Pod-people: Soviet disurbanism and individual housing units

There actually were socialist proposals for something like the Futuro. Though he initially worked on a number of plans for communal housing, Moisei Ginzburg, along with Mikhail Okhitovich, Aleksandr Zelenko, and Aleksandr Pasternak (Boris’ brother), came close to this in their plans for “disurbanism” in late 1929 and early 1930. They opposed the existence of the traditional, centralized city as they viewed it as bound up with the capitalist social formation. Ginzburg, Okhitovich, & co. were much more interested in the development of personality and the free individual under socialism, rather than in the creation of vast collectivist dwellings. This was a welcome corrective to Leonid Sabsovich and others for whom communism meant merely the abstract negation of capitalism, and who wanted to substitute collectivism for individualism, which they associated with capitalism.

Anyway, the Disurbanists proposed small but accommodating individual housing units, or “pods,” which would moreover be mobile and collapsible. These spaces would aid in the cultivation of the individual personality, and would moreover allow each person the freedom to associate with others as he would like. If someone got married, he could “link” his pod to another’s. If the couple would then have children, they could “plant” more pods for each child to live in. Moreover, the Disurbanists believed that this would help solve the problem of divorce, housing space, and property, since a divorced couple would no longer have to fight over the space they shared or other proprietary issues. The two divorcees could simply uncouple their pod-houses from each other and go their separate ways.

Communal dwelling for comrades [товарищеская коммуна] № 17, Modern Architecture (1930)

Communal dwelling for comrades [товарищеская коммуна] № 17, Modern Architecture (1930)

The Disurbanists thus also hoped that this would help dissolve the traditional social unit of the family and more broadly “socialize” them. Like Sabsovich and the Urbanists, Ginzburg and his allies believed that the care of children in their upbringing should be primarily provided for by institutions established by society. But while familial bonds and affection would doubtless remain in many cases, one would not be forced by his involuntary association with his family to remain attached to it. Once a child would reach the age of maturity, it would be his right to dissociate himself from the rest of his natural family. Continue reading

Moisei Ginzburg’s “The international front of modern architecture”

Translated from the Russian 

Untitled.
Image: Photograph of Moisei Ginzburg,
editor of Modern Architecture (1927)

untitled2.

[From Modern Architecture (1926) № 2]

[Pg. 41]

If one takes a cursory glance at everything that is now taking place in the architectural life of all countries, the first impression will be this: the world is split into two halves. In one of them, eclecticism still reigns — having lost any point of departure, having exhausted itself through and through — perfectly symbolizing the deteriorating culture of old Europe. In the other [half] young, healthy shoots push themselves through — landmarks, the beginnings of a new life start to emerge, from which it is not difficult to extend the single, unified thread of an international front of modern architecture. Despite all the differences and peculiarities of different countries and peoples, this front really exists. The results of the revolutionary pursuits of the modern architectural avant-gardes of all nations intersect with one another closely in their main lines of development. They are forging a new international language of architecture, intelligible and familiar, despite the boundary posts and barriers.

But it is worth examining this picture a little closer, as it now becomes evident that within the overall stream [of modern architecture] merge various currents.  The path of the creative pursuit in different countries and among different peoples is not quite the same. For along with the general similarity there also exist differences — differences not only in the formal expression of this language, but also in the basic principles that inform it. Continue reading

A Hitherto Untranslated Letter from Le Corbusier to Anatolii Lunacharskii

Le Corbusier sitting in front of the site for the Tsentrosoiuz Building in Moscow (March 1931)

The following letter, from the famed French architect Le Corbusier to the Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment Anatolii Lunacharskii, has up to this point never available in English translation:

13 mai 1932

Monsieur Lounatcharsky

Genève

Cher Monsieur,

Vous ne m’en voudrez pas de revenir sur l’entretien que nous avons eu à Genève samedi dernier concernant le Palais des Soviets.

Le Palais des S[oviets] est (dit le programme) le couronnement du Plan quinquennal. Qu’est le Plan quinquennal? La tentative la plus héroïque et véritablement majestueuse dans sa décision d’équiper la société moderne pour lui permettre de vivre harmonieusement. Au bout du Plan quinquennal, une idée. Quelle idée: rendre l’homme heureux. Comment atteindre, au milieu des résidus innombrables d’un premier cycle de civilisation machiniste, un état de pureté capable seul d’ouvrir une ère de bonheur? En n’hésitant pas à se tourner résolument vers l’avenir, en décidant d’être d’aujourd’hui, d’agir et de penser «aujourd’hui».

Ainsi a fait l’URSS. Du moins le croyons-nous, nous qui regardons de loin votre effort. Nous le regardons avec un tel intérêt, avec une telle soif de voir se réaliser quelque part sur la terre, cette aspiration universelle vers un état d’harmonie, qu’une fois en est née, partant, une mystique. Cette mystique: l’URSS. Poètes, artistes, sociologues, les jeunes gens et surtout ceux qui sont restés jeunes parmi ceux qui ont connu la vie, — tous ont admis que quelque part — en URSS — le destin avait permis que la chose fût. L’URSS se fera connaître un jour matériellement — par l’effet du Plan quinquennal. Mais, dès aujourd’hui, l’URSS a allumé sur le monde entier une lueur d’aurore. Des coeurs vrais sont tournés vers nous. Ça, c’est une victoire, — bien plus forte que celle qui suivra sur le plan matériel.

«L’architecte exprime la qualité d’esprit d’une époque.» Donc le Palais des Soviets révélera, dans la splendeur des proportions, la finalité des buts poursuivis chez vous depuis 18. On verra de quoi il s’agit. Le monde verra. Plus que cela, l’humanité trouvera sous les auspices de l’architecture un verbe exact, infrelatable, hors de toute cabale, de toute surenchère, de tout camouflage: le Palais, centre des institutions de l’URSS.

Vous avez fait connaître par le monde que ce palais serait l’expression de la masse anonyme qui vit l’époque présente.

Décision: comme la Société des Nations, le Palais des Soviets sera construit en Renaissance italienne…

La Renaissance italienne — comme les Romains et les Grecs — construisait en pierre. Si grands que fussent les rêves, la pierre fixait les limites de sa mise en oeuvre et de son obéissance aux lois de la pesanteur.

A la Renaissance, il y avait des princes lettrés qui dominaient les masses. Un gouffre séparait la fortune et le peuple. Un gouffre séparait le palais, logis des princes, de la maison du Peuple.

L’URSS, union des républiques soviétiques prolétariennes, dressera un palais qui sera hautain et hors le peuple.

Ne nous illusionnons pas dans la rhétorique: je sais parfaitement que le peuple — et le moujik aussi — trouve admirable les palais de rois et qu’il est de son goût d’avoir des frontons de temple sur le bois de son lit.

Mais la tête pensante des Républiques soviétiques doit-elle conduire ou flatter et cultiver des goûts prouvant la faiblesse humaine?

Nous attendons de l’URSS ce geste qui domine, élève et conduit, parce qu’il exprime le jugement le plus haut et le plus pur. Sinon? Sinon il n’y a plus d’URSS et de doctrine et de mystique et de tout…Il est EFFARANT de devoir être conduit à poser de telles questions.

