Russian constructivists. Constructivism in architecture

This trend in art is considered a Soviet phenomenon. It arose after the October Revolution and developed within the framework of the avant-garde proletarian art.

But no manifestations of art can be limited to the framework of one country, therefore the term "constructivism" is rather arbitrary: signs of this trend can be seen in the architecture of functionalism, and in painting and sculpture, constructivism is clearly visible in the works of avant-garde artists. As a matter of fact, constructivism is the avant-garde method - its representatives were looking for new forms for expressing modern ideas for them: a new harmonious person should live in a harmonious society and in a comfortable city.

The meaning of the term

To comprehend the term "constructivism" (lat. Cōnstrūctio - composition; structure, structure; connection, connection), we do not need its direct meaning, but a figurative one.
So constructive:
1) related to the structure;
2) trans .: creating the basis for further work, fruitful, one that can be taken as the basis for something (constructive proposal, constructive discussion, etc.).
In the period after the October Revolution in Russia, art was supposed to serve production, and production - to the people. Constructivists believed that art should merge with the production of material values. One of the theorists of "industrial art" Boris Arvatov wrote that "... they will not depict a beautiful body, but educate a real living harmonious person; not to paint a forest, but to grow parks and gardens; not to decorate the walls with pictures, but to paint these walls ... ".
Thus, the social basis of constructivism was precisely "industrial art" with its direct appeal to the modern Russian realities of the 1920s (the era of the first five-year plans).

History of the term

In 1922 A.M. Hahn wrote the book "Constructivism". Sculptors, graphic artists and painters famous at that time A. Rodchenko and V. Tatlin back in 1920 they called themselves constructivists.

V. Tatlin A. Rodchenko
By the way, V. Tatlin has developed a project of a monument dedicated to the III International - the famous Tatlin Tower. Its construction was planned to be carried out in Petrograd after the victory of the October Revolution of 1917. The grandiose iron monument was intended for the highest bodies of the world workers 'and peasants' power (Comintern), which were to be housed in 7-storey rotating buildings. And although this project was not implemented, the Tower became a symbol of constructivism.

Tatlin Tower

The tower project consisted of two inclined metal spirals, consisting of buildings of various geometric shapes located one above the other, harmoniously interconnected. The buildings rotated on their axis. The lower building was in the shape of a cube and rotated at the rate of one revolution a year.

It was intended for conferences and conventions. Above it was a pyramid-shaped building that rotated at a rate of one revolution a month and was intended for the executive organs of the International. The cylinder, which rotated at a speed of one revolution a day, was supposed to house information bureaus, a publishing house, a printing house, and a telegraph. The fourth volume was in the form of a hemisphere and rotated at a speed of one revolution per hour. The tower was conceived as a symbol of the reunification of humanity, divided during the construction of the Tower of Babel. The height of the Tower was supposed to be 400 m.
A model of Tatlin's tower can be seen in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the atrium of the City of Capitals multifunctional complex, in the Pompidou Center (Paris) and the Museum of Modern Art (Stockholm), in the exhibition hall of the K. A. Savitsky Art School in Penza, in the main dining room of Oxford University ...

The model of the tower is crowned with the modern house "Patriarch" in Moscow, built by the architect S. Tkachenko.

History of constructivism

Why is constructivism in art considered a Soviet phenomenon? After all, it is known that the Eiffel Tower, the symbol of Paris, was built back in 1889, much earlier than the term "constructivism" appeared? It was conceived as a temporary structure - the entrance arch of the Paris World Exhibition of 1889, but now it is one of the most visited attractions in the world. It clearly contains the features of constructivism.

Eiffel Tower (Paris)
Obviously, constructivism is considered a Soviet phenomenon for the reason that its manifestation in other countries was only isolated samples, and in the USSR it became a socially conditioned basis, a production art. “For the first time, not from France, but from Russia, a new word of art flew in - constructivism,” noted V. Mayakovsky.

Vesnin brothers

Vesnin brothers in childhood with parents and sister

A great contribution to the development of constructivism was made by talented architects - brothers Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin. By this time they already had experience in building design, painting and book design. They became the leaders of a new direction in architecture in the first half of the 20th century.
Taking part in the competition for the projects of the building of the Palace of Labor in Moscow in 1923, they received the third prize.

Vesnin brothers' project
The Vesnins' project stood out not only for the rationality of the plan and the correspondence of the external appearance to the aesthetic ideals of our time, but also implied the use of the latest building materials and structures.

