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Photograph of a scale model (1:500) of part of the Kiev Museum of Folk Life and Architecture, showing the Poles’e and Poltava and Sloboda sections and, in the background, the South Ukraine and Folk Architecture and Life of a Socialist Village sections (1981). [Photo: Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR.]

Anatole Vassilievitch Matvienko

Born in 1941. Graduate of the Kiev State Arts Institute (Faculty of Architecture), 1967. Completed post-graduate work at the Kiev Regional Institute of Research and Experimental Design (Kiev ZNIIEP) in 1974 and occupied the post of Chief Project Architect. Wrote dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Architecture. Now studying the problem of the presentation of architectural monuments CO

tourists and the localization and planning of such tourism sites in the Ukrainian SSR. Has written several scientific works on the subject and has designed and carried through a number of projects for the development of tourist centres ; now involved in work for reconstruction of the historical centres of Kiev, Chernigov and Pereyaslav-I(hme1’nitskiï. Scientific director of a number of research projects on Ukrainian folk architecture. Recipient of the Republic Prize for Young Architects. hfember of the Union of Architects of the USSR. Deputy Scientific Director and Chief Architect of the Kiev Museum of Folk Architecture since 1978.

The Museum of Folk Li‘ and Architectire

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The Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR, a unique open-air museum, was established at Kiev by a governmental decree in 1969. A building site was made available within the city limits not far from the grounds of the Permanent Exhibition of the Achievements of Ukrainian Ag- riculture, at the southern edge of the Goloseevsk Forest Nature Reserve.

By 1776, when the first section of the exhibition was opened to the public, the museum contained some 140 specimens of folk architecture, spread over an area of some 100 hectares, and over 20,000 items in its collections. The museum project is under the responsibility of the Ukrainian Society for the Preservation of Historical and Cultural Monuments, which works in close collaboration with the State Construction Committee, the Ministry of Culture and the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR.

Building and restoration work is still in progress, and the work of surveying and collecting continues. The museum’s research staff have gone on over 800 expeditions throughout the Ukraine, studied thousands of villages and iden- tified and noted a huge number of monuments of folk architecture, history and art from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The museum’s architects prepare job specifications for the restoration of monuments, draw up master plans for the various sections of the exhibition and exercise an architect’s supervision of the construction work.

By 1980 the museum housed some 230 architectural exhibits, and its collection of ethnographic items or artefacts totalled 40,000. The whole insti- tution had expanded to an area of 1 5 O hectares, making it for all its compara- tively short existence one of the nation’s largest open-air museums. Different types of dwellings, farm and industrial edifices, community and church build- ings and small architectural structures from the four corners of the Ukraine have been transported there and re-erected. As everyone knows, architecture is inseparably linked with its surroundings, forming an organic part of the na- tural landscape or making its distinctive and expressive contribution to the

f

The Museum of Folk Life and Architecture 161

harmony of the whole face of a village. In designing the general layout of the museum, the planners were faced with the task of finding the appropriate architectural and landscape setting for each of the buildings or monuments transferred from its original site and of preserving its characteristic relationship with its surroundings as part of an overall composition.

Exemplurs of Ukruì&m. folk urt und urchitectzlre Historically, the Ukraine was divided into six ethnographic regions : the Middle Dnieper, the Poltava and Sloboda, Poles’e, Podol’e, the Carpathians and the South Ukraine. Each of those regions is represented in the museum by a separate settlement, with a cluster of peasant farmsteads and other struc- tures typical of villages in different regions of eighteenth- and nineteenth-cen- tury Ukraine, and each is placed in its natural setting. Every such ‘village’ groups together ten or fifteen farmsteads of different types, community and other buildings. They are blended together in a common architectural and artistic plan and thus provide a clear idea of the traditional architecture and general layout of villages in the different regions. All dwellings and other buildings have been appropriately fitted out and vividly reflect the living and working conditions, everyday life, art and social relations of the people who lived in them.