En un mot pour conclure: il est effarant, angoissant, dramatique, pathétique que la décision actuelle de Moscou puisse commencer son oeuvre de désagrégation de l’opinion, de désenchantement, d’amère ironie. Et que le Plan quinquennal se couronne de ceci: «petitesse des hommes».

Cher Monsieur, dans mes propos, nulle amertume de candidat évincé. Non. Mais j’aime trop l’architecture et trop la Vérité pour désespérer déjà. Je voudrais aller parler à Moscou, expliquer, exprimer. Je voudrais aller dire ceci: l’effort innombrable, l’immense labeur anonyme ou signé de ces cent années de sciences, a créé sur le monde la grande collaboration. Il n’est un appoint technique: béton armé, fer, verre, chauffage, ventilation, acoustique, statique, dynamisme, il n’est un outil: machines de toutes natures — qui ne prouvent la grande collaboration.

L’architecture — en l’occurrence l’architecte — a pour mission de mettre en ordre cette armée de collaboration et par la vertu de la puissance créatrice de composition, par la puissance d’une intention élevée, elle peut exprimer le visage unique et magnifique de cette humanité créative. Ce visage serait-il un masque? Jamais, non jamais.

Me permettez-vous de parler objectivement? J’aimerais aller à Moscou.

Le 29 de ce mois, s’ouvre à Barcelone la session du Comité inter[nation]al pour la préparation du Congrès international d’Architecture qui se tiendra à Moscou en septembre.

Mon voyage d’Alger peut être remis (je viens de l’apprendre) à mai.

Je suis attendu à Rome pour deux conférences présidées par Mussolini et pour une entrevue avec lui. But: les Italiens me demandent d’aller arracher le Duce à l’erreur dans laquelle il s’enfonce en ordonnant de construire l’Italie en style Romain (Vous voyez combien le mal est partout.)

S’il vous était possible de préparer mon voyage à Moscou? Je vais même être indiscret: ne m’avez-vous pas dit que vous retourniez sous peu à Moscou? Alors ceci: s’il m’était possible de vous accompagner dans ce voyage, je pourrais vous entretenir de tout ce qui bouillonne en moi, relativement aux villes et aux maisons.

A Moscou, je pourrais, en dehors du Palais parler en public de la Ville Radieuse et expliquer où le progrès et une vue large nous ont conduits et exposer à votre pays qui est le seul ayant les institutions permettant la réalisation des programmes contemporains, le détail technique de la question:

la réforme architecturale

la journée solaire de 24 heures et son programme

les nouvelles techniques de la respiration exacte à l’intérieur des bâtiments (avec les résultats des récents essais du laboratoire de St-Gobain) (Problème décisif capital pour l’URSS)

les problèmes de l’économie du sol dans l’économie domestique

l’insonorisation des logis

l’acoustique

Là sont des vérités, des réalités, des choses à longue trajectoire qui sont dans l’esprit du Plan quinquennal — beaucoup plus que certaines méthodes restrictives, sans imagination et malthusiennes, auxquelles on a fait grand accueil en URSS.

Et si l’on veut, je pourrais parler de proportion, de beauté, de ces choses qui sont les impératifs de ma vie, car il n’y a pas de bonheur possible, sans l’esprit de qualité.

A Buenos Aires en 1929, j’ai fait dix conférences (un cycle) en quinze jours. Je veux bien le faire à Moscou.

Cher Monsieur, voici vingt ans que je vis comprimé. Paris m’a été jusqu’ici indispensable car Paris est le champ clos de la qualité. La vie sévère que j’y mène a porté des fruits. Ignorant en tout, je le sais, je connais toutefois beaucoup de choses de l’architecture et de l’urbanisme.

J’ai à Moscou des amis de coeur, des collègues dans lesquels j’ai grand espoir. J’ai à Moscou des ennemis, mais, je crois, beaucoup d’amis.

Je vous dirai encore ceci: à Moscou j’ai toujours défendu M. Joltowsky qui est un vrai architecte, sensible et plein de talent. C’est cet arrêt inattendu sur une forme historique de l’architecture qui a créé nos divergences. Mais je parlerais avec lui d’architecture, infiniment mieux qu’avec la plupart de mes collègues occidentaux qui se dénomment «architectes modernes».

Je termine : entièrement désintéressé, passionné d’architecture, à l’âge de maturité où un homme doit donner, j’offre ma collaboration en toute loyauté et sans espoirs de gains.

Voilà.

Tout cela était long à dire. Voulez-vous me pardonner d’avoir retenu si longtemps votre attention.

V[otre] bien dévoué

— Le Corbusier

Here, for the first time, is a full English translation of the letter, provided courtesy of my father, Michael Wolfe, and his friend, Michael Vogel:

May 13th, 1932

Mr. Lunacharskii

Geneva

Dear sir,

You will excuse me for returning to the discussion we had in Geneva last Saturday concerning the Palace of the Soviets.

The Palace of the S[oviets] (hereafter referred to as the “program”) is the crowning achievement of the five-year Plan.  What is the five-year Plan? The most historic and undeniably majestic attempt in its decision to equip modern society in order to enable it to live harmoniously.  At the end of the five-year Plan, an idea.  What idea? To make mankind happy.  How is it possible, amid the innumerable residues of the initial cycle of machinistic civilization, to achieve that state of purity which alone is capable of ushering in an era of happiness? By not hesitating to turn resolutely toward the future, by deciding to be contemporary, to act and think “today.”

This is what the USSR has done.  At least this is what we believe, we who observe your effort from afar.  We observe it with such an interest, with such a thirst to see achieved, somewhere on Earth, this universal aspiration for a state of harmony, from which is consequently born a mystique.  This mystique — the USSR.  Poets, artists, sociologists, young people, and above all, those who have remained young among those who have experienced life — all have admitted that somewhere — in the USSR — destiny has allowed the thing to be.  One day, the USSR will make a name for itself materially — through the effect of the five-year Plan.  Yet the USSR has already illuminated the entire world with a glimmer of dawn, of a rising aurora.  The hearts that are true have turned toward us.  That in itself is a victory, one that is far greater than the one that will follow in material terms.

“The architect expresses the spiritual quality of an era.”  Thus, in the splendor of its proportions, the Palace of the Soviets will reveal the finality of the goals pursued in your country since 1918.  We will see what this is all about.  The world shall see.  But even further, humanity will find under the auspices of architecture a precise, uncorruptible verb, devoid of cabalistic machination [cabale], of exaggeration, of camouflage: the Palace, center of the institutions of the USSR.

You have made known throughout the world that this palace is to be the expression of the anonymous mass that is witnessing current events today.  Decision: like the headquarters of the League of Nations, the Palace of the Soviets will be built in the Italian Renaissance style…

The Italian Renaissance — like the Romans and the Greeks — built with stone.  However grandiose the dreams, stone set the limits for its realization, in compliance with the laws of gravity.