House of Culture ZIL. Architects - Vesnin brothers
One of the largest works of the Vesnin brothers was the design of the Palace of Culture of the Proletarsky District in Moscow. The palace was built in 1931-1937, but only part of the project was completed: a T-shaped club section with a small auditorium for 1200 seats. The detached building of the large auditorium was not realized. In accordance with the principles of constructivism, the building is distinguished by a strictly logical volumetric-spatial composition, entertainment and club rooms are successfully correlated. The auditorium, facing the street with its lateral façade, is connected with a suite of rooms for study in circles. The suite rests against the winter garden, at the end of the right wing there is a library, at the end of the left wing there is a rehearsal room.

Library

A conference hall was located above the winter garden, and above - an observatory, the dome of which rises above the flat roof of the building. When creating the project, the authors relied on the well-known five principles of Le Corbusier: the use of pillars-pillars instead of wall arrays, free planning, free design of the facade, elongated windows, flat roof. The volumes of the club are emphatically geometric and represent elongated parallelepipeds, into which the risalits of staircases and cylinders of balconies are cut.

The style of constructivism is also present in the composition of the facades: from the outside, the hall is surrounded by a semicircle of a two-tiered foyer, the curvilinear outlines of which dominate the external appearance of the building.
Among the Vesnins' works of the 1930s and early 1940s, many other projects deserve attention - realized or unrealized.

Lenin Square in Oktyabrsky
The closest companion and assistant of the Vesnin brothers was Moisey Ginzburg. In his book "Style and Era", he reflects on the fact that each style of art corresponds to "its" historical era. Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers organized the Association of Contemporary Architects (OCA), which included leading constructivists. Le Corbusier came to Russia, fruitfully communicated and collaborated with the leaders of the OCA.
Since 1926, the constructivists began to publish their own magazine, Contemporary Architecture, which had been published for 5 years.

The rise of constructivism

Convinced constructivists were sensitive to the purity of their method, they did not want constructivism to turn into a style that uses only external imitation. They themselves were based on a scientific analysis of the functioning of buildings, structures, town planning complexes. That is, they considered artistic and practical tasks exclusively in the aggregate: the most rational space-planning structure corresponds to each function. Constructivists are involved in the design of industrial buildings, kitchen factories, houses of culture, clubs, residential buildings. During this period, other talented architects were added to the constructivist society: brothers Ilya and Panteleimon Golosov, Ivan Leonidov, Mikhail Barshch, Vladimir Vladimirov.

House of Culture named after S.M. Zuev (1928). Architect I. Golosov
House-communes have become a typical example of the embodiment of the functional method in constructivism. They were built on the principle of Le Corbusier: “house - a car for living”. An example is the dormitory-commune of the Textile Institute in Moscow.

Student dormitory "House-Commune" (1930)
The author of the project was Ivan Nikolaev. The idea of ​​a commune house: the complete socialization of everyday life. The functional diagram of the building was focused on creating a rigid daily routine for students: a sleeping cabin with a size of 2.3 x 2.7 m, which contained only beds and stools, then students were sent to the sanitary building, where showers, charging rooms, changing rooms took place. From here they descended into a low public building, where there was a dining room. In other rooms of the building there were halls for team work, booths for individual lessons, a library, an assembly hall. The public building housed a nursery for children under 3 years old, and an open terrace was arranged on the roof.
Various cities of the country (USSR) had their own architectural features of constructivism. An example of constructivism in Minsk is the Government House of the Republic of Belarus - the largest public building Joseph Langbard, one of the best monuments of constructivism, which marked the beginning of the formation of the new city center.

Government House in Minsk

Constructivism in other arts

Constructivism is most often associated with architecture, but this is not entirely true, since even before architecture, constructivism existed in design, printing, art. For example, in photography. In this art form, constructivism manifested itself in composition, unusual angles, etc. The master of the method was considered Alexander Rodchenko.

Photo by A. Rodchenko

Photo by A. Rodchenko
Constructivist trends also existed in the field of fashion. Based on the fascination with straight lines, Soviet fashion designers of those years created emphatically geometrized forms of clothing design.
Fashion designer Varvara Stepanova since 1924 together with Love Popova developed fabric designs for the 1st cotton-printing factory in Moscow, designed models of sports and casual wear. And the most famous model of those years was the famous Lilya Yurievna Brik.

Lilya Brick (1924)
In 1923, constructivism was proclaimed as a trend in literature(primarily in poetry) and the "Literary Center of Constructivists" was created. It was attended by poets Ilya Selvinsky, Vera Inber, Vladimir Lugovskoy, Boris Agapov, literary critics Korneliy Zelinsky, Alexander Kvyatkovsky and others. Constructivist writers proclaimed the closeness of poetry to "production" themes (typical titles of collections: "State Planning Committee of Literature", "Business"), essayism, widespread use of "proseism", the use of a new size - tactician (poetic size), experiments with recitation. By 1930, the Constructivists were harassed by the RAPP and announced their self-dissolution.

