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Lidiia Komarova, architectress of the Soviet avant-garde
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Lidiia Komarova is one of my favorite architects of the Soviet avant-garde, even if the vast majority of her work was, as with so many others, never realized. She was a student Ladovskii and Dokuchaev in the “rationalist” camp of ASNOVA for most of the 1920s, but eventually migrated over to “constructivist” school of OSA headed by Ginzburg and Vesnin by the close of the decade.
Her drawings, models, and floor plans were some of the best to come out of VKhUTEMAS-VKhUTEIN during its brief ten years of existence. They stand as a testament to what once seemed imaginable, even in an economically impoverished, technologically backward country encircled by its would-be gravediggers.
Very few of her designs ever saw the light of day, as was stated earlier, and none of her more modernist compositions. Continue reading
The Rationalist current in Soviet avant-garde architecture
ASNOVA at VKhUTEMAS
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Not all of the early Soviet architectural avant-garde was “Constructivist,†strictly speaking. Though this was the title often generically used to describe to all modernist architecture coming out of Russia, only those pieces produced by the architectural group OSA can really be considered constructivist per se. OSA’s self-proclaimed doctrine was constructivism, founded on the principle of the “functional method†of design, as Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers described it.
Earlier, another avant-garde group — the Association of New Architects, or ASNOVA — had been founded in 1923 by Nikolai Ladovskii, Nikolai Dokuchaev, Vladimir Krinskii, and El Lissitzky (though Lissitzky spent most of his time abroad). This school of architectural thought was deeply informed by the principles of abstract Suprematism in painting, the style invented by Kazimir Malevich some years before. In fact, Lissitzky’s PROUN series led directly into his architectural phase of production.
Project for the “new city”
V. Popov, Diploma project on the theme of the “New City” (1928), studio of Nikolai Ladovskii, housing commune model
V. Popov, Diploma project on the theme of the “New City” (1928), studio of Nikolai Ladovskii, housing commune axonometric view
V. Popov, Diploma project on the theme of the “New City” (1928), studio of Nikolai Ladovskii, administrative building axonometric
V. Popov, Diploma project on the theme of the %22New City%22 (1928), studio of Nikolai Ladovskii, living complex, axonometric and plan
V. Popov, Diploma project on the theme of the “New City” (1928), studio of Nikolai Ladovskii, perspective view of the administrative center
V. Popov, Diploma project on the theme of the “New City” (1928), studio of Nikolai Ladovskii
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As opposed to the Constructivists in the Society of Modern Architects (OSA), founded two years later, the premise of architectural Rationalism, as it came to be called, was formalistic rather than functional. The members of ASNOVA appealed to evidence gleaned from the study of psychotechnics, a science imported from Germany and America, to claim that certain formal shapes and patterns of design had a direct effect on the psychology of those who viewed the structure of a building. Once these formal principles could be discerned, they could be used to produce a psychological effect, lifting viewers and inhabitants out of false consciousness and inspiring them to participate in the construction of a new society. Continue reading
Nikolai Ladovskii’s studio at VKhUTEMAS (1920-1930)
With an original translation
of Ladovskii’s 1921 program
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Image: Photograph of Nikolai Ladovskii
during his professorship at VKhUTEMAS
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Special thanks are due to Monoskop for pointing out to me a number of new images, as well as to TotalArch for providing Selim Khan-Magomedov’s selected Russian text online to translate for this post.
Nikolai Ladovskii and students at VKhUTEMAS, 1922
“On the program of the working group of architects” (1921)
The task of our working group is to work in the direction of elucidating a theory of architecture. Our productivity will depend on the very rapid articulation of our program, on clarifying the investigative methods to be used and identifying the materials we have at our disposal to supplement the work. The work plan can be broken down into roughly three basic points:
I) aggregation of appropriate theoretical studies and existing theories of architecture of all theoreticians,
II) excavation of relevant material from theoretical studies and investigations extracted from other branches of art, which bear on architecture, and
III) exposition of our own theoretical perspectives to architecture.
The result of these efforts must be the compilation of an illustrated dictionary that establishes precisely the terminology and definitions of architecture as an art, its individual attributes, properties etc, the interrelation of architecture with the other arts. The three elements of the work plan relate, in the case of the first, to the past, to “what has been done”; in that of the second, to the present, and “what we are doing,” and in that of the third, to “what must be done” in the future in the field of theoretical justifications of architecture. A commission, which might be necessary to set up for the program’s elaboration, must build upon the foundations we have suggested.
I. Lamtsov, workshop of Nikolai Ladovskii %22Beam, Revelation of Structure,%22 1922 study И Ламцов, МаÑтерÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð Ð›Ð°Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ñкого
I. Lamtsov, workshop of Nikolai Ladovskii %22Double Volume, Revelation and expression of mass and weight,%22 Sketches 1922 И Ламцов, МаÑтерÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð Ð›Ð°Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ñкого
I. Lamtsov, workshop of Nikolai Ladovskii %22Double Volume, Revelation and expression of mass and weight,%22 Sketches 1922 И Ламцов, МаÑтерÑÐºÐ°Ñ Ð Ð›Ð°Ð´Ð¾Ð²Ñкого1
I Lamtsov, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, Grain elevator, revelation and expression of form, 1922
I. Frantsuz, Il’ia Golosov and Konstantin Mel’nikov’s workshop, Crematorium (1922)
Nikolai Krasil’nikov, workshop of Nikolai Ladovskii, apartment building 1921 2
G Vegman, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, grain elevator, revelation and expression of form, 1922
Nikolai Krasil’nikov, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, Water Tower, revelation and expression of form, 1921
Nikolai Krasil’nikov, workshop of Nikolai Ladovskii, apartment building 1921
I Reberg, Crematorium (Diploma Project, 1920
V Ianovskii, Revelation of structure, first year (1924)
Unknown, Ladovskii’s workshop, Alkaline manufacturing tower, revelation of volume and space, 1922
V Vladimirov, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, grain elevator, revelation and expression of form, 1922
G Gol’ts, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, architectural and spatial design of the entrance to Nikitskii boulevard in Moscow, 1920-1921
G Gol’ts, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, architectural and spatial design of the entrance to Nikitskii boulevard in Moscow, 1920-1921
Iurii Spasskii, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, Grain elevator, revelation and expression of form, 1922
Iurii Mushinsky, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop. Wharf with a restaurant under a rock over the sea, revelation of the physico-mechanical properties of formIurii Mushinsky, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop. Wharf with a restaurant under a rock over the sea, revelation of the physico-mechanical properties of form
G Gol’ts, Nikolai Ladovskii’s workshop, architectural and spatial design of the entrance to Nikitskii boulevard in Moscow, 1920-1921
Decorative composition for Ladovskii’s class, 1923
Decorative composition for Ladovskii’s class, 1923
Lidiia Komarova, thesis project for Nikolai Ladovskii’s studio, 1923
Unknown, project for Nikolai Ladovskii’s studio, 1926
Modernist architecture archive
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IMAGE: Lev Rudnev’s City of the future (1925),
before his turn to Stalinist neoclassicism
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An update on the Modernist Architecture Archive/Database I discussed a couple posts ago. I’ve begun work on it, and have uploaded almost half of the documents I intend to include. Only a few of the Russian ones are up yet, but I’m hoping to post them over the next couple days. There are many more on the way.
However, this might not be the most convenient way to browse through it all. For a more manageable overall view of each of the individual articles (detailing the author, title, and year of publication), click here.