During the Renaissance, there were literate princes who dominated the masses.  There was a chasm separating the wealth from the people.  A gulf separated the palace, the dwelling-place of princes, from the house of the people.

The USSR, a union of proletarian soviet republics, shall erect a palace that will be haughty and separate from the people.

Let us not be blinded by rhetoric: I know perfectly well that the people — as well as the muzhik — admire regal palaces, and that it is their taste to have the headboards of their beds engraved with temple façades.

Should the leadership of the Soviet Republics, vehiculate or flatter and cultivate tastes that attest to human frailty?

From the USSR, we expect the type of sweeping gesture that dominates, elevates, and conveys, for such a gesture is a reflection of the highest and purest discernment.  If not? Well then there is no longer such a thing as the USSR, or its doctrine, or its mystique, or anything else…the mere notion of such a thing is INCONCEIVABLE.

In other words — inconceivable, tormenting, dramatic, and indeed saddening [pathetique] that with the actual decision Moscow is now making, it may commence its work of disaggregating opinion, disenchantment, bitter irony.  And for the five-year Plan to be thus crowned: only by “the pettiness of men.”

Dear sir, my opinions do not reflect the bitterness of a defeated candidate.  No.  But I love architecture and the Truth too much to already have lost all hope.  I would like to go to Moscow to talk, to explain things, and to express all this.  I would like to go to say this: The immeasureable effort, the immense labor of so many persons — some known, some nameless — in the sciences these past hundred years has created all over the world the great collaboration.  There is no method of construction — using reinforced concrete, iron, glass, heating systems, ventilation systems, acoustics, or statics and dynamic elements; there’s no tool or any sort of machine that doesn’t reflect the existence of this great collaboration.

Architecture — and in this case the architect — must strive to discipline this army of collaborators, and by virtue of the creative power assemble all these elements.  By the power of its lofty aims, it can express the unique and magnificent face of all mankind’s creativity.  Is this face a mask? Never.  No, never.

How can I put it to you any more directly? I would like to go to Moscow.

On the 29th of this month, in Barcelona, there begins a meeting of the of international committee responsible for planning the upcoming International Congress of Modern Architects [CIAM] that will be held in Moscow in September.

My trip from Algiers can be put off (as I’ve come to learn) until May.

I am expected in Rome for two conferences presided over by Mussolini, and for a meeting with him.  Its aim: the Italians are asking me to save il Duce from the blunder into which he has driven himself by ordering the building of Italy in the Roman style.  (You see how much the evil is everywhere).

Is it still possible for you to set up my trip to Moscow? I’m even going to be indiscreet: didn’t you just tell me that you would be returning to Moscow soon? Consider this: if I could accompany you on this trip I would explain to you everything that is broiling inside me, as concerns towns and houses.

In Moscow, I could — outside the Palace — publicly speak of the Radiant City, and explain where progress and the grand view have led us and shown to your country, which is the only one possessing the institutions that permit the realization of modernist programs.  The technical detail of the questions concerning:

architectural reform

the 24-hour solar day and its program

the new techniques of exact respiration inside buildings (with the recent laboratory experiments at St.-Gobain) (the most pressing problem facing the USSR)

 the problems which agriculture poses for the domestic economy

the soundproofing of homes

acoustics

Here are the truths, realities, the long-range items that are informed by the spirit of the five-year Plan — much more than certain restrictive methods, Malthusian and lacking imagination, which have been so warmly embraced in the USSR.

And if anyone wants, I could speak of proportion, of beauty, those things that are the driving forces of my life, because happiness is not possible without a sense of quality.

In Buenos Aires in 1929, I presented at ten conferences (one after the other) in fifteen days.  I really want to do the same in Moscow.

Dear sir, I’ve lived a confined life these last twenty years.  Until now, I have not been able do without Paris, because Paris is the only place that holds this quality.  The austere life I’ve lived has borne its fruits.  Though I can admit ignorance to everything else, I have always known a great deal about architecture and urbanism.

I have some close friends in Moscow, colleagues for whom I have great hope.  I have enemies in Moscow, but I believe also many friends.

I will tell you this again: in Moscow I have always stood up for M. Zholtovskii, who is a true architect, sensitive and quite talented.  It is this unexpected stopover in an historical form of architecture that has caused us to part ways.  But I would much rather talk with him about architecture than with the majority of my Western colleagues who call themselves “modern architects.”

Let me finish: entirely disinterested and passionate about architecture, at an age in adult life when a man must give, I offer you my assistance with completely loyalty and no hope of gain.  There you have it.

It took a long time to say all this.  Please pardon me for taking so much of your time and attention.

Yours truly,

Le Corbusier

«Москва «историческая» и социалистическая (Николай Ладовский)»/“Moscow, ‘Historical’ and Socialist” (Nikolai Ladovskii)

Nikolai Ladovskii

Из Строительство Москвы — (1930) — № 1

From Building Moscow — (1930) — № 1

[Pg. 17]

Москва — столица СССР — стихийно растет и вопрос о необходимости уяснения сути этого роста и его организации для планировки Москвы является основным вопросом ее жизни. Понятие роста города не может быть сведено к простому механическому увеличению территории, ширины проездов, этажности и т. д. Рост надо понимать как органический, на разных этапах своего развития, представляющий различный не только количественно, но и качественно организм. Между тем, все имеющиеся до настоящего времени проекты «Большой Москвы» рассматривают вопрос исключительно с количественной стороны и потому страдают основным пороком — «механистичностью».

В журнальной статье нельзя дать полного анализа сути гор. Москвы, как столицы СССР, и представить подробный проект ее реорганизации, здесь имеется в виду лишь указать на те ошибки, которые, на мой взгляд, имеются во всех проектах «Большой Москвы» а сделать предложение, относящееся к основной планировочио-конструктивной схеме «Новой Москвы».

За 12 лет, после революции было сделано несколько проектов: а) проект коллектива архитекторов под руководством акад. Жолтовского, б) проект акад. Щусева, в) проект инж. Шестакова, г) проект Земельно-планировочного отдела МКХ. Все эти проекты исходили из основного положения, что радиально-кольцевая система планировки Москвы является, вообще, рациональной планировочной системой, обеспечивающей нормальный рост (наслоением колец) и правильную организацию движения и транспорта. Кроме того, во всех проектах подчеркивалась мысль о необходимости сохранения исторического облика Москвы, что, как-будто, обеспечивалось сохранением кольцевой системы.

Кольцевая система планировки имеет много сторонников в мировой литературе по градостроительству.  Поэтому на разборе ее необходимо подробнее остановиться.  Средневековый город-крепость, город-сад Говарда.  Сателлитных городов Унвинам предложение по перепланировке Парижа Корбюзье, — все эти планировочные [18] конструкции, несмотря на их кажущееся различие по форме и назначению, можно отнести к одному и тому же разряду статических форм, характеризующих отсталый метод мышления их творцов. Прививка этих систем к растущим и жизнедеятельным городам неминуемо должна вызвать болезненные явления при их росте.

