In the evening about European modernism, there will be a discussion on how the lines of Art Nouveau, Italian Liberty, and northern versions of the "New Style" changed cities and everyday life. The speakers will connect architecture, painting, and design with the idea of the Great Beauty and show why this style seems surprisingly modern and human again. At the beginning of the meeting, the discussion will focus on how, at the beginning of the 20th century, Europe literally fell ill with the idea of the Great Beauty. The curls of stained glass, twisted balconies, flowing facades, and ceramic panels formed a special language in which architecture responded to dreams of a new person and a new city. This style turned out to be both a utopia and a very material expression of the idea that art should live alongside everyone. The joint program of the library and the discussion club Artistico combines a research perspective with a lively conversation. Participants will sequentially examine different national versions of modernism, compare the southern temperament of Italian Liberty with the northern restraint of St. Petersburg houses, and trace how cultural codes of the era hide in ornamentation and planning. It is important not only how buildings look but also what values are embedded in them. Natalia Shtolder will talk about how Italian masters perceived antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance, turning quotes from history into elegant lines of furniture, showcases, and facades. Andrey Barkhin will address pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, where floral facades, strict neoclassicism, and the first signs of Art Deco coexisted, and how experiments of the early century unexpectedly prepared the language of architecture for the 1930s. Irina Golubeva will show that northern modernism has not remained in the past but is being reinterpreted in projects at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries. Where to go in St. Petersburg today, look for on our website.