The museum’s main exhibition sections are being complemented by the- matic sections that will trace more fully and expressively the development of architecture, art and life from the time of the ancient Slav state of the ninth to thirteenth century down to the present day. These are entitled Old Russian Architecture, A Working Class Settlement of the Early Twentieth Century, and Folk Architecture and Life of a Socialist Village. For the moment, six of the nine permanent sections have been set up. Documentation is being as- sembled, design estimates are being prepared and preliminary building and restoration work is already under way for the remainder. It is intended that by 1985 all of the museum’s sections will be functioning, and some 450 monu- ments of folk architecture will be on permanent display, thus providing a complete ethnographical panorama, tracing the long history of the Ukrainian people-from the darkness and backwardness of the pre-revolutionary epoch to the enlightenment of socialist reality, in which they march hand-in-hand with their brothers the Russian people and all the peoples of the Soviet Union.

A vital consideration in connection with the structural and thematic ar- rangement of the exhibition is that it should portray the evolution of the architecture and way of life of the working people in the context of the social history of the Ukraine. In terms of class, it shows the social and material disadvantages suffered by the peasantry before the Revolution, as seen, in particular, in items of material property. The visitor sees the humble dwellings of the landless peasant poor, the farmsteads of the middle-class peasants and those of the rich peasant kulaks who exploited their indigent hired hands and grew rich at their expense.

There are plans to fit out some of the architectural monuments to house thematic exhibitions devoted to major historical events such as the Ukrainian people’s war for national liberation under the command of Bogdan Khmel’nit- skiï, which culminated in the official reunification of the Ukraine and Russia in 1654, the large-scale peasant uprisings and the struggle of the working people against tsarism and oppression and their fight for social justice and equality, the mass revolutionary movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, etc.

The architectural structures now in the museum are used in the following proportions : historical and ethnographic exhibits portraying the living and working conditions of the peasantry, their arts and crafts, 90 per cent ; the- matic exhibits centred on the social and historical development and economic conditions of the peasantry, 3 per cent ; reserve collections, 6 per cent ; other uses, 1 per cent. The museum also organizes special exhibitions of the history

Poles’e chimneyless dwelling from Samma village (1 5 86). [Phototo: Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR.]

Anatole Vassilievich Matvienko

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Poltava and Sloboda regions: forge from and restoration of - - Nova Sanjara Village. [Photo: Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR.]

PodoPe : mill from Lomagintsy village. [Photo: Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR.]

outstanding monuments or objects as well as of those still being used for their original purpose (e.g. forges).

A people und its hubitat Ukraine’s folk architecture of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries reflects the peasants’ desire to make their houses comfortable, long-lasting and attractive. But these creative forces were held in check by the primitive tools they had at their disposal and by their poverty.

Visitors to the museum can see a wretched mid-nineteenth century hut from the village of Nemorozh (Cherkassy district), the abode of a poor, land- less peasant, and the hut where relatives of the famous Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko lived, which has been transported from its original site and meticulously restored-a perfect exemplar of a typical poor man’s dwelling in that district. There is a parish school from the village of Lotashovo and a church from the village of Doroginka (Fastov district, Kiev province), a famous monument of folk architecture dating back to the late seventeenth century. The Poltava and Sloboda section includes a forge, which can be seen working, from Novye Senzhary and the farmstead of a potter from the Zen’kov district, Poltava province ; the farmstead of an ox-cart driver, trans- ported from the village of Kuntsevo (Poltava province), is now being set up again. In the Poles’e section the visitor will see an interesting farmstead from Mamekino (Chernigov province), a peasant hut from Blazhove, with its ori- ginal late nineteenth-century simple household utensils; he will also see a single-roomed chimneyless cottage built in 1 5 87, from the village of Samara (Ratno district, Volyn Skaya province). There existed until the sixteenth cen- tury a ‘smoke’ tax in the Ukraine-which remained in force in the western provinces until the time of their reunification with Soviet Ukraine-and this explains why the peasants were forced to build their dwellings without chim- neys. The dwellings on display in the Podol’e section are striking and distinc- tive in their lavish use of colour, the textural finish of the exterior, the wall paintings, the flower-painted windows and in other architectural details. Par- ticularly remarkable are the huts from the villages of Kadievtsy and Yaryshev. The Carpathians section is situated in a hilly area of the museum, a natural setting for the structures from this mountainous region which reflect in their architecture the constraints imposed by the difficulties of the terrain. This section contains an eighteenth-century church from the village of Kanora, a water-mill from Snidavka and many other structures. The South Ukraine sec- tion, which is still in the planning stage, will contain farmsteads from the provinces of Zaporozh’e, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Kherson and Nikolaev.

