El Lissitzky, design for a yacht club on Lenin Hills (August 1925)

From a letter to his wife Sophie (1925)

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I’m working on a project for the yacht club [iakhtkluba] on Lenin Hills, and have nearly finished with the basic layout. All of this has been resolved spatially, and I think from this something will result. […]

(8.1.1925)

[…] I’m not racking my brain over the technical aspects or the general problem, but over the art! […] When you look at the sketches now, you see that the most complicated thing is to make them simpler […]. I don’t think could explain it any more basically. The whole complex is located on a steep bank. Three large red horizontals — these are the terraces, corresponding to a lightning zigzag on the diagonal — with a serpentine passage connecting the upper and lower terraces. On the right at the bottom is a large hall. The roof doubles as a platform [tribuna] for viewers during the water regattas.

The basis for this work is the “PROUN” sketch, which I’ll draw for you later.

(8.13.1925) Continue reading