Meeting of the Literary Center of Constructivists in 1929 (A. Kvyatkovsky, V. Asmus, E. Bagritsky, K. Zelinsky, N. Aduev, I. Selvinsky, B. Agapov, V. Lugovskoy, V. Inber, G. Gauzner, E. Gabrilovich)
As a literary credo, the constructivists put forward four principles:
Semantic dominant, maximum "exploitation" of the central theme
Increasing the semantic load per unit of literary material ("cargo handling")
The principle of "local semantics", which consists in the subordination of images, metaphors and rhymes to the main theme of the work
An introduction to the poetry of prose techniques.

Postconstructivism

In the early 1930s, the political situation in the country changed. This also affected art. Innovative and avant-garde movements were at first subjected to sharp criticism, and then were banned as bourgeois.

Soviet post-constructivism
The stern and revolutionary asceticism was replaced by the magnificent forms of the totalitarian baroque. The Constructivists were in disgrace. Those of them who did not want to "rebuild", until the end of their days dragged out a miserable existence or were repressed. Some of them managed to rebuild. For example, Ilya Golosov. The Vesnin brothers also took part in the creative life of the USSR, but did not have the same authority as before.
In the 30s of the XX century. under the influence of political and ideological factors, there was a transition from constructivism to the Stalinist Empire style. Many buildings, originally built in the style of constructivism, have been redesigned with new decorative design. Stalin's predilections for classical architecture began to play a much larger role than the expediency and "proletarian asceticism of forms" popular in the 1920s.

School in Moscow (1932-1936). Architect I. Zvezdin
In post-constructivist buildings, some elements of the constructivist style are preserved: rectangular parapets on roofs (low wall enclosing the roof of the building); solid vertical glazing of staircases; accentuation of the corners of buildings, solved in the form of vertical glass lanterns. But at the same time, coffered vaults (with depressions of a rectangular or other shape) become characteristic methods of forming an architectural image; developed additional cornices with an upper attic floor above them; open bypass loggias with columns on the top floor; orderless columns of square section; the use of wall pictures in the sgraffito technique and bright colors in combination with the indispensable white.

Cinema "Star". Opened in 1937.

Constructivism lived a short, but bright life in the USSR - less than twenty years, in the 20-30s of the last century. Constructivists were looking for new forms and materials to embody the ideas of a new society - free and happy, to give the young country beautiful cities. But then the style fell into disgrace and was supplanted by the Stalinist Empire style.

Garage of trucks of the Moscow City Council (architects - KS Melnikov, VG Shukhov). Photo: Sergey Norin

Constructivism comes from the Russian artistic avant-garde of the early twentieth century. Its most famous representatives are Malevich, Larionov, Yakulov, Tatlin, Matyushin and the futurists headed by Burliuk and Mayakovsky. The avant-gardists dreamed of social change and had high hopes for technological progress. And in order to live and breathe more freely in the new wonderful world, they proposed to update at the same time artistic methods - to forget about traditions and find new forms.

The Russian avant-garde was a great creative get-together. Artists, poets, architects, designers, photographers were friends and collaborated. They not only shocked the audience with their bold performances, but also laid the foundations for modern design and architecture. Famous constructivists - A. Rodchenko, El Lissitzky, the Stenberg brothers, L. Popova - worked in the field of design, posters, photography, scenography. But especially wide opportunities for the application of their creative powers at that time opened up for architects.

Model of the Tatlin tower, 1919

Constructivism as an artistic style took shape after the revolution through the efforts of representatives of Futurism and Suprematism. Revolutionary art chose instead of luxury simplicity and new object forms... The main figure of constructivism was Vladimir Tatlin, who headed the art department of the People's Commissariat for Education. We can say that Soviet constructivism began with the Tatlin Tower, or Monument to the Third Communist International. The project of the 400-meter tower was not only grandiose, but also original. Photos of the layout were published in the press and brought wide popularity to the author.

But the tower was not built then - the project was too complicated and expensive, the young republic did not pull such a construction. But, I must say, some kind of tower was eventually built, however, already in our time. It turns out that constructivism and the roof of a modern housing complex well-known to Muscovites are proof of this.