The Museum of Folk Life and Architecture

Plans are also being drawn up for the construction of a replica of the whole defence network that the people of the Carpathians had installed.

Of particular interest is the section on Folk Architecture and Life of a Socialist Village, which was inaugurated in October 1979. It contains typical models of individual rural buildings of the period 1960-70, representative of the architectural styles used in all twenty-five provinces of the Soviet Ukraine. Inside these homes of collective farmers, State farm workers, machine operat- ors and rural intellectuals, the visitor can see products of local industry and decorative art works produced by master craftsmen from all over the Ukraine.

The section on Old Russian Architecture will display archaeological finds and the framework of an ancient dwelling unearthed at considerable depth during construction of the Kiev underground in the Podo1 District of the city. Eventually the house will be restored to its original state. The visitor will also be able to see a' unique vestige of the past-a thousand-year-old ritual oak of the pagan Slavs-and other interesting objects as well.

Finally, the Workmen's Settlement section will throw light on the living conditions of workers in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ukraine, as seen in the homes of coal-miners, oil workers, salt-miners and workers in metallurgical plants and other industries.

Collectìoa of Ukminiun folk urd In the course of numerous expeditions throughout the Republic, the museum's staff have collected a large number of specimens of folk art, cultural artefacts, articles of everyday use, tools and other objects. An interesting collec- tion (some 700 items) of Ukrainian folk musical instruments has been as- sembled. The section on Folk Architecture and Life of a Socialist Village now possesses close on 8,000 items that furnish eloquent testimony to the progress of Ukrainian traditional arts and to a high standard of workmanship. The collections contain not only memorable objects from the past but also the works of contemporary artists and master craftsmen like P. Pechërny, F. Alekseenko, F. and M. Primachenko, F. Panko, I. Gomenyuk and others. They are widely displayed inside the architectural exhibits at the museum itself and are also shown at exhibitions in other towns and villages of the Republic and beyond its borders.

The population at large plays an important role in collecting materials for the museum, and local artists and craftsmen are drawn into its building and restoration activities. In addition, the museum regularly organizes national art festivals and performances by amateur art groups and folk ensembles. For example, on 1 and 2 August 1980, seventy master craftsmen from the pro- vinces of Kiev, Chernigov, Poltava, Lvov, Ternopol'~ Kherson, KhmeYnit- skaya, Rovno and Ivano-Frankovsk were invited to participate in its cultural activities.

Further development The museum's building programme is still continuing. In order to provide year-round operation, a laboratory and an exhibition centre are being built, which will include a permanent display pavilion and exhibition halls. Plans are going ahead for the construction of an administration complex to manage the affairs of what is now a major undertaking.

At the present time the museum has a staff of around 2 5 0 , including 70 persons in the scientific department and 15 in the collections unit. It also has a special workshop where scientific restoration work is carried on. The work- shop staff collaborate closely with the museum's architects in drawing up estimates for building and restoration projects, most of which are still in the experimental stage.

The museum provides other open-air museums in the Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Russian Republic with scientific and technical assistance.

The management and maintenance of a large-scale museum give rise to a

Middle Dnieper region : interior of a peasant house in Nemoroch village. [Phoro: Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR.]

