Moisei Ginzburg, Gosstrakh apartment complex in Moscow (1926)

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Photos and floor plans of Ginzburg’s famous housing mass (zhil’massiv) in Moscow.

 

Maiakovskii in New York

Brooklyn Bridge

Give Coolidge
a shout of joy!
I too will spare no words
………………………………………..about good things.
Blush
……….at my praise,
………………………………go red as our flag,
however
……………united-states
………………………………….-of
-america you may be.
As a crazed believer
………………………………..enters
…………………………………………….a church,
retreats
……………into a monastery cell,
…………………………………………………austere and plain;
so I,
………in graying evening
………………………………………haze,
humbly set foot
………………………..on Brooklyn Bridge.
As a conqueror presses
………………………………………into a city
……………………………………………………….all shattered,
on cannon with muzzles
……………………………………….craning high as a giraffe —
so, drunk with glory,
………………………………..eager to live,
I clamber,
……………….in pride,
………………………………upon Brooklyn Bridge.
As a foolish painter
……………………………….plunges his eye,
sharp and loving,
…………………………..into a museum madonna,
so I
……..from the near skies
……………………………………….bestrewn with stars,
gaze
………at New York
…………………………..through the Brooklyn Bridge.
New York,
……………….heavy and stifling
……………………………………………..till night,
has forgotten
…………………….its hardships
…………………………………………..and height;
and only
…………….the household ghosts
ascend
………….in the lucid glow of its windows.
Here
……….the elevateds
………………………………drone softly.
And only
……………..their gentle
…………………………………droning
tell us:
………….here trains
…………………………….are crawling and rattling
like dishes
…………………being cleared into a cupboard.
While
…………a shopkeeper fetched sugar
from a mill
………………….that seemed to project
………………………………………………………..out of the water —
the masts
……………….passing under the bridge
looked
…………..no larger than pins.
I am proud
………………….of just this
……………………………………mile of steel;
upon it,
……………my visions come to life, erect —
here’s a fight
…………………….for construction
………………………………………………instead of style,
an austere disposition
…………………………………..of bolts
………………………………………………..and steel.
If
….the end of the world
…………………………………….befall —
and chaos
……………….smash our planet
…………………………………………….to bits,
and what remains
…………………………….will be
…………………………………………this
bridge, rearing above the dust of destruction;
then,
……….as huge ancient lizards
……………………………………………..are rebuilt
from bones
………………….finer than needles,
………………………………………………….to tower in museums,
so,
……from this bridge,
………………………………..a geologist of the centuries
will succeed
………………….in recreating
……………………………………….our contemporary world.
He will say:
………………….— Yonder paw
……………………………………………of steel
once joined
………………….the seas and the prairies;
from this spot,
………………………Europe
…………………………………..rushed to the West,
scattering
……………….to the wind
……………………………………Indian feathers.
This rib
……………reminds us
………………………………..of a machine —
just imagine,
…………………….would there be hands enough,
after planting
……………………..a steel foot
………………………………………….in Manhattan,
to yank
…………..Brooklyn to oneself
…………………………………………….by the lip?
By the cables
…………………….of electric strands,
I recognize
…………………the era succeeding
…………………………………………………the steam age —
here
………men
………………had ranted
…………………………………on the radio.
Here
……….men
……………….had ascended
……………………………………….in planes.
For some,
………………life
…………………….here
……………………………..had no worries;
for others,
………………..it was a prolonged
………………………………………………and hungry howl.
From this spot,
………………………jobless men
leapt
………..headlong
………………………..into the Hudson.
Now
………my canvas
…………………………is unobstructed
as it stretches on cables of string
……………………………………………………..to the feet of the stars.
I see:
……….here
………………..stood Maiakovskii,
stood,
…………composing verse, syllable by syllable.
I stare
………….as an Eskimo gapes at a train,
I seize on it
………………….as a tick fastens to an ear.
Brooklyn Bridge —
yes…
………..That’s quite a thing!

[1925]

The Brooklyn Bridge: A photo gallery

New York

For hours the train tears along the bank of the Hudson, at about two paces from the water. On the other side there are more roads, right at the foot of the Bear Mountains. Loads of boats and small craft are pushing along. More and more bridges seem to leap across the train. The carriage windows are increasingly being filled with the upright walls of maritime docks, coal depots, electrical placements, steel foundries, and pharmaceutical works. An hour before the terminus, you pass through a continuous density of chimneys, roofs, two-storey walls, and the steel girders of an elevated railway. With every step of the way, the roofs grow an extra floor. Eventually, tenements loom up, with their shaftlike walls and windows in squares, tinier squares and dots. This makes everything even more cramped, as though you were rubbing your cheek against this stone. Completely lost, you sink back onto your seat — there’s no hope, your eyes are just not used to this sort of thing; then you come to a stop — it’s Pennsylvania Station.

