A photo gallery & translation

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Image: Poster for an expo of the
Bauhaus Dessau in Moscow (1931)

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An extract of an interview from Pravda, 1930:

Hannes Meyer: After many years of working within the capitalist system I am convinced that working under such conditions is quite senseless.  In view of our Marxist and revolutionary conception of the world we, revolutionary architects, are at the mercy of the insoluble contradictions of a world built on animal individualism and the exploitation of man by man.  I have said, and I say again, to all architects, all engineers, all builders:

Our way is and must be that of the revolutionary proletariat, that of the communist party, the way of those who are building and achieving socialism.

I am leaving for the USSR to work among people who are forging a true revolutionary culture, who are achieving socialism, and who are living in that form of society for which we have been fighting here under the conditions of capitalism.

I beg our Russian comrades to regard us, my group and myself, not as heartless specialists, claiming all kinds of special privileges, but as fellow workers with comradely views ready to make a gift to socialism and the revolution of all our knowledge, all our strength, and all the experience that we have acquired in the art of building.

[From Pravda, Berlin dispatch dated October 10th, 1930]

And here are some exceedingly rare photographs of the second Bauhaus director, Hannes Meyer, along with his team of architects, in the Soviet Union.

Image gallery

Hannes Meyer and his wife Lena Meyer-Bergner in Batumi, Georgia (1930)

Natja Catalan, Tibor Weiner, Philipp Tolziner, Konrad Püschel, Margarete Mengel, Lilya Polgar, Anton Urban – members of the “Hannes Meyer architectural group” in Moscow, mid-1930s

Red-baiting political cartoon depicting Bauhaus Dessau director Hannes Meyer being shipped off to the Soviet Union (1930)

Hannes Meyer greater Moscow 1932

Hannes Meyer’s greater moscow regional map 1932

Hannes Meyer Greater Moscow scheme

Hannes Meyer regional plan

Hannes Meyer Birobidzhan 1932

Hannes Meyer’s regional plan for Perm, USSR (1934)

Hannes Meyer’s climatological project for Birobidzhan, 1933

Hannes Meyer’s submission to the Palace of the Soviets competition

Hannes Meyer’s plan for the sotsgorod Nizhne-Kurinsk 1932

Hannes Meyer delivering a speech at WASI in the Soviet Union

Hannes Meyer’s submission to the Palace of the Soviets competition

Hannes Meyer’s submission to the Palace of the Soviets competition, view from above