Month: June 2013

Stalinism in art and architecture, or, the first postmodern style

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Book Review:

Boris Groys’ The Total Art of Stalinism

Vladimir Paperny’s Architecture in
the Age of Stalin: Culture Two

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Originally published by Situations: Project for the Radical Imagination (Vol. V, No. 1). You can view a free PDF of the document here. Purchase it today!

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Last year, the English translations of two major works of art and architectural criticism from the late Soviet period were rereleased with apparently unplanned synchronicity. A fresh printing of Vladimir Paperny’s Architecture in the Age of Stalin: Culture Two (2002, [Культура Два, 1985]) was made available in June 2011 by Cambridge University Press. Verso Books, having bought the rights to the Princeton University Press translation of Boris Groys’ Total Art of Stalinism (1993 [Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin, 1988]), republished the work in a new edition. This hit the shelves shortly thereafter, only two months after Paperny’s book was reissued.

Each book represents an attempt, just prior to the Soviet Union’s collapse, to come to grips with the legacy of its artistic and architectural avant-garde of the 1920s, as well as the problematic character of the transition to Socialist Realism and neoclassicism in the mid-1930s, lasting up until Stalin’s death in 1953. Not only do Paperny’s and Groys’ writings follow a similar trajectory, however: they intersect biographically as well. The two authors knew each other prior to their emigration from the USSR and still maintain a close personal friendship. But their arguments should not for that reason be thought identical. Paperny began his research much earlier, in the mid-1970s, and Groys’ own argument is clearly framed in part as a polemical response to his colleague’s claims.

Vladimir Paperny by Diana Vouba, Boris Groys by Luca Debaldo

LEFT: Vladimir Paperny, painted by Diana Vouba;
RIGHT: Boris Groys, painted by Luca Debaldo

Both can be seen to constitute a reaction, moreover, to the dull intellectual climate of official academic discourse on the subject during the Brezhnev era. In his introduction to the English version of Paperny’s book, Groys recalls the “background of almost total theoretical paralysis” against which it first appeared in 1979. “[I]t felt like breathing fresh air in the stale intellectual atmosphere [of Moscow] at the time,” he wrote.[1] Indeed, Eastern Marxism’s most talented aesthetic theorists after the expulsion of Trotskii were by and large conservatives — the repentant Georg Lukács or his equally repentant protégé Mikhail Lifshits, each an apologist for the Zhdanovshchina and hostile to modernism. After destalinization commenced in 1956, following Khrushchev’s “secret speech,” the tables were turned. Socialist realism and neoclassicism were out; the heroic avant-garde movements of the 1920s were back in (albeit in the diluted, vulgarized form typical of Khrushchev). With the rise of Brezhnev in the mid-1960s, the thaw came to a close. But full-fledged Stalinism was not reinstated, at least not in the realms of art or architecture. Now neither alternative — modernism nor Stalinism — appeared in a particularly favorable light. That they had existed was accepted on a purely factual basis, as part of the historical record. Expressing an opinion on either, however, much less an interpretation, was generally considered unwise. Continue reading →

On massive vs. curvilinear structures

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from a fragment by an
unknown modernist

Untitled.
Image: Nikolai Ladovskii, scheme for the
“green city” [зеленый город] in Moscow (1930)
untitled2.

Not all forms of fatness are structurally equal. It’s one thing to be “curvy”; it’s quite another to be an amorphous blob.

Part of it consists in weight.
Another part in distribution.
Maybe it’s in their balance.

General plan of Moscow (1935): The shapeless Moscow amoeba

General plan of Moscow (1935): The shapeless Moscow amoeba accumulating layers, rings, and folds

Le Corbusier’s project for the Palace of the Soviets (1928-1931)

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The Radiant City: Elements for a doctrine
of urbanism for the machine age (1933)

Le Corbusier

The Main Auditorium: an audience of 15,000. Open-air platform: 50,000 people. And perfectly regulated acoustics. Small auditorium: 6,500 people. Huge crowds can move about at their case of the esplanade. Cars are on a lower level; the parking lot is beneath the auditoriums.

General ground-level plan: The natural declivities of the ground are left untouched. Automobiles are assigned a circuit on either side, in the open or underground. The circuit leads to the various entrances: an automatic classification of all visitors. Pedestrians never come into contact with cars. (There can be 25,000 people inside the Palace, and 50,000 more on the open-air platform).

