Career
From 1842 to 1873, he was working at the construction school in St. Petersburg, where his career was developing from an inspector-lieutenant to the engineer-major general.
In 1875, the magazine Architect noted that the name of Professor A.Krasowski “had become very popular among engineers and architects due to his work, which had laid a solid foundation for teaching architecture as a science at technical higher educational institutions”. That Krasowski’s work was a well-outlined logical explanation of fundamentals of the theory of architecture with due account of new requirements posed by the social life and changes in the construction methods and conditions. His aesthetic conception was a step forward as compared to the aesthetics of classicism, which, according to Vitruvius, defined the architecture as a unity of the three principles: firmitas, utilitas, and venustas (i.e. structural stability, appropriate spatial accommodation, and attractive appearance). Instead of the three main groups of factors, singled out by Vitruvius (utilitarian, constructive-technical and aesthetic), A.Krasowski pointed out two main groups: 1) that meets mostly material needs of human society and 2) that satisfies primarily aesthetic needs of society. A.Krasowski claimed that technology and design are the main source of architectural forms.
A.Krasowski’s theoretical views were in many respects ahead of the architectural practice in Russia of the mid- and second half of the 20th century. The principles, formulated by him, did not just oppose the obsolete aesthetics of classicism; they outlined ways for further development of architecture. The work was almost 15 years ahead of the theoretical treatise Discourses on Architecture by the French architect Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879), who is considered by many foreign architects to be the founder of the modern understanding of ‘rationalism’ in architecture.