House "Patriarch" (illustration by Anastasia Timofeeva)

And at this time in the USA and Europe

Constructivism was also an attempt by architects to take a fresh look at the function of a dwelling, to "sharpen" it to the needs of time, society and the urban environment. Moreover, not only individual houses, but also entire districts and even cities. True, the Soviet constructivists were not the first here.

They thought about new forms in the middle of the 19th century, when concrete appeared. And in 1889, the Eiffel Tower was built - an incredible both in shape and size, a metal structure 324 meters high. However, the real urban planning revolution took place at the same time in the United States: the first skyscrapers appeared in Chicago, built using a fundamentally new technology - on the basis of a steel frame. The construction of skyscrapers has become a real epidemic. By the beginning of the twentieth century, skyscrapers in New York had grown to 30 stories, and by 1915 the largest of the skyscrapers, the 57-story Woolworth Building, had risen by 241 meters. Skyscrapers were built in the United States by order of millionaires, owners of large companies, and were piece and expensive structures.

Eiffel Tower construction

And in Europe at this time, the development of industry and the system of urban transport took place. The population also increased significantly, largely at the expense of the workers. The old European city with its narrow streets, dense buildings and division into palaces and slums suddenly ceased to suit everyone. New urban planning solutions were needed, so European architects of that time were more interested in the problems of mass construction than in the creation of giant buildings.

Massive cheap housing needed new materials and technologies, and then functionalism appeared. He declared the obligatory conformity of form to function, rejected decoration, introduced the principles of frame construction, focused on the use of glass and concrete, preferred simple forms of buildings using standard building elements. The recognized leaders of functionalism are the Bauhaus school in Germany and with its famous five principles in architecture.

Le Corbusier's latest architectural project is the Heidi Weber pavilion in Zurich (Switzerland). Photo: Fatlum Haliti

Another problem that the functionalists undertook to solve was the creation of a new, modern city, as well as neighborhoods and settlements with mass serial development. Le Corbusier is most famous again: the project "Modern city for 3 million inhabitants", "Plan Voisin" - a project for the reconstruction of Paris, and the concept of "Radiant City". The most ambitious urban planning projects have remained on paper, but economy-class neighborhoods and villages in Europe have begun to appear.

"Housing" in Marseille (architect - Le Corbusier). Photo: Juan Lupión

Foreign functionalists and Soviet constructivists were bound by common views. Then there was no Iron Curtain yet, Soviet architects traveled to Europe, participated in exhibitions and competitions, they were well aware of the works of European functionalists, who, in turn, were ardent admirers of Soviet power and dreamed of working in the USSR. Where else could new ideas and principles be introduced if not in the country of victorious socialism?

Socialist hostel and clubs

A cross-cutting theme in Soviet constructivism was the idea of ​​a socialist community. Actually, this was the social order. Simply and unobtrusively, this idea began to take root immediately after 1917, when the underwhelmed bourgeoisie was "compacted", and a luxurious one-family apartment turned into a "crow settlement" with countless neighbors and squabbles in the common kitchen. This was new. It was Soviet-style. Workers settled in the former houses of the bourgeoisie, the way of life changed, but the architectural appearance of the buildings remained the same. They tried to renew the old walls with the help of campaign slogans, banners and posters.

"Housewarming" K.S. Petrova-Vodkina (1937), depicting a celebration on the occasion of the resettlement of a working-class family in a mansion

After the civil war, the time has come to provide the working people with real socialist housing and create a new, Soviet infrastructure. There were no funds for construction, but there were dreams of a bright future. To develop an architectural idea, various competitions for projects were held, often deliberately unfeasible. For example, the competition in 1919 for the Palace of Workers in Petrograd, and later, in 1923 - the competition for the project of the Palace of Labor in the center of Moscow. Since the early 1920s, state architectural artels have appeared, and some projects have begun to be implemented. And the architects created all kinds of monuments: in the absence of any large-scale construction of residential and public buildings, they had to be content with this.

By the mid-1920s, the first significant, including constructivist, projects finally began to be implemented. Constructivist architects organized the OCA (Association of Contemporary Architects) in 1926. The leaders and most famous representatives of the association were the three Vesnin brothers, Ginzburg, Kornfeld, Golosov and Melnikov.

Houses and palaces of labor, culture and everything else, houses of councils and buildings of other state institutions, factory kitchens, commune houses, industrial trade houses, office buildings, garages and, in connection with the adoption of the plan GOELRO, power plants. It so happened that most of the constructivists worked in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kharkov.

