MODERNIST ARCHITECT CONSTANTIN PERTZOFF: A NEW LOOK AT STYLISTIC CHANGES IN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE IN THE UNITED STATES
In 1940s America, Russian immigrant Constantin Pertzoff became a renowned modernist architect. He designed civil buildings in the style of rational modernism, experimented with images of “architecture of the future”, and erected houses in the spirit of futurism. Despite Pertzoff being one of the first architects to introduce modernist features into church architecture, his creative heritage remains insufficiently studied. Archival research conducted at the Tolstoy Foundation (Valley Cottage, NY), the Archives of the Orthodox Church in America (Syosset, NY), and the Library and Archives of Holy Trinity Monastery (Jordanville, NY) allowed us to introduce a significant layer of new information into scientific circulation. After designing the Church of the Three Saints in Ansonia in early 1950s Connecticut, Pertzoff engaged in a bold dialogue with the revised architectural heritage of Russia and the United States. The space-planning structure is enriched with a new sound that clearly articulates signs of modernism. The exterior of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Boston, Massachusetts (1960) was also designed following a modernist framework but in a more restrained manner. Its figurative and sculptural programs are softer and more traditional than those of the Ansonia church. For the first time, we can fully describe all projects using a method of art historical analysis. The architectural works of Constantin Pertzoff paved the way for the further transformation of Orthodox architecture in the United States and were inherited in the projects of other major émigré architects.