Специфическим признаком их механистичности является то положение, что эти системы могут иметь смысл лишь на мгновенный отрезок времени, при условии их целостного осуществления, в следующее же мгновение роста их необходимо будет начать разрушать — короче, они не предусматривают роста из «клеточки» в систему из низшей системы в другую, высшую и т. д.  Если во времена средневековья при преобладании «статических» моментов над динамическими, т.-е. при относительно. Медленном жизненном темпе и недостаточном учете координаты времени, кольцевая система еще могла в планировка некоторое время держаться, — то с развитием капитализма, с ростом городов она всюду была сломлена.

Кольцевая система Говарда (рис. 1) при постройке его городов-садов никогда не применялась; жизненной оказалась лишь его социально-бытовая установка на определенную общественную прослойку в буржуазном обществе.

Сателлитная система городов Унвина (рис 2) как бы возвращает средневековой, кольцевой системе права на жизнь. Но это лишь так кажется при поверхностном взгляде. На деле эта система есть ни что иное, как перенесение методов колониальной политики в градостроительство. Сателлиты — это «колонии», образовавшиеся вследствие плохой организации города-«метрополин». Недаром эта система зародилась в Англии (стране колоний). В результате роста «колоний» они образуют замкнутое кольцо, ничем не отличающееся от конструкции средневекового кольцевого города, — следовательно, в процессе роста система движется назад к менее совершенным организационным формам.

Корбюзье (рис. 4) предлагает создать два города: город труда и город отдыха. Он дает лишь идею конструкции первого и эта идея ничем не отличается от идеи средневекового кольцевого города: три замкнутые, не могущие развиваться, статические пояса, стилизованные в прямоугольники.

Как уже указывалось, с ростом городов, при развитии капитализма, кольцевая система потерпела поражение, на смену ей пришла сетчатая планировка, как выражение текучести, — своеобразный, непрерывный территориальный «конвейер», более отвечающий потребностям капиталистического, более механического нарастания, а не организационного роста. Крайним выражением этой текучести являются идеи городов-линий. Являясь выражением максимальной динамичности, эти планировочные конструкции неминуемо окажутся слабыми организмами, так как низводят трехмерное пространство к «одномерному», ставя ударение на линейность. Вся же современная материальная культура и техника дает возможность решать градостроительные задачи в трехмерности, ставя ударение на «горизонтальную двухмерность».

Обратимся теперь к проектам «Большой Москвы». По всем этим проектам Москва представлена в виде центрального ядра, окруженного двумя кольцами, а с ростом пригородов, которые ни одним из проектов не увязаны в систему, естественно, в ближайшем будущем образуется и третье кольцо.

В центре предполагаются правительственные и общественные сооружения государственного и местного значения. Территории, колец по организационному содержанию представляют расплывчатый, не связанный с формою колец, конгломерат, рост которого вообще не предусмотрен и не связан с общей формой кольца. Такая несвязанность естественна, так как геометрическая природа кольцевой территории предопределяет ее пространственную статичность, физическая же природа ее строительства в лучшем случае допускает лишь уплотнение. А поэтому [Pg. 19] проектировщик чувствовал, что бесполезно связываться с формою колец. Секториальная же система роста, казалось бы, возможная в радиально-кольцевой планировке, но динамо-геометрической сути находится в противоречии с ней, должна ее исказить, а потому и невозможна. Все проекты «Большой Москвы» исходили в основе своей из положения прироста населения и, как следствие, прироста территории. Но этот рост ими принимается без анализа отдельных, составляющих и взаимодействующих сил, а лишь формально, как округление, в общем анархично растущих органов города, в геометрически оформленную территорию. Ведь снеговой ком, катящийся и увеличивающийся в своем объеме, мы не вправе считать органически растущим. Таким же приростом является по всем проектам «Большой Москвы» и увеличение ее площади. Органическим же ростом города нужно признать такой, который при росте целого, обеспечивает рост отдельных его, различно действующих, частей-органов, объединенных в пространственно-временную экономическую систему. Этого-то как раз момента не предусматривает ни один из проектов.

Если представить себе полное согласование по форме, т.-е., если кольца будут означать различные органы, различного назначения территории, — то рост одного из них будет происходить за счет гибели другого.  Если же отбросить различную функциональную значимость каждого кольца, а принять их функциовнувд однообразность, то в силу экономики динамо-геометрического принципа при всех прочих равных условиях разовьется центростремительная сила, которую можно себе представить, как давление колец друг на друга в направлении центра, в то время как центральный круг, стремясь расти, наталкивается таким образом на огромное и непреодолимое сопротивление колец (рис. 3). Это и имеет место в современной Москве.

Сумма расстояний точек, образующих плоскость (рис. 4), до определенной точки Д на той же плоскости тем больше, чем точки ближе к периферии. Этот принцип оказывает влияние на всякую планировочную конструкцию — сетчатую, концентрическую, радиальную и всякую другую, определяя организационные и экономические преимущества центральных и серединных — осевых — и т. д. районов.

Влияние вышеописанных факторов, которые имеют одновременное действие, можно условно выразить рис. 3.

Картина, данная рисунком 3, говорит о том, что при кольцевой планировке Москвы центр, стремясь к естественному развитию в горизонтальной проекции, встречает трудно преодолимое сопротивление колец, и разрешение самого основного момента жизни города — диалектического процесса его роста.

Экономика динамо-геометрического принципа планировкой плоско выражается, в следующем: не предусмотрено данной конструкцией плана, так как рост без сокрушэнин соседних (надо полагать тоже жизненных органов города) невозможен. И, действительно, эту картину мы уже наблюдаем в действительности в столице СССР в настоящее время.

При выборе участков под крупное строительство, в центре Москвы возникают огромные организационные и экономические затруднения и радикальный выход из положения возможен при кольцевой системе, лишь в сплошной сломке [sic — сломе] старого и возведении на его месте нового.

Таким образом, жизненное по существу проявление роста центра, в силу неправильной конструкции этого центра, вредно отзывается на городе в целом и, прежде всего, на его нормальном росте.

Но помимо интенсификации застройки, рост города влияет также и на движение по артериям-улицам. Улицы оказываются тесны и требуют также расширения. Решение этого вопроса по всем имеющимся проектам планировки «Большой Москвы» особенно наглядно доказывает неправильность кольцевой системы и тех остро-болезненных явлений в жизни города, которые она порождает.

Идея реорганизации Старой Москвы и перерождение ее в новую «Большую Москву» по всем проектам кольцевой системы осуществляется в настоящее время методом так называемых «красных линий», своеобразного врастания Новой Москвы в старую. Как этот метод тяжело отражается на жизни города и его строительстве, хорошо известно всем, кто с этим строительством сталкивается. Задача, которую система «красных линий» в ее теперешнем виде пытается разрешить, оказывается неразрешимой, так как, ставя вопрос в плоскости пространственной, эта система не ставит его в плоскости временной. Без календарных сроков реорганизуемые улицы города будут представлять вообще и всегда изъеденную ломаную линию, имеющую расширения лишь на небольших и случайных протяжениях и, следовательно, пропускная способность улицы будет оставаться всегда на старом уровне. Если же в некоторых небольших протяжениях положение улучшится, то в общем положение все же останется тяжелым.