Dorkhimzavod club named after Frunze (architect - K. Melnikov). Photo: Sergey Norin

Houses and palaces of culture are especially widespread. Each city and district has become obligatory to have its own palace. The record holders for the number of such projects were Kornfeld and Melnikov. The second is especially famous, as he worked mainly in the capital. After 1927, when he gained worldwide fame for the project of the USSR pavilion at the exhibition in Paris, Melnikov did not experience a shortage of orders, and in just two years he made projects for seven clubs. Six were sold by 1930, of which five were in Moscow: DK im. Rusakov, club of the soap factory "Svoboda", recreation center of the plant "Kauchuk", Club of the Dorkhimzavod im. Frunze and the Burevestnik Factory Club.

The "Burevestnik" factory club (architect - K. Melnikov). Photo: Sergey Norin

The most famous of his projects is, apparently, the building of the Palace of Culture named after Rusakova built in 1927-28 From the side of the facade facing Stromynka Street, the building has a completely unusual shape - gears with three teeth. The balconies of the auditorium were located in these teeth, which were taken out of the main volume of the building. The building itself has, as befits an object of constructivism, a reinforced concrete frame, easily transformable internal partitions that allow dividing and connecting the internal space. As always in his projects, Melnikov strictly followed the principle of maximum efficiency in the use of volume and conformity to the form of function.

Club them. Rusakov in Moscow (architect - K. Melnikov), 1927-1929

Club of the plant "Kauchuk»On Plyushchikha was built according to the design of Melnikov in 1929. Outwardly, the building does not look as revolutionary as the Palace of Culture Rusakova - it is made in the form of a sector with an arc-shaped facade. On one side of the façade there was a rehearsal hall with a sloping roof, on the other - a sports building with sloping glazing. Glazed and the transition from the ticket office to the auditorium. The volume of the internal space, according to tradition, could be easily transformed. The roof of the main part of the building is flat, in the form of a large terrace.

Kauchuk plant club (architect - K. Melnikov). Photo: Sergey Norin

But Melnikov was not the only one who built the clubs. The largest and most architecturally interesting club was created by the Vesnin brothers. This is the recreation center of the Proletarsky district, it is also the recreation center ZiL (it was designed in 1930, built from 1931 to 1937, but the project was never fully implemented). A building with a large auditorium was not built, although the small auditorium was not so small - 1,200 seats. The principles of constructivism in this building are demonstrated just like in a parade: here and the use of pillars, and wide areas of glazing and tape rows of windows, and freedom of internal planning, and a flat terrace-like roof. Unlike most constructivist objects, today the building of the Palace of Culture ZiL is in fairly good condition.

Building of DK ZIL (architects - Vesnin brothers)

Another star of constructivism, the architect Golosov, was noted for the creation of the Palace of Culture in Moscow. He began his career in 1919 by winning a competition for a neoclassical crematorium project. But his creation - DK im. Zueva on Lesnaya Street- a luxurious example of constructivism and one of the most famous buildings in this style. It was built in 1927-29. The most impressive look is the spiral staircase made in the form of a glazed cylinder, and the main part of the building consists of mutually intersecting parallelepipeds, one of which is cut into the cylinder. The whole building was given the appearance of a factory building, more precisely, ingeniously coupled parts from various types of industrial buildings. The Palace of Culture has two auditoriums and halls for rehearsals. It is interesting that the recreation center continues to be used for its intended purpose - as a socio-cultural object.

DK im. Zueva (architect - I. Golosov)

Of the numerous recreation centers in St. Petersburg, we will mention the recreation center of communications workers on Bolshaya Morskaya, which was converted in the 30s in the style of constructivism from the German church by G. Reitz and P. Grinberg. This House of Culture is known for its attitude to the activities of the Leningrad rock club. You can find DKs created by constructivists both in provincial cities of Russia and in cities of the former USSR, for example, DK im. October Revolution in Novosibirsk, recreation center in Perm, Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, Yekaterinburg, Rybinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Kharkov, Baku and so on.

There are a lot of public buildings in the constructivist style. For example, the building of the People's Commissariat for Land on Sadovo-Spasskaya Street built in 1927-1933 according to the project of the team under the leadership of Shchusev (the team of authors included the famous constructivists Kornfeld and Yakovlev). The huge structure of asymmetrical shape, rounded at the corners, consists of four buildings with strip glazing typical of its style. Although Shchusev was not a pure constructivist, he paid tribute to the style and created one of its most spectacular and large-scale monuments. Now the building is used for its intended purpose - one of the ministries of the Russian Federation is located there.