Le Corbusier’s sketches of the Palais des Soviets

Interior to Le Corbusier’s Palace of the Soviets (1931)
Le Corbusier’s Palace of the Soviets (1931)
Le Corbusier’s Palace of the Soviets (1931)
Le Corbusier’s Palace of the Soviets (1931)
Le Corbusier – Palais des Soviets, Moscow, Russia (1930)
Le Corbusier, variations on the design for the Palais des Soviets sketched between October 23 and November 22, 1931
Le Corbusier, variation on the design for the Palais des Soviets (November 1931)
Le Corbusier, variation on the design for the Palais des Soviets (October 1931)
Le Corbusier, variation on the design for the Palais des Soviets (November 1931)

1932: Project for the Palace of the Soviets in Moscow

1928-1931 Moscow classified traffic system

The ground is devoted to movement: pedestrians, cars.

Everything above the ground (the buildings) is devoted to stability.

No similarity between the two. The ground beneath the buildings must be freed, for regular streams of cars and lakes of pedestrians. The streams flow directly to certain entrances; the pedestrians are widely scattered. This makes for a new economy of layout.

The streams of cars can flow in sunken beds or along elevated highways. Starting 5 meters above the ground, buildings take on definite shape. Distribution of traffic has been achieved below, on the ground.

Here, the dynamic functions: distribution of sorts of traffic.

(Pilotis on the ground level).

Here, the static function is expressed by offices, club, and auditorium. 1928. Palace of Light Industry (first called the Tsentrosoiuz) in Moscow. Now built.

Le Corbusier at a conference in Moscow, 1928

Le Corbusier in Moscow, with Andrei Burov and Aleksandr Vesnin (1928)
Le Corbusier with the Vesnin brothers and Andrei Burov in Moscow (1928)
Le Corbusier in Moscow, with Andrei Burov and others(1928)
Le Corbusier sitting with Soviet modernist architect Andrei Burov (1928)
Le Corbusier with Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Burov (1928)

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Here, the dynamic functions: distribution of sorts of traffic.

(Pilotis on the ground level).

Here, the static function is expressed by offices, club, and auditorium. 1928. Palace of Light Industry (first called the Tsentrosoiuz) in Moscow. Now built.

Tsentrosoiuz: Plans, models, site visits

Le Corbusier, plan for Tsentrosoiuz (1928)
Model of Nikolai Kolli and Le Corbusier’s Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow, 1928
Le Corbusier surveys the work site for the Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow (1931)
Le Corbusier surveys the work site with workers for the Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow (1931)
Le Corbusier, model of Tsentrosoiuz (1928)
Corbusier’s Tsentrosoiuz building under construction in Moscow, 1931
Le Corbusier with Nikolai Kolli in front of the construction site for the Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow (March 1930)
Le Corbusier sitting in front of the construction site for the Tsentrosoiuz building (March 1931)

Master plan for the urbanization of the city of Moscow

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In 1931, Moscow officials sent me a questionnaire, admirably thought out, about the city’s reorganization. If only all cities would send out such questionnaires! Their lot would be improved.

The theoretical drawings of the “Radiant City” were made in order to answer this questionnaire. They form a theory of urbanization for modern times.

My “Answer to Moscow” caused an unexpected reaction: its technical aspects were hailed in flattering terms. But the cornerstone of my work was freedom of the individual, and this was held against me. Doctrinal vehemence prevented any worthwhile discussion. Capitalist? bourgeois? proletarian? My only answer is a term expressing my line of conduct and my ingrained revolutionary attitude: human. My professional duty, as architect and city planner, is to achieve what is human.

Charitable colleagues — Frenchmen, too, and far from being “Reds” — proclaimed to all who would listen or read, “that I wanted to destroy Moscow.” Whereas they themselves, if only they were called upon, would, etc.…

The plate which appears opposite (last in the “Radiant City” series), is not a program for Moscow’s destruction but on the contrary, for its construction. It shows zoning and axes of movement along which the city could gradualIy achieve a position of supple ease, expansion without difficulty, and so forth. This plate shows a specimen of urban biology.

So far, only the International Congress for Modem Architecture, the C.I.A.M. has required its members to seek the lines of vital communication which can bring a city into efficient contact with its surrounding region. (A task which will fall to the 5th Congress).

Corbu’s iconic model of the Palais des Soviets

Urbanistic overview of Le Corbusier’s plans for the Palace of the Soviets (1931)
Le Corbusier working with an assistant in modeling his Palace of the Soviets proposal (1930)
Model of Le Corbusier’s proposal for the Palace of the Soviets competition (1931)
Model of Le Corbusier’s proposal for the Palace of the Soviets (1931)
Le Corbusier, model of the Palais des Soviets in Moscow, Russia (1932)
Le Corbusier, model of the Palais des Soviets in Moscow, Russia (1932)
Le Corbusier, model of the Palais des Soviets in Moscow, Russia (1932)
Le Corbusier, model of the Palais des Soviets in Moscow, Russia (1932)
Le Corbusier unveiling the model of his proposal for the Palace of the Soviets (1931)

Palace of the Soviets in Moscow

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The administration building, on the left, is independent of the ground. Not only is the ground freed but, moreover, the expanse of open space beneath the building forms a highly architectural frame for the landscape seen in the background.