Вторым тяжелым последствием системы «красных линий» в нынешней их трактовке и методах осуществления является понижение ценности большинства участков, или вследствие того, что от них отрезаются части, уходящие под мифически уширенные улицы, или из-за того, что эти мифические улицы их перерезают и делают невозможными для застройки.

В общем же эта система приводит старую путаную Москву к полной дезорганизации. И если болезнь центра города при кольцевой планировке можно сравнить с болезнью сердца, то принятая система «красных линий» является ничем иным, как «склерозом» в системе кровообращения города.

Могут возразить, что это — болезни роста, что то же происходит и на Западе и т. п. Однако, с этим согласиться нельзя. Скорей все это происходит потому, что наши проектировщики мыслят еще статическими категориями, не рассматривая город, как растущий организм. Короче, — они не мыслят диалектически.

Можно было бы привести значительно больше доводов в доказательство тех болезненных явлений, которые вытекают из неправильной планировочно-конструктивной схемы города и необходимости пересмотра ее в первую очередь. Но и тех соображений, которые уже высказаны выше, думаю, вполне достаточно.

Каков же выход из положения, что можно предложить?

Мы предлагаем, прежде всего:

1. Разорвать кольцевую систему в одном из участков и дать тем возможность центру свободно расти (рис. 5). Центр в виде планировочной точки, хотя бы и диаметра кольца «А», как теоретически, так и практически вообще недопустим. Центр города должен иметь возможность расти не только по третьему измерению, вверх, но и в горизонтальной проекции поступательно вперед. Следовательно, центром города должна быть не статическая точна, а динамическая линия — ось. Разорвав кольца и отогнув их в виде подковы, мы дадим возможность центру, а также и соответствующим ему ветвям бывших колец расти. Центр города приобретет форму веера. Эта форма наиболее соответствует функции центра, так как по мере роста города и нарастания его динамики и усложнения организация центр не остается зажатым, а свободно разворачивается за счет площади веера. Весь город и центр представляют по этой конструкции как бы поток, постепенно расширяющийся.

2. Сосредоточить все новое строительство в одном секторе, который должен стать начальным сектором нового, социалистического строительства столицы СССР.

Такая строительная политика города будет, прежде всего, наиболее экономической политикой, потому что сосредоточит капитальные затраты на благоустройство, главным образом, в одном секторе, вместо того, чтобы разбрасывать их равномерно во многих направлениях. Она создает также целостное впечатление строительства нового города. Начавшись у старого центра Москвы и проходя наслоения его, новый город будет, таким образом, как бы лишь частично наложен на старый город.

3. Для выявления равнодействующей роста города, необходимо создать новый центр тяготения на оси Тверская-Ленинградское шоссе, забежав со строительством немного вперед. По обеим сторонам этой предполагаемой оси нового города, на освободных территориях Ходынки и Останкино может начаться рационализированное социалистическое строительство. Выбор этого сектора для нового строительства предопределяется главным образом тем, что его незастроенные свободные пространства наиболее близко расположены к центру теперешнего города, а на пути развития в целом он меньше, чем другие окраины, встречает природные или искусственные препятствия.

4. Рассматривать весь остальной город лишь как материальную среду, благоприятствующую росту его новой части и со временем образующую «город-музей». Такой принцип роста нового за счет материала и организации старого весьма распространен в природе.

5. Реорганизовать транспорт, перенеся центральный вокзал на место Белорусско-Балтийского, а остальные районные вокзалы расположив по кольцу Окружной жел. дор. Отнесение вокзалов на Окружную ж.д. разгрузит Мясницкую магистраль и создаст более равномерные условия жизни во всех районах города. Борьба ж.-д. узла с городом за территорию для товарных станций представляет обычное явление в крупных городах Запада и особенно Америки. В интересах удешевления жизни города, желательно ввозить потребляемые городом товары как можно глубже внутрь. В организации же городского транспорта товарные станции внутри города представляют трудно преодолимое препятствие. В Москве в предлагаемом участке это противоречие может быть легко разрешено, так как естественный рельеф в вышеуказанном месте дает возможность легко расчленить различные по функции движения в двух или нескольких уровнях.

Связь всех железных дорог может быть осуществлена через Окружною ж. д. Точно также легко разрешается вопросе вводе железной дороги вдоль оси новой Москвы, в виде ли открытой траншеи, или туннеля, с устройством станций в любой точке нового города.

6. Систему «красных линий» сохранить лишь для нового, социалистического сектора, но проводить ее решительнее и в порядке календарного полна.

7. Перепланировну остальной части города не производить.

Вопрос о составлении плана новой, социалистической Москвы должен быть поставлен во всей своей полноте в порядок дня.


Students in Ladovskii's architectural form class with models (VKhUTEMAS 1923)

[Pg. 17]

Moscow, the capital of the USSR, grows spontaneously, and the question of the need to clarify the essence of this growth and its organization for the planning of Moscow is a major issue in its life. The concept of the growth of the city cannot be reduced to the simple mechanical increase of its territory, the width of its thoroughfares, its height in stories, etc.  The growth must be understood as organic, at various stages of development, representing difference not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. Meanwhile, everything available in the project for “Greater Moscow” to date only accounts for the issue on the quantitative side, and therefore suffer the major flaw of being “mechanistic.”

In a single journal article one cannot give a complete analysis of the essence of the city of Moscow, as the capital of the USSR, and submit a detailed draft for its reorganization.  Here is meant only to point out the mistakes that, in my opinion, exist in all the projects for “Greater Moscow,” and to make suggestions regarding the main planning-constructive scheme of “New Moscow.”

In the twelve years since the revolutions several projects have been done: a) the project by the architects’ collective led by the academic Zholtovskii, b) the project of the academic Shchusev, c) the project by the engineer Shestakov, and d) the Land-Planning project of the MKKh.  All these projects have proceeded from the basic proposition that the radial-ring planning system for Moscow is generally a rational planning system to ensure normal growth (the layering of the rings) and the correct organization of traffic and transport.  Additionally, all the projects so far have stressed the idea that we need to preserve the historic image of Moscow, which as it were would ensure the preservation of that ring system.

Figure 1: Howard's Garden-City

The ring system of planning has many supporters in the world literature on urban planning.  Therefore, in an analysis it must be parsed in detail.  The medieval walled city, the garden-city of Howard, the satellite cities of Unwin, and Le Corbusier’s redevelopment proposal for Paris — all these planning [18] designs [konstruktsii], despite their apparent differences in form and purpose, can be treated as belonging to the same category of static forms that characterizes the backward method of their creators’ thinking. The inoculation of these systems to the expansion and the buzzing life [zhisnedeiatel’nym] of the city inevitably causes painful developments during their growth.