The building of the People's Commissariat of Agriculture. Photo: Sergey Norin

Complex buildings of the newspaper "Izvestia" on Pushkin Square in Moscow was also designed by a representative of the old school Barkhin, not by a recognized constructivist. And he did very well, despite the attacks from the constructivists and accusations of imitation. The complex includes production and editorial buildings of the same size, six-storey brick parallelepipeds, one facing the square, the other into the courtyard. According to the project, the floors were supposed to be twelve, but the new urban planning rules adopted in those years limited the height of the building. To give it a more constructivist look, the brick walls were covered with gray plaster. The façade is cut by rows of large windows and lines of balconies; on the top floor, as elements of style, a square clock and several round windows were located. At a later time, a new building of the Izvestia newspaper was added to the building.

Building Central Telegraph Office in Moscow on Tverskaya Street is also a monument to constructivism. More precisely, his style is defined as transitional from to constructivism. The telegraph was built in 1925-27 according to the project of Rerberg, very disapprovingly received in architectural circles. The facade of the central building is semicircular, the other two are in the form of a parallelepiped. A distinctive feature - huge windows - made of honeycomb; on floors starting from the third, nine cells per window. The roof of the telegraph is flat, and the cast iron grilles and brackets are a tribute to the Art Nouveau style.

Central Telegraph building (architect - I. Rerberg)

Building Gosprom in Kharkov, perhaps the most ambitious and spectacular building in the style. It was created to accommodate more than twenty organizations, including Prombank and Gostorg of the Ukrainian SSR. The authors of the project are Leningrad architects under the leadership of Kravets, and Dzerzhinsky personally supervised the construction. The Gosprom building was one of the largest buildings in Europe at that time: its height was 63 meters, and the area of ​​premises was 60 thousand square meters (the complex occupies an area of ​​three blocks). The building was built from monolithic reinforced concrete by formwork, and it is distinguished by huge glazing areas - four and a half thousand windows. Structurally, the building consists of several multi-storey buildings connected by galleries. Interestingly, in the initial project, part of the internal partitions was missing, and at sunset the sun had to shine through the building.

Gosprom building in Kharkov

Also, speaking about constructivism, one cannot but tell about industrial trade, garages, communal houses and the legendary House on the embankment. But this is already another big story, about which - next time.

Alisa Orlova

Soviet constructivism and gigantism. Part I.

Constructivism and the Stalinist Empire style.

The best part about constructivism is that this avant-garde method in art and architecture was invented in the USSR. Let me explain what constructivism is - a Soviet avant-garde trend in art, architecture, photography and even literature that developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Characteristic features of constructivism: geometrism, laconic forms, severity and solidity of the external appearance. The main idea of ​​constructivism implied the rejection of pompous forms in favor of simple and laconic, and most importantly, the subordination of all elements to meaning and function.

Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote: “For the first time, not from France, but from Russia, a new word of art - constructivism… flew in.” Although the first harbinger of the birth of constructivism was the Eiffel Tower ball, which combines elements of Art Nouveau and naked constructivism.

Stalin influenced the development of constructivism in the USSR. The entire flowering of this trend occurred in the early years of Stalin's rule. But in the thirties, the party began to sharply criticize the avant-garde trends and subsequently generally declared constructivism to be a bourgeois trend, thereby finally putting an end to it. Constructivism will only revive in the 60s. Constructivism was replaced by the neoclassical style, as it was also called the "Stalinist Empire".

"Stalin's Empire" - a trend in architecture, monumental and decorative art of the USSR from the late 1930s to the mid-50s. This style combines elements of the baroque, empire of the Napoleonic era, late classicism and art deco, it combines pomp, luxury, majesty and monumentality.

Simply put, Stalinist gigantism. The famous Stalinist skyscrapers in Moscow became the symbols of the Stalinist Empire style.

At the beginning of the heyday of the Stalinist Empire, the Soviet delegation participating in the world exhibition in Paris in 1937 faced Nazi Germany in a battle for awards.

Our country presented at the exhibition a huge pavilion made in the Stalinist Empire style: a high-rise building with a giant sculpture of a “worker and collective farmer” at the top of the building.

The most monumental and never completed building, conceived by Stalin. It was this building that was to become the culmination of the entire high-rise construction of the USSR. The Palace of the Soviets was to become the last ninth skyscraper and the tallest building in the world.

In the thirties, a competition was announced for the best project of the Palace of Soviets. The project involved not only Soviet architects, but also foreigners. For example, here is the project of the Italian Armando Brazini:

But the competition was won by Boris Iofan, a Soviet student of the Italian, who put together the ideas of other participants and proposed a huge multi-tiered building with an abundance of columns and topped with a giant statue of Lenin. According to the final project, the Palace of the Soviets was supposed to be 420 meters high, which means that it surpassed the 381-meter American Empire State Building, the tallest one from 1931 to 1972.