On the right, impressive ramps lead the way to the open-air platform for 50,000 people.

By contrast, 15,000 can reach the main auditorium from ground level by means of a continuous inclined plane, becoming concave until it reaches the seats. No stairways, not even a single step can be tolerated in a public building — and certainly not “monumental” stairways!

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Le Corbusier standing next to a Russian peasant woman (1928)
Le Corbusier standing in front of a traditional wooden Russian peasant house (1928)

Corbusier in the USSR
Space, Time, and Architecture (1941)

Sigfried Giedion

Le Corbusier’s Geneva plan remained a project, but the principles embodied in it were partially realized in the Tsentrosoiuz at Moscow (1928-34). The erection of the Tsentrosoiuz — now the Ministry of Light Industry — was retarded partly by the requirements of the Five-Year Plan and partly by the emergence of an architectural reaction. It was one of the last modern structures erected in Russia.

Le Corbusier with Sigfried Giedion and Gabriel Guervekian at La Sarraz for CIAM 1 (1928)

Le Corbusier with Sigfried Giedion and Gabriel Guervekian
at La Sarraz for the founding of CIAM (1928)

Le Corbusier’s design for the Palace of the Soviets (1931) fell within the period of Stalinist reaction. With the ceiling of the great hall suspended on wire cables from a parabolic curve, it was Le Corbusier’s boldest accomplishment up to that time. In 1931 the realization of this project or any of the other contemporary schemes, such as those by Gropius and  Breuer and by the sculptor [Naum] Gabo, was no longer conceivable in the U.S.S.R.

[scribd id=148866567 key=key-lz6rycnznpeoy1dmw3s mode=scroll]

Russian translation of Le Corbusier's 1925 classic, Urbanisme [Планировка города]

Russian translation of Le Corbusier’s 1925
classic, Urbanisme [Планировка города]

The other Trotsky

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Noi Abramovich (1895-1940)

Untitled.
Image: Noi Abramovich Trotskii, Leningrad 1929

untitled2.

Not Lev Davidovich [Лев Давидович]. The architect, Noi Abramovich [Ной Абрамович], rather. No relation, obviously. It’s Bronshtein, remember?

Here are some examples of his work.

Designs

Nikolai Trotskii, design for House of Culture (1934)
Nikolai Trotskii, design for House of Culture (1934).
Nikolai Trotskii, design for House of Culture (1934)
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933) photo.

«О советской архитектуре»

* Из стенограммы отчета в Деловом клубе 16 февраля 1935 г. (Фонд ГМИЛ, архив Н. А. Троцкого).

Годы предреволюционной архитектуры в последний десяток лет, примерно начиная с 1908—1909 годов, проходят под знаком увлечения итальянским Ренессансом, увлечения классическими образцами. Это был новый расцвет в России — неоклассицизма. Он дал в России интересные образчики и целую плеяду очень интересных архитекторов.

С наступлением революции это увлечение классикой не могло продолжаться, оно должно было, естественно, приостановиться, революция толкнула на новые пути в поисках более революционного искусства. Этот неоклассицизм или пользование образцами классики казался течением реакционным. Хотелось чего-то нового, революционного. В это время на Западе возникают во всех областях искусства новые революционные течения: в литературе — футуризм, в Италии — Маринетти, в живописи — кубизм, супрематизм, в скульптуре — кубизм и в архитектуре возникает новое течение на основе кубизма и супрематизма — конструктивизм. Эти новые искания в области искусства и в области живописи, и литературы, и архитектуры казались тогда революционными. Казалось, что новые искания в области искусства соответствуют тем революционным настроениям, тем революционным чаяниям и пафосу, который был в те годы, и казалось, что это искусство может отразить пафос революционного движения и поэтому периоду увлечения классикой пришел конец.