I 66 Anatole Vassilievich Matvienko

number of technical and administrative problems. There is the matter of ensur- ing that the grounds and buildings are fitted out with the necessary equip- ment ; there is the problem of designing visitors’ itineraries ; there is the ques- tion of classifying objects by type, the problem of their volume and disposition and the more general problem of providing visitors and tour groups with the facilities they require (see box).

Once the museum is completely finished and all its exhibition sections are in operation a full tour will cover 1 2 kilometres. Already a comprehensive system of pedestrian circuits and bus routes, classified according to type, is being developed, and a system of circuits is being planned that will make it possible to visit the area in a variety of ways. Thus different foot, bus and combined itineraries are being planned, giving visitors the opportunity to obtain a general view of the museum or to concentrate on particular subjects. The pedestrian circuits are one and a half to four kilometres long and can be covered in one to two and a half hours. There are two types of itinerary already, one centred on the structural and the other on the thematic aspects of construction; they go by the symbolic names of ‘Old Village’ and ‘Con- trast’ , respectively. ‘Old Village’ visitors see primarily monuments of the six- teenth to nineteenth centuries ; those selecting the ‘Contrast’ tour are able to see pre-revolutionary structures of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries and compare them with contemporary rural architecture. Eventually this itinerary will also include exhibits of buildings of the ninth to thirteenth centuries.

When the main building is completed, along with the laboratory and exhi- bition block, and the architectural exhibits are heated, the museum will be able to function on a year-round basis and provide permanent facilities for creative activities by young people and schoolchildren and for other forms of popular cultural activities.

Landscaping work is going forward on the museum grounds and the site is being made generally more attractive, thus enhancing the architectural beauty of the entire complex. In the six years since its founding, the museum has gained considerable experience and gathered a great deal of scientific and statis- tical documentation that enables it to tackle the problems of organizing cul- tural facilities and amenities for the large numbers of visitors flocking to this major open-air museum. Museologists and architects working in close colla- boration with the Kiev Town Planning Research Institute are drawing up proposals for modifying and improving the museum’s master plan and for tackling all the problems connected with the provision of adequate facilities for visitors.

Thus the open-air museum is becoming a favourite haunt of Kievans’ and visitors to the capital of the Soviet Ukraine. It is an ideal spot for cultural

1. The subject is tackled from two hrther perspectives in the articles on Skansen and on the role of the open-air museum in the study of

recreation and a ;entre for the study and preservation of mokments of folk culture and, of course, for reflection on the design of open-air museums as a

urban history (pp. 173 to iss).-Ed. ’ genre. [TrdnsLated from Russian]

The Museum of Folk Life and Architecture 167

Middle Dnieper region : general view. [Photo: Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR.]

Amateur ensemble from Ivano-Frankovsk performing in the open-air museum. [Photo; Museum of Folk Life and Architecture in the Ukrainian SSR. J

How to culCulute u museuin’s ‘curyhg cupucity’ A major methodological problem is that of the museum’s ca- pacity to handle the flow of visitors. In an effort to tackle this question, a theoretical operational model of the museum has been worked out. Sociological studies have been made about visitor attitudes to determine their interests and the amount of time they spend in the museum, distribution pattern variables have been calculated, and forecasts have been made of future trends. The author has worked out a formula to determine the optimum daily average number of visitors to the museum and also the number of visitors present in the museum grounds at any one time. The formula is as follows:

m (g - 2 b) B

m . n e= [r2-k((12-1)] +2

where e = admission capacity per day ; m = number of persons per group of visitors (3 o); g = daily working hours (8); b = cal- culated optimum time for seeing all exhibition sections (hours); B= calculated time needed to view the main exhibi- tion sections (hours) ; t z = number of groups visiting the museum at the same time ; h = coefficient to allow for a neces- sary time interval between groups : 0.08 for a 5 -minute interval ; 0.15 for a 10-minute interval; 0.25 for a 15-minute interval; 0.33 for a 20-minute interval; 0.50 for a 30-minute interval.