Figure 2: Unwin's Satellite Scheme

A specific feature of the mechanistic position is that these systems can be meaningful only for a momentary span of time, providing for their integral implementation, for following that same moment their growth will necessarily begin to break down — in short, they do not provide for the growth of the “cell” into the system, from a lower into another, higher system, etc.  If this were medieval times, with the prevalence of “static” moments over the dynamic, i.e. with respect to the slow pace of life and the inadequate tracking of the coordinates of time, the ring system may still be able to hold on for a while — but with the development of capitalism and the growth of cities, everywhere it broke down.

Howard’s ring-system (figure 1) for the construction of his garden-cities has never been applied; living in his socio-domestic [sotsial’no-bytovaia] installations only turned out to be for a definite social stratum in bourgeois society.

Figure 3

Unwin’s satellite system of cities (figure 2) gives back to the old medieval ring system its lease on life, as it were.  But this is only so because this is how it appears at a superficial glance.  In fact, this system is nothing other than the transfer of the methods of colonial policy to urban planning. The satellites are this “colony,” formed as a result of the poor management of the city, the “metropole.”  Not for nothing did this system originate in England (the country of the colonies).  As a result the growth of the “colonies,” they form a closed ring that is no different from the construction of a ring of the medieval town — and, consequently, in the process of growth the system regresses to an even less perfect organizational form.

Le Corbusier (figure 4) proposes to create two cities: a city of labor and a city of rest.  He only gives an idea for construction for the first, and this idea is no different from the idea of ​​the medieval ring of a city: three sections are secluded and incapable of develop development, static zones stylized into rectangles.

Figure 4: Le Corbusier's Radiant City

As was already mentioned, with the growth of the cities and the development of capitalism, the ring system has failed, and in its place has come reticulated planning, as an expression of fluidity.  The original, continuous territorial “conveyer” more than meets the needs of the capitalist, a more mechanical accumulation, rather than organizational growth.  An extreme expression of this fluidity is the idea of linear cities [gorodov-linii]. As an expression of maximum dynamism, these construction plans will inevitably prove to be weak organisms, as if to relegate three-dimensional space to the “one-dimensional,” placing an emphasis on linearity [Ladovskii is here referring to the proposals of Ginzburg, Okhitovich, and the disurbanists — RW].  Nevertheless, modern material culture and technology make it possible to solve urban-planning problems in three dimensions, placing the emphasis on “horizontal two-dimensionality.”

We now turn to the draft of “Greater Moscow.”  For in all of these projects Moscow is presented  in terms of a central core surrounded by two rings, and with the growth of suburbs, which in none of the projects are linked to the system.  Naturally, a third ring is formed in the immediate future.

In the center there are assumed to be governmental and public structures for both the state and local levels.  The territory of the ring appears blurry in its organizational content, unrelated to the form of rings, a conglomerate, the growth of which is generally not provided for and is not associated with the overall shape of the ring. This incoherence is natural, since the annular territory’s geometric properties determine its spatially static nature, the physical character of its construction at best only allows for its condensation. And therefore [Pg. 19] the designer felt that it was useless to connect to the form of the rings.  Sectoral growth within the same system one would think, would be possible in the radial-circular layout.  But its dynamo-geometric essence necessarily puts it into contradiction, such that it must be disfigured, and therefore makes it impossible.  All the projects for “Greater Moscow” basically proceeded from the position of population growth and, consequently, territorial growth. But this growth they accepted without an analysis of its separate components and interacting forces — only formally, as in general the rounded, anarchically sprouting organs of the city, in a geometrically structured territory.  Indeed, this “snowball,” rolling and growing in scale, cannot be assumed to grow organically.  The same increase is there in all projects for “Greater Moscow,” and increase its area.  The organic growth of the city must recognize that the growth of the whole, which ensures the growth of its various separate functions and parts of organs, is incorporated into the spatio-temporal economic system.  None of the projects provide so much as one moment for this consideration.

If we imagine a total coordination of form, that is, if the ring will mean different organs for different territorial purposes — the growth of one of them will occur due to the death of another. If, however, we reject the different functional significance of each ring, but accept their functional monotony, then by the economic dynamo-geometric principle (all other things being equal) will develop a centripetal force so that one can imagine the rings pressuring each other in the direction of the center, while the central circle, in trying to grow, thus encounters the enormous and insurmountable resistance of the outer rings (Fig. 3).  This is what takes place in modern Moscow.

Figure 5: Ladovskii's dynamo-"parabolic" vision of "New Moscow"

The sum of the distances of the points form a plane (Fig. 4) up to a certain point D on the same plane, as the point closer to the periphery.  This principle has an impact on every plan’s design — reticulated, concentric, radial, and all others, determine the organizational and economic advantages of the central, the middle, the axial regions, and so on. The influence of the above factors, which together have a simultaneous effect, can be provisionally conveyed by Fig. 3.

The picture, given in figure 3, indicates that the ring layout of the Moscow center, tending toward the natural development in a horizontal projection, meets the insurmountable resistance of the rings, and permits for the most basic point of city life — the dialectical process of its growth.

The economy of the dynamo-geometric principle of planar design is expressed as follows: it has not provided a set design plan, since growth without the crushing of the neighboring (and presumably also vital) organs of the city is impossible.  And indeed, this is the picture we see in reality at present in the capital of the Soviet Union.

In selecting sites for major construction in the center of Moscow there are enormous economic and organizational difficulties, and radical way out of the ring system is possible only with the continuous smashing of the old and erecting in its place the new.

Thus, the spirit is essentially a manifestation of the growth of the center, and because of the improper design of this center, it responds adversely to the city as a whole and, above all, to its normal growth.

But in addition to the intensification of building, the growth of the city and also influences the traffic of the street-arteries [arteriiam-ulitsam].  The streets prove to be too narrow and so also require expansion.  The resolution of this issue through all available planning projects for “Greater Moscow” very clearly demonstrates the incorrectness of the ring system as well as those acutely unhealthy conditions in the life of the city that it generates.

Figure 6

The idea of ​​reorganizing the Old Moscow and its degeneration into a new “Greater Moscow” in all projects of the ring system is presently being implemented by the method of the so-called “red lines,” a peculiar ingrowth of the new Moscow into the old one.  Just how this method is deeply reflected in the life of the city and its construction, is well known to all who are confronted with this construction.  The task that the system of “red lines” in its present form is trying to solve, proves to be unsolvable, since, raising the question only on the spatial plane, this system does not pose the question on the temporal plane.  Without calendar dates, the reorganized city streets will generally always be represented by a corroded, broken line, having expansion only on a small scale with aleatoric extension and, therefore, the street’s capacity will always remain at the old level.  If to some small extent the situation generally improves, the situation will still remain severe.

A second serious consequence of the system of “red lines” in their present interpretation and methods of implementation is the falling value of the majority of the construction sites, or due to the fact that they are cut off from parts that go under the mythically broadened streets, or as the result of these mythical streets sever them and make it impossible for construction.

In general, this system reduces muddled old Moscow to complete disorganization.  And if the illness of the city’s center in the ring layout can be compared to heart disease, then adopting a system of “red lines” would turn out to be nothing other than a “sclerosis” in the circulatory system of the city.