[…] И архитектура должна была найти свои новые пути. Архитектура — искусство более консервативное, и в архитектуре это шло более длительно и начиная с 1923 и кончая примерно 1930 годом (в течение 7-летия) архитектура находится под влиянием конструктивизма. Кроме конструктивизма зародился целый ряд других побочных течений…

Примерно в 1930—1931 годах начинает чувствоваться увядание, начинает чувствоваться некоторая беспомощность и падение кривой увлечения этими стилями, начала ощущаться потребность более сильного, более эмоционального и выразительного. Дело в том, что эти «измы», затрагивая те или иные части архитектуры, в целом не охватывали задач архитектуры и поэтому не создавали большого стиля искусства. Первым пробным камнем нашей советской архитектуры этого 7-летия явился конкурс на Дворец Советов. Это чрезвычайно интересный момент. На этом конкурсе выявилась вся беспомощность и все бессилие нашей архитектуры дать то, что нужно нашему государству, нашему Союзу, т. е. передать тот пафос строительства, создать ту сильную монументальную архитектуру, которая нужна Союзу. […] Начиная с 1931 года и до сегодняшнего дня мы находимся в лихорадочном состоянии. […]

Realizations

Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933)
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933)
S.E. Kozak & Nikolai Trotskii, Palace of Culture (1934).
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933)
Rare color photo of Nikolai Trotskii’s Stachek region (1933).
S.E. Kozak & Nikolai Trotskii, Palace of Culture (1934).
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933). Photo 1934.
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933)
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933). Photo 1938.
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933). Photo 1939.
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933). Photo 1941.
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933). Photo 1964.
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933). Photo 1937.
Nikolai Trotskii, Stachek region (1933). Photo 1940.

Leninbulb

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Alternate poster design by Gustav Klutsis, "Electrification of the entire country!" (1921)

Alternate poster design by Gustav Klutsis,
“Electrification of the entire country!” (1921)

Vladimir  Lenin, “Preface” to I.I. Stepanov’s
The Electrification of the R.S.F.S.R. and
the Transitional Phase of World Economy

Written: 18 March, 1922
First Published: Pravda No. 64, March 21, 1922; Published according to the text in I. Stepanova The Electrification of the R.S.F.S.R. and the Transitional Phase of World Economy, Moscow, 1922, checked with the manuscript
Source: Lenin’s Collected Works, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 245-246
Translated: David Skvirsky and George Hanna
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & R. Cymbala
Copyleft: V.I. Lenin Internet Archive (www.marx.org) 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

Lenin: "Communism = soviet power [совласть] + electrification!"

Vladimir Lenin: “Communism = soviet
power [совласть] + electrification!” (1922)

I heartily recommend this book by Comrade Stepanov to all Communists.

The author has succeeded in giving a very able exposition of exceedingly difficult and important problems. He did very well in not writing a book for intellectuals (as is the practice among many of us who copy the worst manners of bourgeois writers), but for the working people, for the masses, for rank-and-file workers and peasants. To his book the author has appended a list of references for supplementary reading for the benefit of those who may find it difficult to understand some parts of it without further explanation. as well as for the benefit of those who would like to consult the principal works on this subject published in Russia and abroad. Special reference must be made to the beginning of Chapter VI, where the author splendidly outlines the significance of the New Economic Policy, and magnificently answers the “airy” scepticism that is displayed in some quarters about the possibility of electrification This scepticism is usually a cloak to conceal the absence of serious thought on the subject (that is, if it is not a cloak to conceal whiteguard, Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik hostility to all Soviet construction, which, in fact, is sometimes the case). Continue reading →

Black politics in the age of Obama

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Cedric Johnson and Mel Rothenberg

Platypus Review 57 | June 2013

On May 6, 2013, the Platypus Affiliated Society  hosted a conversation on “Black Politics in the Age of Obama” at the University of Chicago. The speakers included Cedric Johnson, the author of Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007) and The Neoliberal Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, Late Capitalism, and the Remaking of New Orleans (2011); and Mel Rothenberg, a veteran of the Sojourner Truth Organization and coauthor of The Myth of Capitalism Reborn: A Marxist Critique of Theories of Capitalist Restoration in the USSR (1980). Michael Dawson, author of the forthcoming book, Blacks In and Out of the Left, was unable to attend due to an emergency. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation. Complete audio of the event can be found online.

Cedric Johnson: I want to demystify the Obama phenomenon, which dates back much further than the 2004 DNC, as it has unfolded over the past decade. I also want to demystify the notion of “black politics” generally.

I am not disappointed with Obama, because being disappointed would mean I had expectations that had not been realized. I certainly disagree with Obama, but he has done just about everything I expected him to do with respect to domestic policy, questions of inequality, or geopolitics. He has been fairly consistent.