This formula represents a further refinement of the Khakalo- Frumin method (1970) and is recommended as a means of calculation for large museums that may receive twenty or more groups of visitors at any one time. The initial design variables

are determined with due regard to the optimum ecological, psychological, temperature and humidity conditions for viewing the exhibits and, at the same time, to preservation of the natural environment and protection of the exhibits themselves.

The calculated data were verified both empirically and by comparing them with hard statistical data of museum atten- dance for the period 1979-80; they proved to be highly reliable.

The following design-load variables have been accepted for the summer season (May-October) : the maximum design load for 1980-82 ought not to exceed 3,500 visitors a day, a figure that tallies with the actual data concerning museum attendance on days off in 1980.

Projects to the year 1990 indicate that the maximum atten- dance load should not exceed 9,500 visitors per day, and the average optimum daily number of visitors should be 7,000, 40 per cent of that number being members of a group and 60 per cent individual visitors. The number of visitors on days off and public holidays in summer is two and a half to three times greater than on weekdays, i.e. the weekly variation in museum attendance is in a ratio of 1 : 3.

Given the geographical location of the museum, the pattern of group museum attendance during the winter months and the city’s and museum’s future development prospects, the vari- ations in winter and summer attendance are taken to be in a ratio of 1: 10. Such data make it possible to plan for the facilities required to meet the needs of visitors.

168 I

Ivan Grigorievich Yavtushenko and Vladimir Borisovich Markov

Exhibition of holograms at the Museum of History of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev. [Photo: Museum of History of the Ukrainian SSR.]

Holography serves Ukrainian museums

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l

8

Holographic t Reference ptate

Laser Beam Object V splitter illumination Prism

Geam - _ II - -

Simplified diagram of hologram recording and reproduction lay-out. [Diagram : The Unesco Courier.]

Pb@ists and miseologists in the Uk rnine, working together, like the authors o f the fil- lowing artìcle, bave been pioneers in ma excit- ing new field: the diverse applications of holo- graphy ìti the rmreutn.

The mthors provìde auluable iizfomutioz on research work being carried out in the laboratories o f the Ukraìne and its applica- tion in an increasìng number of mweunzs. Thql describe the technique clnd its vast poten- tial, pdrticuìm& uiithi~z and among ?nuseu?ns throughout the world.

Holography opens up new approaches to the presentation of our cultural heritage. First advanced by the Hungarian-born British physicist Dennis Gabor in 1948, holography (the phrase was coined from the Greek words bolos, meaning ‘com- plete’, and graphein, meaning ‘to write’) is a method of recording dll the informa- tion about the light field emitted by a real object. It produces a three-dimensional optical replica so real that the viewer has the impression of seeing the object itself, which he can examine from different angles through a plate of transparent glass. Patches of light and shade, the shadow cast by the object and its texture itself are clearly seen, reinforcing the im- pression of three-dimensionality. This is in fact an optical illusion created by the fact that the hologram registers the same light field as is dispersed by the object, i.e. when perceived by eye.

\

The three-dìmensìonul copy

How does holography differ from con- ventional methods of recording images ? The latter use a lens to produce an image of the subject on light-sensitive material, and of course, the original three dimen- sions are then converted into two. But the technique of holography is quite different and may be described as follows. As in photography, one needs a light source, a photographic plate and, of course, an object. The layer of photosen- sitive emulsion is comparatively thick- about I O microns. The object is illumi- nated by the light of a laser ; the reflected light falls on the plate. However, in con- trast to ordinary photography, the plate is also illuminated by reference light rays from the same source. These two beams of light combine, and are registered by the photographic plate, which is called the hologram. The image is reconstructed by placing the hologram as before and directing on to it a similar source of light. The effect of this upon the struc- ture recorded on the hologram is to pro- duce light beams which are an exact rep- lica of those reflected by the original sub-

1. An article by the same authors entitled ‘A Museum in a Suitcase’ was published in the March 1951 issue of The Umco Coxrier. The present article includes material first published therein, in particular a number of illustrations. We are grateful to the Editor-in-Chief of The Ui2esca Coiirier for authorizing Museum to reproduce this material.