Americans keep quiet (or, perhaps, people only seem like that against the roar of the machinery), but over American heads megaphones and loudspeakers drone on about arrivals and departures.

Electric power is further utilized twofold and threefold by the white plates covering the windowless galleries and walkways, broken by information points, whole rows of commercial cash tills, and all kinds of shops that never close — from ice cream parlors and snack bars to crockery and furniture stores.

Vladimir Maiakovskii in New York (1925)

Vladimir Maiakovskii in New York (1925)

It is hardly conceivable that anyone could clearly imagine this whole labyrinth in its entirety. If you have come in for business at an office say two miles away downtown, in the banking or business sector of New York, on maybe the fifty-third floor of the Woolworth Building, and you have owlish proclivities — there’s no need for you even to emerge from underground. Right here, under the ground, you get into a station lift and it will whizz you up to the vestibule of the Pennsylvania Hotel, a hotel of two thousand guest-rooms of all conceivable types. Everything a visiting businessman can need: post offices, banks, telegraph offices, all sorts of goods — you’ll find everything here, without even going outside the hotel. Continue reading

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

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

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

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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

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

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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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.

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

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

We must construct the Soviet dirigible fleet without delay

The struggle for lighter-
than-air dominance 

Untitled.
Image: “Let’s build a dirigible
fleet in the name of Lenin!”
Soviet agitprop poster (1928)

untitled2.

From an advertisement to appear on the text of a candy-wrapper:

The dirigible

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The bourgeoisie come together
In order to separate us
But the Soviet dirigible
Flies along the border

Vladimir Maiakovskii
Moscow, 1923-1925

zeppelin zeppelin

Continue reading

Early Soviet antireligious propaganda

Goodbye, Cardinal Ratzinger, we hardly knew ye.

To celebrate the papal vacancy, here are a ton of images from Soviet antireligious propaganda. And some thoughts about the question of religion’s compatibility or incompatibility with Marxism, etc.

Cover to Bezbozhnik, Godless (1923)

Cover to Bezbozhnik, Godless (1923)

Some reflections on the recent exchanges regarding Marxism, atheism, and 18th-century materialism. Not that the positions outlined here should necessarily be adopted today. Perhaps we’re no longer in any sort of position to be as radical as Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky were. Nevertheless, while they were perhaps written in response to the prevailing idiocy of the New Atheist neoconservatives, I found many of the arguments that represented these revolutionary Marxists as somehow conciliatory toward religious ideologies, even those of minority religions, to be deliberate distortions of historical reality. There is all too often an attempt to “update” various Marxist positions so as to accommodate fashionable tendencies in the present, even under regressed political conditions. This has been undertaken by leftists as diverse as Deepa Kumar, Alessandro Tinonga, Enaemaehkiw Túpac Keshena, Ben Fowkes and Bülent Gökay, etc. There’s the temptation to reason that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” To argue that the leading Bolsheviks’ attitude toward religion was not that of crushing it mercilessly is deluded.

What’s strange is that this conciliatory move on the part of many leftists comes alongside the ongoing disenchantment of the world, including the progressive secularization of society and the disintegration of traditional religious forms. Brief religious revivals, which tend to produce the most virulently reactionary forms of religious politics (born-again Evangelical Christianity, Islamism, Jewish and Hindu terrorist groups), have usually resulted in nothing more than a brief blip in the overall pattern of decline in religiosity. The paradox is that the world is far less religious today on the whole than it was in, say, 1848 or 1917. Nevertheless, leftists during this earlier time continued to push an uncompromisingly atheistic line in their struggle to overturn the existing bourgeois social order, of which religion is a central component.

The commonplace notion that the Bolsheviks or Marxism in general has been unsuccessful because they offend the religious sensibilities of their “target demographic,” the proletariat, is simply untrue and has no basis in historical reality. Quite the contrary: the masses largely followed the Marxists’ lead in smashing and seizing religious property, looking to eradicate religion both directly (by direct expropriation) and indirectly (by removing the antagonistic social conditions that give rise to religion in the first place). They aimed to render it completely obsolete by obliterating the conditions that create it.

Also, I’ve been bothered by this weird neologism “theophobia.” It doesn’t even make sense etymologically. Most monotheistic faiths are actually all in favor of “theophobia.” “Theo” = God. “Phobia” = fear. “Fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,” says some ancient Jewish text written in praise of their desert god. For a Marxist, however, the fear of nonexistant entities would be the very height of infantile irrationality. Continue reading

Models and Sketches from Nikolai Ladovskii’s Studio at VKhUTEMAS-VKhUTEIN (1922-1930)

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