One could argue that these are just growing pains, the same that take place in the West, etc. However, with this we cannot agree.  Soon all this is happening because our designers [proektirovshchiki] still think in static categories, without considering the city as a growing organism.  In short, they do not think dialectically.

We could give significantly more reasons as proof of these painful developments that result from an improper constructive-planning scheme for the city, and for the necessity to revise it beforehand.  But these considerations have already been expressed above, so I think that that is enough.

But just which way out of this situation is there, that one could propose?

We propose, first of all:

1. Breaking the ring system into one of the sites and providing the opportunity to freely grow from the center (Fig. 5).  Seeing the center in terms of a planning point, even though it is also the diameter of the ring “A,” is both theoretically and practically entirely valid.  The downtown [tsentr goroda] should have the opportunity to grow not only in the third dimension — upward — but also in a horizontal projection growing progressively forward.  Consequently, the center of the city should not be a static point, but rather a dynamic line — the axis.  By breaking the rings and bending them into the form of a horseshoe, we will enable the center, as well as its corresponding branches in the former rings, to grow.  The downtown will acquire the shape of a fan.  This form best conforms to the function of the center, since in the measure of the city’s growth and the crescendo of its dynamics and organizational sophistication the center does not remain boxed-in, but rather freely unfolds by means of the squares of the fan. The entire city and center provide for this construction as a stream, gradually expanding.

2. Concentrate all new building into one sector, which should become the starting sector for the new socialist construction of the capital of the Soviet Union.

Such a building policy for the city will be, above all, the most economical policy, because the focus of capital expenditures for municipal improvements will be mainly in one sector, instead of scattering them evenly in many directions.  It also produces an holistic impression of the new city.  Starting from the old center of Moscow, and passing over its layers, the new city will be as if it were partially superimposed over the old city.

3. To reveal the resultant growth of the city, one must create a new center of gravity on the axis of Tver-Leningrad highway, anticipating the construction a little further.  On both sides of this proposed axis for the new city, in the freed territories of Khodynka and Ostankino, one can begin the rationalized construction of socialism.  The choice of this sector for new construction is predicated primarily on its undeveloped open spaces, which are situated closest to the center of the present city and the path of development in general, it is smaller than the other outskirts, and meets natural or artificial obstacles.

4. Consider the rest of the city only as a material medium favoring the growth of its new section, and in time forming a “museum city.”  Such a principle of growth through new material and old organization is very common in nature.

5. Reorganize transport, moving the central train station to the place of the Belarus-Baltic and other regional stations located on the ring of the District railway.  The assignment of the District railway stations will be to relieve the Myasnitskaya thoroughfare and create more uniform conditions of life in all the city districts.  The struggle of the railroads for the center of the city over territory for commercial stations is common in large cities of the West, and especially in America.  In order to reduce the cost of city life, it is desirable to import the goods consumed by the city inside as deeply as possible.  In the organization of this urban transport, the freight terminals within the city represent an obstacle that is difficult to overcome.  In Moscow, on the proposed site, this contradiction can be easily permitted, because the natural topography above the site allows one to easily divide different functions of its motion into two or more levels.

The communication of all the railroads can be accomplished through the District railway.  Similarly, the issue is easily resolved by the addition of a railroad along the new Moscow — whether in the form of an open trench or a tunnel — onto the established stations anywhere else in the new city.

6.  Keep the system of “red lines” only for the new, socialist sector, but develop it decisively in accordance with the calendrical totality.

7. Redevelop the rest of the city that does not produce.

The establishment of a plan for the new socialist Moscow should be placed in its entirety as the order of the day.

Free PDFs of the German Avant-Garde Architectural Journal Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst und Städtebau (1926-1931)

Wasmuths Monatshefte für Baukunst und Städtebau's Coverage of Ivan Leonidov's Proposal for the Lenin Institute

 The modernist movement was alive and well in interwar Germany.  Not only at the Bauhaus, which stood at the forefront of the avant-garde, under the leadership of Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, and Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, but all over the country.  László Moholy-Nagy and Gropius published their famous Bauhausbücher series, El Lissitzky established his journal ABC: Beitrage zum Bauen, and Theo van Doesburg transplanted his Dutch De Stijl magazine to Germany. Continue reading

Mikhail Okhitovich, Moisei Ginzburg, and Disurbanism

Public-House for 100 People (1930)

According to legend, the Soviet sociologist Mikhail Okhitovich wandered into the VKhUTEIN (ВХУТЕИН) studios one day in the summer of 1929.  He left after a short while, having only been noticed by a few students and instructors.  Okhitovich returned the next morning, this time storming directly into the office of the esteemed Constructivist architect and theorist, Moisei Ginzburg.  Okhitovich then promptly locked the door, sequestering the surprised Ginzburg and himself inside the office.  Ginzburg, whose work had hitherto mainly been focused on the problem of the collective dwelling and its place in the modern city, was known to have been an enthusiastic supporter of Le Corbusier’s Urbanisme.  In fact, he had personally translated extracts from Corbusier’s book on city-planning for the inaugural issue of Sovremennaia arkhitektura (Современная архитектура) in 1925.  After an hour and-a-half of heated discussion, however, Ginzburg emerged from his office with Okhitovich a convinced Disurbanist.  The suddenness of his conversion was stunning.  He would later suffer a great deal of criticism for his perceived fickleness in this matter.  But Ginzburg would remain committed to the Disurbanist vision despite pressure from his friends and colleagues (Sabsovich and the Vesnin brothers) to revert to his earlier position.  Ginzburg only relinquished his allegiance to this philosophy of decentralization after Stalin’s government stepped in and put a stop to all this “utopian” speculation, as they called it.

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Digitizing Microfiche: Строительство Москвы и другие Советские журналы об архитектуре (Building Moscow and other Soviet Journals about Architecture)

Aleksandr Sil'chenkov's Proposal for the "House of Industry" Project, 1929

Another long overdue update.  My two-month absence can be explained by a series of personal matters to which I’ve had to attend, as well as by an exceedingly laborious part of my research in which I’ve been involved.  This post will share some of the fruits of that labor, however, providing a sneak-peak into some of the subjects I’ve been working on.  I flatter myself to think that I am also hereby contributing to the further democratization of knowledge, freeing long-forgotten documents from their obscurity in old libraries and distant archives.  But the truth is that I have been the beneficiary of so much of the work undertaken by people with similar motives, scanning valuable documents and thereby disseminating their information, that I feel this is the least I could do.

Cutting to the matter at hand, the files attached to this post are just some of the old avant-garde journals which I’ve been carefully converting to a readable PDF format, in full-text versions that include illustrations as well as raw text.  The difference between these files and the ones I digitized from Современная архитектура late last year is that I actually never encountered the physical documents that I was working with.  These rare documents were only accessible to me in microfiche and microfilm format, preserved as part of Columbia University’s and the New York Public Library’s effort to catalogue early Soviet periodicals.  Some of these microform documents were in good condition, with minimal dust and other imperfections.  Others, unfortunately, were not.

