Elena Kalman: the architect as artist
Elena Kalman grew up as an architect and aspiring artist in Kiev in the Ukraine while it was still part of the Soviet Union.
Kalman”™s parents were both technical Ph.D.s.
“I”™m the first non-Ph.D. in the family,” said Kalman. “I was interested in art since I was 10 years old. Though art is not really a good profession in Russia, especially in the period while we were there.”
Kalman”™s parents helped to revise her idealistic dreams of art toward architecture while she was still in high school.
“They wanted that I go to high school for math and science but I can take art classes at the architectural club,” said Kalman. “They had a really good art school there and it took over my whole life.
Kalman remembers that the school was very ideologically centered.
“Every time there was an anniversary of Lenin”™s birth or death, the art students would have to produce something,” said Kalman, “where in architectural club we were studying more Russian constructivism and abstract art. There was a big classical component to it, but it wasn”™t ideologically dominated. In fact, I think all the dissident artists were gravitating toward architecture.”
Kalman went on to Moscow to receive her degree in architecture from the Moscow Architecture Institute, the birthplace of Russian constructivism and the site of its reigniting.
“It was an interesting period,” said Kalman. “I went there in the ”™70s and before that there was the birth of constructivism, then there was a Stalinist period and then in the ”™60s and ”™70s it started going back to its roots.”
Kalman came to Hartford where her uncle lived in 1979 during a large period of Russian-Jewish emigration.
“Then the doors closed and a few of our friends couldn”™t get out when we did and were stuck for another ten to 15 years, until perestroika,” said Kalman. “We got out right at the end of a very short period.”
Kalman was received by her uncle who was aided by the Russian-Jewish Federation.
“You had to be sponsored and have someone who knows you personally and assures that you were going to find a job in three months,” said Kalman. “There was no welfare like in Brooklyn.”
Kalman attempted to parallel her architecture and her art while in Hartford. At the age of 26, she began working at architectural firms in Connecticut.
“Architecture was going through a difficult period not unlike right now,” said Kalman. “I was hired and fired many times. Things stabilized, for everybody, around 1985 at which time my husband found a job and we moved to Stamford.”
In 1988, Kalman started her own firm: Elena Kalman Architects.
“I have continued to do my art over the years,” said Kalman. “I had shows on an off.”
Her work began to be shown in galleries in New York City as well as regional shows such as Stamford Museum.
“My architectural practice is what is really a bigger focus of my life and that”™s what pays the bills,” said Kalman.
In the last decade Kalman”™s architectural work has advanced from residential work to large-scale commercial projects.
“It is really unusual for a small office like this,” said Kalman. “I”™m usually competing against large firms.”
Kalman said to be a good architect you have to have always been a good artist of some kind; it”™s integral.
“If you think of Frank Lloyd Wright or Le Corbusier, there art is exceptional,” said Kalman. “Architectural exams focus on things like safety, they want to make sure you”™re not going to make a building that will harm people, but as important as that is, it is baseline. Just because a writer is great at grammar and spelling doesn”™t mean he”™ll write the great American novel. I always try to incorporate art into my architecture.”
Kalman”™s artistic abilities have expanded to sculpture, painting, installations and the use of found objects.
“I use all kinds of mediums,” said Kalman.
One of Kalman”™s unique pieces, called “The Dance of Seven Veils,” was an assemblage of found metal objects from Vulcan”™s Forge in Stamford connected to garage door openers giving the sculpture movement.
Kalman”™s art fills her house in Stamford, which she designed, where she lives with her husband Mikhail.
Her passion for art has extended to her children, one a writer, Nadia, and the other a filmmaker, Lev.