SOCKS

An online magazine of Art, Architecture, Media, Culture, Sounds, Territories, Technology)

  • Media
  • Art
  • Architecture
  • Culture
  • Sounds
  • Territories
  • Visual Atlas

Soviet Abstract Architecture Blueprints (mid-1920s to early-1930s)

February 25, 2013 by Fosco Lucarelli Leave a Comment

Ross Wolfe just published, on his Charnel House, these beautiful blueprints by early Soviet architects Ivan Leonidov, Leonid Vesnin, Aleksandr Vesnin, and Nikolai Krasil’nikov.

Wolfe is making an indispensable work of retrieval of documents related to Soviet early architectural experimenters. Look in particular his pages on Leonidov, on Leonid Sabsovich’s Urbanism, and the Socialist City (1929-1931), on the Okhitovic’s Disurbanism (which we also wrote of, here at Socks), Aleksandr Vesnin.

Also of interest: an excerpt about Leonidov’s project of the “Palace of Culture” from the pages of Sovremennaia arkhitektura, 1930 (no. 5, pgs. 2-3) we have also borrowed from Wolfe’s blog.

“In publishing projects for the Palace of Culture to be built on the Simonov Monastery site as discussion material, the editors of SA observe that not one of them provided a generally and entirely satisfactory solution to the problem. The arguments which have developed around these projects in the press, higher education establishments, and in public debates have mainly emphasized the design submitted by I. Leonidov, and as a result have come to assume the character of an undisguised persecution and baiting of the latter.

The editors of SA are perfectly well aware of the shortcomings of certain of I. Leonidov’s projects: ignoring the economic situation today at the same time as indulging in certain elements of aestheticism. All these features are undoubtedly a minus in Leonidov’s work.

But the critics of Leonidov’s work totally fail to see what from our standpoint is a great plus in it, which for all these shortcomings makes it in certain respects better and more valuable than the work of his competitors.

…The editors of SA, whilst recognizing that some of the accusations made against him are correct (abstractness, schematicism, etc.) consider that despite this the works of Leonidov are highly valuable as material of an investigative and experimental character, and they most forcefully protest against the groundless persecution of him.

Signed,
the Editors of Modern Architecture”


Related Posts

  • Atemporality at Work *

    * Kazys Varnelis couldn't possibly better resume this series of collage drawings recently featured on…

  • The Future of Architecture and other Collages by Nils-Ole Lund

    Danish architect, teacher and collage-artist, author of Collage Architecture in 1990, Nils-Ole Lund's fosters the…

  • Pierre-Antoine Marraud, Proposal for a Dystopian Architecture

    Some days ago I've been invited as part of the final jury for Pierre-Antoine Marraud…

  • The Form of Form [Announcing the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2016]

    We are happy to announce that Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli (Socks-Studio / Microcities) will contribute as…

  • Mikhail Okhitovich and the Disurbanism

    Mikhail Okhitovich was a singular figure in Soviet architecture of the 20's and 30's. As a…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr

Socks is a non-linear journey through distant territories of human imagination.

About | Visual Atlas | Topics

We are Mariabruna Fabrizi and Fosco Lucarelli from Microcities. Ask us anything

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr


SOCKS is a project by Fosco Lucarelli and Mariabruna Fabrizi of MICROCITIES, Architecture Cityscape, Landscape.
Except where otherwise noted, the content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license.
Whenever possible we try to attribute content (images, videos, and quotes) to their creators and original sources. Please feel free to write us if you notice misattributions or wish something to be removed.
SOCKS is powered by WordPress.