tones was based on a photograph taken by Kryachkov shortly after the mansion was built (the photograph was later lost). During the preparation of the project, Marcel Garipov, who had compiled the historical note on the house, noted the necessity of adapting the part of the mansion where Andrey Kryachkov had lived to a residential function and setting aside a room for a museum exhibition devoted to the architect's work. Bearing in mind that the placement of the institute in the mansion was intended to be temporary, Romanova later proposed locating the House of the Architect in the building and a studio club "Zodchestvo" in the basement storey.