It was decided to build the Palace of Soviets on a hill above the Moskva River instead of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. On December 5, 1931, the Temple was blown up. After the ruins were dismantled, the preparatory work for the construction began, first of all, the digging of the foundation pit and the construction of the foundation.

For the construction of the skyscraper, a special steel grade was made - DS, the most durable in the USSR at that time. By the beginning, the foundation and first floors were completed. But already in September and October 1941, from the metal structures prepared for installation, they were fused onto anti-tank hedgehogs. And then all the other steel structures had to be dismantled and used to build bridges on the railway.

After the end of the war, all forces and means were thrown into the restoration of the country and never returned to the construction of the Palace of Soviets.

And in the 60s, in the foundation left from the Palace of Soviets, the world's largest outdoor winter swimming pool was created, which was closed only in the 90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in its place the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was restored.

Here are two more Soviet films of 1935 and 1938 in which New Moscow is shown with all its realized and unrealized buildings))))

Written by

Barbara

Creativity, work on the modern idea of ​​world outlook and constant search for answers

Constructivism is an outstanding achievement of Soviet architecture, a new trend and a unique view of the form and functionality of buildings. As an architectural trend, constructivism emerged in the 1920s in the Soviet Union and was characterized by austerity, geometrism, laconic forms and functionality of buildings. Architects Vesnins, Ginzburgs, Golosovs, Melnikov, Leonidov are considered to be the leaders of constructivism.

The development of architecture is inextricably linked both with the development of society - the historical context and the rethinking of the functions of buildings, and with technical progress - the invention of new materials and mechanisms. Both of these factors influenced the emergence of a new style in architecture - constructivism. Firstly, the new ideology did not recognize the attributes that personified a certain social position of a person in a class society, in luxury goods only wasted labor and a desire to show their wealth were seen. The ostentatious luxury was contrasted with a consciously cultivated asceticism, which became the ethical and aesthetic norm for the ruling class of the country - the proletariat. Secondly, the industrial revolution and technological progress have already made their contribution - the invention of new building materials, first of all, made it possible to implement new forms that would have been impossible before.

Constructivism is a direction of exclusively Soviet architecture (in the West, functionalism is closest to it). After the proletariat came to power, after a destructive civil war, the country began to rebuild and build itself, and this had to be done in a new way, rejecting the old canons. One of the first projects embodying a new approach to architecture was the project of the Vesnin brothers. In 1923, a competition was announced for the project of the Palace of Labor for Moscow, the third place in this competition was taken by the project of A.A., V.A. and L.A. Vesnin, who stood out for their innovative approach to the layout of premises, the use of building materials and the aesthetics of everything. building. this is how he spoke about this event and this project later: “Let them remember 1923, when the turning point in architecture took place, let them remember how then he argued that it’s impossible to give the Vesnins a prize for the Palace of Labor, because architecture will go the wrong way, then they gave a prize to the architect Trotsky - however, in spite of everything, architecture took a new path. " It is characteristic that before that the Vesnins designed mainly industrial buildings, that is, buildings in which the main thing is function, their aesthetics follows from functionality, decoration is not such an important element.

This approach to the design of buildings turned out to be inwardly very consonant with the slogans of the new country, the rejection of "art for art's sake", and also close to "industrial art, which called on artists to" consciously create useful things. " "Industrial art" was only a concept, but the very term "constructivism" was proposed by the ideologists of this particular direction: they often used the words "construction", "constructive", "construction of space". The two main ideas of the theory of industrial art were also shared by constructivist architects - the denial of the specifics of artistic labor (every work is an art, not only the work of creating paintings, music) and the reduction of the problems of shaping to the production of a useful thing (only things should be created that bring real benefit , just for beauty it is not necessary to create things). Also, the formation of constructivism was influenced by the innovative trends in art of the early 20th century: futurism, suprematism, cubism, purism.

Early constructivism

Speaking about the early period of constructivism, researchers emphasize two characteristic features of it. Firstly, it is originality in artistic issues of shaping: at that time Western architecture and its latest trends had practically no influence on constructivist architects, they developed in their own direction, practically without contacting their Western colleagues. Secondly, this is the desire to find architectural means of expressiveness: abandoning architectural decor, the Constructivists did not replace it with painting or sculpture, did not seek to decorate the building with them, but experimented and looked for new opportunities precisely in architectural techniques. Although, of course, a synthesis of architecture and the surrounding space - signs, shop windows, city clocks, etc. - was. Constructivism includes not only the architectural direction, but also the general direction in Soviet art of those years; Brik, Rodchenko, Mayakovsky referred to themselves as constructivists, and they strove to create a general aesthetics of both buildings and other elements of the urban environment.