To briefly describe the process by which I digitized these journals (for those who might be interested or are perhaps considering similar work), I shall here sketch out the major steps it involved.  First, I had to create a makeshift light-table separate from the actual microform scanners at the library, which tend to produce extremely shoddy and unreadable facsimiles.  I then proceeded to photograph each individual frame of microfilm or microfiche with a digital camera.  I personally do not own a camera with a very high-resolution optical lens (this requires something like a 40-100x zoom), so I instead removed one of the detachable high-zoom lenses from one of the scanners and then shot my own pictures at my camera’s maximum zoom through this second lens.  Anyone who has better equipment than I did can easily bypass this step.

It took a while to get used to taking good shots of each individual frame, but once I had gathered all of them I loaded them onto my computer and began running them through image-processing software.  The number of programs I ended up using, which probably could be simplified by anyone who knows how to work with images better than I, included Aperture, Photoshop, and the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP).  If anyone is interested in the actual adjustments I made to each file to render them more readable, they can inquire in the comments section.  I shall spare my readers these boring details.  Anyway, clarifying the text portions of these journals I found often distorted the images that appeared alongside them, and so I decided to process each page with images twice, once for the images and once for the text.  I then mapped on some cleaned-up versions of the pictures onto the cleaned-up texts and ran the resulting images through the ABBYY FineReader text-recognition program.

The final product of this whole confounded process can be found below.  Enjoy! More will be coming soon.  I’ve catalogued the entire run of Строительство Москвы from 1926-1932, Советская архитектура from 1931-1934, and a number of assorted articles relating to architecture from the journals Советское искусство, Плановое хозяйство, and Революция и культура.  They shall be forthcoming.  Here are some of the ones I’ve finished so far:

Строительство Москвы – (1928) – № 9

Строительство Москвы – (1931) – № 8

Строительство Москвы – (1930) – № 1

Строительство Москвы – (1929) – № 1

Строительство Москвы – (1928) – № 4

Строительство Москвы – (1928) – № 2

Строительство Москвы – (1928) – № 3

Николай Докучаев – «Архитектура и планировка городов» – Советское искусство – (1926) – № 6

Lev Rudnev’s “City of the Future” (1925), before his turn to Stalinist neo-Classicism

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.

Anyway, anyone interested in taking a look at this archive (arranged as a continuous text) can access it here.

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.

Adolf Behne’s The Modern Functional Building (1926)

 

 

The Original Cover to Behne’s Book, Featuring El Lissitzky’s “Cloudprop”

 

Foreword

Man’s primordial reason for building is to protect himself against the cold, against animals, against enemies.  He is driven by necessity: he would not build were it not for definite, compelling, urgent purposes.  His early buildings are purely functional in character; they are in their nature essentially tools.

But when we study the earliest stages of human culture, we find that the instinctive joys of play cannot be separated from practical matters.  Primitive man is not strictly utilitarian.  He demonstrates his instinct for play even in his tools, which he makes smooth and beautiful beyond the demands of strict necessity, painting them or decorating them with ornaments.

The tool called “house” is no exception to this.

From the very beginning the house has been as much a toy as a tool.  It is difficult to say how long a balance was maintained between the two poles.

In the course of history we only rarely find such a balance.

The play instinct led to interest in form.  Without that instinct it would be impossible to understand why the tool called “house” must look good and be a certain shape.  Thus our play instinct established certain laws of form, although they are subject to change from time to time.

The laws of form did change periodically.  But if laws of form were unquestionably the secondary element in the origin of all building, they became the stronger, stricter, more rigid principle in the history of human building — stronger, stricter, and more rigid than mere fulfillment of utilitarian function.  Formal considerations outweighed considerations of purpose.

Thus a return to purpose is always revolutionary in its effect.  Forms that have become tyrannical are discarded in order to create — from the recollection of the original function, from as neutral a condition as possible — a rejuvenated, living, breathing form.

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Walter Curt Behrendt’s The Victory of the New Building Style (1928)

Introduction

Influenced by the powerful spiritual forces in which the creative work of our time is embodied, the mighty drama of a sweeping transformation is taking place before our eyes.  It is the birth of the form of our time.  In the course of this dramatic play — amid the conflict and convulsion of old, now meaningless traditions breaking down and new conventions of thinking and feeling arising — new, previously unknown forms are emerging.  Given their congruous features, they can be discussed as the elements of a new style of building.

Though the public regards these new building forms with immediate and visible excitement, their unfamiliar appearance often leads to a feeling of unease and incomprehension.  For the public, and at best for those members of the profession who have not been hardened by the dead certitude of a doctrine, only one path leads to a vital understanding of the new architecture.  These new forms must be shown to be inevitable, so that they will be seen as a natural consequence and logical result of a changed formulation of the problem.

This is the approach taken in the following remarks.  Their aim is to make a broader circle of people familiar with the crucial building problems of the time; to show that these problems concern not purely aesthetic issues or the vain conceits of a company of misfits but rather quite universal and concrete questions.  These questions, moreover, are of interest not just to architects to us all, and they can therefore be discussed in a very specific way.

The New Architectural Form

Let us begin by describing very superficially the exterior attributes of the buildings of the new style, which, owing to a number of unmistakable features, stand out against their surroundings so emphatically.  As the accompanying illustrations show, they are usually works with a simple, austere form and a clear organization, with smooth, planar walls, and always with a flat roof and straight profiles.  The building body is generally articulated by a more or less lively gradation of masses and by the distribution of windows and openings in the wall surfaces.  It is also apparent that the openings the windows, and occasionally, also the balconies (quite contrary to tradition) are placed at the corners of the buildings, where formerly we were accustomed to seeing the load-bearing parts of the building or the solid masonry of corner piers.  Further, we notice that these buildings altogether lack the familiar and [90-97] customary means of decoration.  The advocates of the new building attitude seem to have a particularly keen dislike for the column, that popular showpiece of academic architecture, and they are notably cool toward any kind of ornament or decorative detail.  Ornament — the decorative accessory, the detail in the old sense — has completely disappeared.  They prefer smooth walls and consciously exploit the wall’s planar attributes as an architectural design tool.  They compose simple building bodies, which are themselves plastically articulated, and create a powerfully punctuated rhythm of movement by linear accents or occasionally by overhanging slabs and deeply shaded projections, which emphasize and strengthen the impression of the corporal, the spatial, and the three-dimensional.

The most curious and striking feature of the new architecture is the absence of any kind of exterior ornament, which is then usually the first criticism leveled against it.  This is completely understandable.  In many areas of our life today we stand under the crippling weight of traditional views that cloud our judgment.  Our artistic judgment is also greatly confused by the widespread superstition that art is synonymous with decoration.  This deeply rooted belief makes it inevitable that not only the lay world but also the professionals look upon the unadorned and therefore unfamiliar works of the new architecture as cold and dry, raw and unfinished, purely and simply as inartistic.  They miss in these buildings the familiar charm of decorations.  They are put off by linear, hard, and angular forms.  And we must conceded that such limited judgment is to some extent justified, that the buildings of the new style do lack the effect of the pleasing, the artistic, the emotional that was evoked by the sensuous charm of detail in historical works.

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