A Burning Mind, a Dream Space, a “Fantastic Exhibition”

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the case of the Russian architect Aleksei Benois (1838–1902), who designed “many beautiful establishments,” as his critics tell us, both in Russia and in Central Asia. As one of the first noticeable Russian architects in Turkestan, Benois left behind fascinating sketches for the First Turkestan Exhibition (1890) that is considered here. His oeuvre revolved around one single theme: the creation of an ideal exhibition space in Tashkent, the new capital of Russia’s Central Asia. This study addresses Benois’s immersive vision and spatial aesthetics, up against the clichés of the late nineteenth-century colonial and Orientalist exhibition landscape.