Today marks the 130th birthday of the Russian architect Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov

Today marks the 130th birthday of the Russian architect Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov. In honour of the jubilarian, my team and I from the Shchusev Museum of Architecture visited the surviving Moscow monuments of his work. A sorry picture, it must be said. All of them, with the exception of the Melnikov House, are in a state of incredible decline. The photograph shows the club of the Svoboda perfume factory: abandoned, dilapidated, with the shameful afterglow of the Surikov banqueting hall, which left behind plaster balusters, gilded friezes and Michelangelo's Last Judgement in fresco above the main stage. The building now belongs to Mosgornasledie, and fifteen years ago it won a prize for the best façade restoration in the city. Today it is frightening to stand beside it without a hard hat: the plaster is showering down, the dreadful tiles have already crumbled, and all the glazing has been replaced with cheap plastic. Moscow has grown so much prettier that soon we shall be visiting Melnikov's masterpieces as though they were classical ruins