Architectural compositions by Iakov Chernikhov, 1924-1931
“My aspiration was to completely avoid the real world and give myself over to utopias, illusions, and the ephemeral.” — Iakov Chernikhov, 1927 Continue reading
Search Results for: Vkhutemas
Grigorii Barkhin, Izvestiia newspaper building in Moscow (1926-1928)
Due to supply shortages, Barkhin was forced to scrap the uppermost elevation in order to preserve the base as a continuous block, with rectilinear glazed façades as well as a series of distinctive circular windows over the right side of the entrance. Continue reading
The brothers Vesnin
It’s rare enough for a family to produce one genius. Two is even more unheard of. But three? Continue reading
Architecture in cultural strife: Russian and Soviet architecture in drawings, 1900-1953
“Paper architecture” — drawn but unbuilt — exercises a strange grip on the imagination. It affords a brief glimpse into lost worlds: not only the real or historical world in which architects actually lived, but the worlds they imagined themselves to be building. Continue reading
Lissitzky, Wolkenbügel (1924)
The idea of the conquest of the substructure, the earthbound, can be extended even further and calls for the conquest of gravity as such. It demands floating structures, a physical-dynamic architecture. Continue reading
Training the Soviet architectural avant-garde II
A gallery of rare images from the VKhUTEMAS school of art and architecture in Moscow, 1920-1930. Continue reading
Lidiia Komarova, architectress of the Soviet avant-garde
For better or worse — okay, for worse — architecture remains something of “a man’s world.” Continue reading
The Rationalist current in Soviet avant-garde architecture
Not all of the early Soviet architectural avant-garde was “constructivist,” strictly speaking. Continue reading
Train stations, bread factories, and the “New City”
Student projects at VKhUTEMAS and VKhUTEIN from the studios of Vesnin and Ladovskii, 1925-1929. Continue reading
Space architecture: Training the Soviet avant-garde (1921-1930)
The “space” course for architects at VKhUTEMAS in Moscow, 1920s. Continue reading