Vera Archipova: “St. Petersburg is in my blood”

Among the laureates of the 2024 Golden Trezzini Awards are many remarkable people, but only one direct descendant of the first architect of St. Petersburg. Vera Arkhipova told us about her lineage, tracing back to Domenico Trezzini, and about her own creative projects. – Vera, tell us a bit about yourself. Where do you live, what do you do? How did you come to your profession? – My name is Vera Pavlovna Arkhipova, I live in the Kaliningrad region. Currently, I am the deputy general director of the production company “PRO Stal” and the general director of LLC “Alfamet.” By education, I am a civil law attorney. I've been in the profession for over 20 years and I love this work very much, always considered it the most creative and interesting, managed quite well, and the results were gratifying. In 2018, Nikita Evgenievich Vokhmyakov, the owner of a production company, invited me to work as a lawyer. But after just 2 years, he offered me to engage in something quite unusual for me – production. It was a difficult decision for me to radically change my professional field. I didn't abandon my beloved jurisprudence, and my accumulated knowledge and experience helped me greatly. Of course, I had to work hard and... learn, learn, learn. And I am learning and trying new things – not yet on a global scale, but I hope that I'm just at the beginning of my journey and this path is the right one!   – What degree of kinship connects you to the first architect of St. Petersburg, Domenico Trezzini? How did you learn about this connection? – I was born in an ordinary Soviet family in the Far East, near the city of Ussuriysk. My mother was an engineer, my father was an artillery officer in the Soviet Army, who was sent to the Far East after military school. In 1989, my father was transferred to Kaliningrad, where we still live today. My father's parents lived in Tula. My grandmother Vera Pavlovna Arkhipova, a native of St. Petersburg, lived on Vasilyevsky Island until 1942, and my grandfather Leonid Danilovich Arkhipov was a veteran of the Great Patriotic War with an impressive service record and a huge number of awards. They were fascinating individuals about whom one could talk at length. But they themselves talked little about themselves, and even less about their ancestors. Family portraits hung on the wall in Leonid Danilovich's apartment, which didn't interest me much as a child, and my grandfather only joked about “blue blood”, without details.

Vera Pavlovna Arkhipova.

 

Leonid Danilovich Arkhipov.

  After my grandfather's death in 2005, my parents were sorting through documents and photographs. Among them were photos from the late 19th century with attached metrics and notes saying: “Modest Nikolaevich Lehmann, 1858-1910, born either in Kaluga or in Petrograd, buried in Warsaw at the Russian cemetery”, “Evdokia Lukinichna, 1864-1948, a native of Kiev, buried in Warsaw”. These photos, metrics, and inscriptions sparked interest, and we began to study everything that could be somehow connected to this. My father recalled stories of his grandmother Evgenia Modestovna Lehmann, we compared them with documents, and eventually reconstructed the entire chronology and genealogical tree. Domenico Trezzini is my great-great-... grandfather. A distant ancestor in a direct line.

Modest Nikolaevich Lehmann.

 

Evgenia Modestovna Lehmann.

– Can we trace the entire chain of family connections from Domenico Trezzini to you? In the format of “Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah and his brothers, etc.”? – We can! So:

• Domenico (Andrey Yakimovich) Trezzini and Maria Lucia Carlotta.
• Their son Matvey Andreevich Trezin and Marya Petrovna Trezin.
• Their daughter Anna Matveevna Radygina (Trezin) and Grigory Efimovich Radygin.
• Their daughter Agrafena (Agrippina) Grigoryevna Chernova (Radygina) and Pakhom Kondratievich Chernov.
• Their daughter Ekaterina Pakhomovna Lehmann (Chernova) and Nikolai Mikhailovich Lehmann.
• Their son Modest Nikolaevich Lehmann and Evdokia Lukinichna Lehmann (Snezhko).
• Their daughter Evgenia Modestovna Lehmann and Danil Petrovich Arkhipov.
• Their son Leonid Danilovich Arkhipov and Vera Pavlovna Arkhipova (Smirnova).
• Their son Pavel Leonidovich Arkhipov and Valentina Vasilyevna Arkhipova (Morozova).
• And I, their daughter Vera Pavlovna Arkhipova. It turns out I'm Trezzini's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter.