The problem with the Obama phenomenon is that too many people got caught in the rhetoric of “change.” As a political slogan it was perfect: No matter where you were, you could find something you could connect with. This operated on at least three different registers. On one level, it simply meant a change to another party’s leadership. For some, simply turning the page on the Bush years counted as change. At another level, there was what might be called the Jackie Robinson effect: There were those who wanted to see Obama break the barrier and become the first black president. Finally, and this was the most dangerous, many believed that Obama was going to deliver some substantive revitalization of liberalism within the United States. The idea was that he would be the second coming of FDR. People have made the same argument more recently. Michael Eric Dyson made this case last year on Democracy Now!, in fact, urging support for Obama’s reelection bid. One or another of these arguments proved convincing for many who ought to have known better — not just liberals, but people who consider themselves Marxists or radical leftists. Continue reading →

Photo by Sammy Medina

Corbu conference

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Here are some photos I took from the international Le Corbusier symposium that took place on Saturday at the Center for Architecture, organized primarily by the architectural historian (and curator of the new MoMA exhibition on Corbu’s lifework) Jean-Louis Cohen. Also presenting at the conference were Kenneth Frampton, Mary McLeod, Stanislaus von Moos, and Peter Eisenman, to name a few. I’ll be posting a review of the event in a couple days. Enjoy!

Images from the conference

Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Peter Eisenman
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen
Stanislaus von Moos
Stanislaus von Moos
Stanislaus von Moos
Jean-Louis Cohen
Jean-Louis Cohen

Soviet auto-building in the 1930s

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With a 1928 poem by
Vladimir Maiakovskii

Untitled.
Image: Poster on the side of a building in Leningrad
that reads “Automobiles are Workers” (1929)

untitled2.

Image Gallery (captions coming)

“Letter to Comrade Kostrov”

Comrade Kostrov,
…………..I’m sure you won’t mind —
I know,
……..generosity’s one of your merits —
if part of the lines
…………..for Paris assigned
I’ll squander
…………..on petty lyrics.
Imagine:
…….a beauty
…………..enters a hall
framed
…….in necklace and furs,
and I
…….says to her
…………..with no preface at all
these very selfsame words:
I’ve
…….just come
…………..from Russia, comrade.
In my country
…………..I’m a figure. Continue reading →

Le Corbusier’s Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow (1928-1936) over the years

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Planning and construction

Model of Nikolai Kolli and Le Corbusier’s Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow, 1928
Le Corbusier with Nikolai Kolli in front of the construction site for the Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow (March 1930)
Le Corbusier sitting in front of the construction site for the Tsentrosoiuz Building in Moscow (March 1931)
Le Corbusier surveys the work site for the Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow (1931)
Le Corbusier surveys the work site with workers for the Tsentrosoiuz building in Moscow (1931)
Corbusier’s Tsentrosoiuz building under construction in Moscow, 1931

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In his 1928 proposal for the Soviet Central Union building, Le Corbusier invoked his much-vaunted principle of pilotis. As a postscript to his 1930  Precisions on the Present State of Architecture and City Planning:

Pilotis

Since we no longer have to lay foundations in the ground for the carrying walls; since on the contrary all we need is posts covering only .5% of the surface built upon and furthermore, since it is our duty to make the house more healthful by raising its bottom-most floor above the ground, we will take advantage of this situation by adopting the principle of “pilotis” or stilts.

What is the point of using pilotis? To make houses more healthful and at the same time allow the use of insulating materials which are often fragile or liable to decay and so should be placed far from the ground and possible shocks.

But most of all: behold, they are available to work a thorough transformation in the system of traffic on the ground. This is as true of the skyscraper as of the office building, of the minimum houses as of the streets. One will no longer be “in front of” a house or “in back of” it, but “underneath” it.

We have to reckon with cars, which we will strive to channel into a sort of river with regular banks; we need to park these cars without, at the same time, blocking up the river bed. When we leave our cars we must not paralyze traffic all along the river and when we come out of our buildings, we must not obstruct the areas reserved for movement. Continue reading →

Verdun 1918

The charnel-house

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Literary & historical extracts

Untitled.
Image: Human skull at Verdun (1918)
untitled2.

Hegel, The Spirit of Christianity. Pg. 232:

The pricks of conscience have become blunt, since the deed’s evil spirit has been chased away; there is no longer anything hostile in the man, and the deed remains at most as a soulless carcass lying in the charnel-house of actualities, in memories.

Karl Marx, “English-French Mediation in Italy.” Pg. 480:

The death’s head of diplomacy grins after every revolution and particularly after the reactions which follow every revolution. Diplomacy hides itself in its perfumed charnel-house as often as the thunder of a new revolution rumbles.

Georg Lukács, Theory of the Novel. Pg. 64:

[S]econd nature is not dumb, sensuous and yet senseless like the first: it is a complex of senses — meanings — which has become rigid and strange, and which no longer awaken interiority; it is a charnel-house of long-dead interiorities. Continue reading →