Constructivism
Constructivism - the Soviet avant-garde style in architecture, was developed in the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s. Constructivism was the most intense, ambitious and ultimately tragic design movement of the 20th century.
The creators of constructivism had several important tasks. And these tasks were consonant with the young Soviet ideology. The young ideology demanded to arrange the environment in such a way that not so much the leader as the architecture itself guided all the life processes of the working people. It was the architecture that was supposed to help comprehend and accept all that was unusual, including new construction techniques made of metal, glass and concrete. For example, with the help of reinforced concrete, it became possible to create large volumes that protrude far beyond the boundaries of building piers and freely “floating” in the air. Constructivists practically crushed the poisonous luxury of modernism with underlined utilitarianism of forms, severity and solidity of the external appearance of buildings.
Through the 1920s the Constructivists developed radical new architecture, graphic design, film and photography, and pioneered design styles for the new mass production techniques that were helping turn Russia from an agricultural society to an industrial one. Centrally, the Constructivists rejected the idea of art being autonomous from the rest of society: to them, all art and design was a political tool. In short, Soviet Russia was their canvas, the building of the new Land of the Soviets an art project of gigantic scale.
The theory of architectural constructivism was formulated by Alexander Vesnin and Moses Ginzburg in their speeches. In practice, these principles were embodied in the project of the Palace of Labor for Moscow (1923) of the Vesnin brothers. Most of all in this project his contemporaries were struck by his clear, rational plan and the structural foundations of the building (reinforced concrete frame) revealed in appearance.
In 1924, the official creative organization of constructivists, the OCA (Association of Modern Architects), was created, whose representatives developed a “functional” design method. This method was based on a scientific analysis of the features of the functioning of buildings and urban complexes. The method should also reflect democratization and new relationships between people. According to ideology, there was nothing to hide the Soviet man from the state, and therefore the architects were allowed everything revolutionary: huge, through and through winter windows and transparent partitions between the rooms in the dormitories. About curiosities in the architecture of constructivism, you need to write a separate study.
The main monuments of constructivism were about the angular, awkward, sometimes scandalous life of the working class: kitchen factories, labor palaces, workers clubs, communal houses. The best samples were created by Konstantin Melnikov (1890-1974), Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), brothers Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin, Ivan Leonidov (1902-1959), Moses Ginzburg (1892-1946). Among them DK them. Zueva, club utilities them. Rusakov, House of Chemists "Rubber", the club of the plant. Frunze, DC “Burevestnik”, club of the factory “Svoboda”, recreation center ZIL, Theater-studio of film actor. The building of the Central European Union, the building of the newspaper “Izvestia”, the combine of the newspaper “Pravda”, Gostorg, the residential complex on Usachev street, etc. are famous.
Tatlin’s Tower is a grand monumental building envisioned by the Russian artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin, but never built. It was planned to be erected in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, as the headquarters and monument of the Comintern (the third international).
Tatlin was one of the first modern artists in Russia to embrace the spirit of the October Revolution. Accordingly, in 1918, he was made director of IZO Narkompros, the Arts Department in the Commissariat for People's Enlightenment, and instructed to arrange statues in Moscow and elsewhere, glorifying working class heroes and communist achievements. Unimpressed with the range of designs and sculptures submitted to the Commissariat, Tatlin decided to build a huge monument to the Revolution, to be located in Petrograd.
Tatlin's Constructivist tower was to be built from industrial materials: iron, glass and steel. In materials, shape, and function, it was envisaged as a towering symbol of modernity. It would have dwarfed the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The tower's main form was a twin helix which spiraled up to 400 m in height, around which visitors would be transported with the aid of various mechanical devices. The main framework would contain four large suspended geometric structures. These structures would rotate at different rates of speed.
It is considered that this tower was the defining expression of architectural constructivism. This tower has been a subject of incessant controversy and sparked an enormous deate about its apparent form and the very vivid geometry and flow of radii. Despite devoting himself to a variety of projects and being awarded the title of Honoured Art Worker of the Soviet Union, he was never fully accepted by the Stalinist administration. Although he survived the pre-war purges under Yezhov, in 1948 he was condemned as an "Enemy of the People" and died in obscurity. He was interred at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
In the mid-1930s, constructivist avant-garde architecture was declared a "formalistic and bourgeois phenomenon" and criticized. Transparent partitions and huge windows slammed, and constructivism gradually gave way to trends oriented towards traditional architectural styles. The Stalinists considered the Constructivist aesthetic too rarefied to serve as an effective instrument of state propaganda, ruling that all future design should abide by the conservative neoclassical style of Socialist Realism.
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