– What historical documents or family relics confirm your kinship with Domenico Trezzini? – Our family documents confirm kinship up to Ekaterina Pakhomovna Chernova (Lehmann). Further kinship from her to Domenico Trezzini is a generally recognized fact, reflected in open sources: in particular, in the works about Trezzini by Y.M. Ovsyannikov, in the journal “Genealogical Herald”. Here I must mention Ekaterina Pakhomovna's husband – Nikolai Mikhailovich Lehmann, whose lineage is also connected to Switzerland! Nikolai Mikhailovich (1800-1865) was a Lieutenant General who captured the fortress of Rakhov during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829. His father Mikhail Mikhailovich Lehmann (1760-1831) came from a family of Swiss Germans who moved to Russia in the 18th century. Entering state service, they earned the right to hereditary nobility through ranks and orders, and as their surname, they took the French name of Lake Geneva – Léman.   – What significance does the family connection with Domenico Trezzini have for you? Do you think it influences your own life and professional path? – In my family, this fact was established when I was already at a conscious adult age. Yes, 300 years ago my famous ancestor lived and created, I have his genes, but I don't think that's enough to say they have a great influence on me. Perhaps now I can say that St. Petersburg is in my blood, understanding the significance of what he created during his lifetime. This is certainly pleasant.   – Which architectural projects of Domenico Trezzini are most dear to you? – The Summer Palace of Peter I. Modest, simple, functional, atmospheric, and nothing superfluous. The first sewage system in all of St. Petersburg. And it's one of the rare cases where the building has been preserved almost in its original form, which makes it possible to feel the spirit of the past in the presence of the present. Indescribable feelings.   – And what do you think Trezzini himself would be most proud of if he could visit our time? – That his legacy lives on in numerous architectural monuments that continue to inspire and fascinate people around the world.   – At the 2024 Golden Trezzini Awards Ceremony held at the State Hermitage Museum in November, you received two prestigious certificates — Gold and Silver. These awards recognized your completed project of architectural forms in the Park of Lights located in Guryevsk, Kaliningrad region, as well as the remarkable architectural lighting design for this project. Congratulations! Could you share more about these works with us? – This is the labor of a team, an idea brought to life by the excellent designer Andrey Sviridatsky and executed collectively. We created a dome of individual cells – a structure 5.6 meters high and 8.8 meters in diameter. It's a hemisphere assembled into a single structure from hexagons. Considering that a sphere cannot fundamentally be covered with regular hexagons, we were given an impossible task. A classic soccer ball, for example, is a polyhedron consisting of 12 regular pentagons and 20 regular hexagons. At each vertex, two hexagons and one pentagon converge. Each pentagon is surrounded on all sides by hexagons. According to the concept of Ekaterina Furs (LLC “Different Architecture”), the author of this architectural form, the dome is assembled from honeycombs, and a honeycomb is a hexagon. And we succeeded. This is worthy design work, attention to details in execution, it's unique, interesting, and impressive. The Light Park is an interesting concept, and I am very happy to present the architectural forms we made, which have become bright accents of this public space.   – Tell us about other interesting projects of your team. – As part of the general improvement of the island where the Kaliningrad Cathedral is located, we manufactured and installed swings with quotes from the works of Immanuel Kant: “Who cannot control his fantasy is a fantasist; in whom unbridled fantasy is combined with ideas of good is an enthusiast; in whom disorderly fantasy is a dreamer.” Now it's a popular place for children and adults. The Sensitive Development Park in Guryevsk includes zones for the five senses – contemplation, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. We also created objects there that promote the study of natural sciences: architectural forms “Mirror Labyrinth”, “Walking in a Kaleidoscope”, “Street Musician”, “Echo Game”, “Sound of the Sea”, “Archimedes' Screw”, “Shadow Play”. It turned out to be a very educational place, and no less popular.   – Do you have new projects that you are working on right now? – As I've already said, I'm at the beginning of my creative path. I would like to only “create”, of course, but our production has other, applied directions. The company “PRO Stal” produces industrial and food equipment (conveyor lines and conveyors, capacitive equipment, case products, food and technological pipelines), structures and facilities (building metal structures, metal frames, overpasses, platforms and technological transitions, fences), decor and landscaping. Continuous work is carried out in all these areas, we welcome new projects. This year we opened production in St. Petersburg. An interesting novelty directly from the design field is a catalog of StahlBerg furniture made of stainless steel in combination with marble, glass, or wood, developed this year, which will also be manufactured in St. Petersburg. So the connections with Trezzini's city are getting closer.   – What role, in your opinion, does the award with the motto “Architecture as Art” play in the development of architecture and design? – It helps preserve heritage for future generations, draw attention to existing problems, combine the experience of experts and the bold, unconventional thinking inherent in the younger generation, and give an opportunity to make oneself known. Standards and templates are comfortable. But development is something non-standard, it's rather close to “impossible”. The motto inspires making the impossible possible. – Finally, give advice to aspiring architects and designers who are inspired by the legacy of Domenico Trezzini and strive to succeed in the profession. – Pay attention to details, be observant, and don't be afraid of originality and experiments!

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