The basic principles of constructivism as an architectural trend were formulated in the speeches of A. A. Vesnin and M. Ya. Ginzburg, under whose leadership in 1926 a public organization OSA was created - the Association of Contemporary Architects. This official creative organization of constructivists developed its own design method based on an analysis of the features of the functioning of buildings: each function is answered by the most rational space-planning structure, that is, the form corresponds to the function. The OSA Association published the magazine "Contemporary Architecture", held exhibitions, congresses, conferences. In 1930, the OSA was transformed into SASS (Sector of Architects for Socialist Construction) under the All-Union Architectural and Scientific Society and existed until 1932, when the Union of Architects of the USSR was created.

Artistic means of constructivism

From project to project, a set of constructivist tools and techniques was gradually formed: more and more free handling of the frame structure - from subordination to it to the use of all its constructive capabilities for solving various problems; the tendency to create an increasingly laconic composition - enlarging the form, eliminating small articulations, simplifying the facade. In the mid-1920s, Le Corbusier, who came to the Soviet Union, had some influence on the Constructivists, whose original means and techniques were close to the ideology of the Soviet avant-garde. But by the end of the decade, constructivism again moved away from Western ideas and continued to develop in its original channel, and the emergence of new bright architects-constructivists - I. Leonidov, brothers Golosov, M. Barshch, V. Vladimirov contributed to this.

New ideas for organizing the work and life of the Soviet people were directly reflected in the buildings that were being erected at that time. Constructivists design houses of culture, clubs, industrial buildings and residential buildings in keeping with the spirit of the times. The most ambitious project of the House of Culture was the project of the Vesnin brothers, which was not fully implemented, but nevertheless became one of the iconic works of constructivism: the House of Culture of the Proletarsky District of Moscow (ZiLa Palace of Culture). It was built in 1931-1937, when creating the project, five principles of Le Corbusier were used: supports-pillars instead of walls, free planning, free design of the facade, elongated windows, flat roof. The shape of the building was determined by the functions laid down in the palace of culture, and the internal layout of its individual cells.

House-communes

A separate interesting phenomenon was the house-commune, which was being erected in line with the conscientious ideology. In 1930 - 1931 on Ordzhonikidze Street in Moscow, a dormitory-commune of the Textile Institute was built according to the project of I. Nikolaev. The concept of the project boiled down to streamlining and typifying the life of students, each period of the daily routine had to correspond to a separate room - a sleeping cabin, a sanitary building, a gym, etc. Accordingly, the architectural solution of the building was subordinated to this mode of students' functioning: transitions from one building to another, the area of ​​various rooms and the internal communications serving them, the shape and area of ​​the windows.

Neoclassicism versus constructivism

In the early 1930s, the political situation in the country changed, and in architecture the influence of architects who preached styles completely opposite to constructivism - Shchusev, Zholtovsky, increased. In 1932, Zholtovsky builds his famous house on Mokhovaya, completely designed in the spirit of neoclassicism, which was immediately called "a nail in the coffin of constructivism." Influential admirers of richly decorated buildings supported just such a style, the ascetic romanticism of constructivism became less in demand. The avant-garde trends in architecture began to be sharply criticized, and then were completely banned as bourgeois. Constructivism fell into disgrace, many young architects, who started out as constructivists, revised their views in favor of neoclassicism. Some constructivist architects, for example I. Golosov, the Vesnin brothers, were able to fit into the conjuncture of the 1930s and continue their activities, but they no longer had the same authority as before.

After constructivism

Constructivism strongly influenced all Soviet architecture, even though it gave way to neoclassicism and

It is customary to call constructivism the avant-garde trends in architecture, arts and crafts and fine arts and photography. This style developed from 1920 to the beginning of the next decade.

The main characteristic features of constructivism are austerity, laconic forms, geometrism and monolithic appearance. The constructivists even created their own official creative organization and developed their own functional one based on a scientific analysis of the functioning of structures, buildings, and complexes. Constructivism in architecture has been preserved in its characteristic monuments - kitchen factories, Palaces of Labor, workers' clubs, communal houses that were built at that time.

Those creative views that will unite the concept of "constructivism" were embodied not only in architecture, but also in other spheres of human activity, for example, in literature.

Despite the fact that this trend is considered a Soviet phenomenon, like any other trend, it is not limited to the framework of the countries of the former USSR. Perhaps for some it will be news, but the Eiffel Tower, which combines both constructivist and modernist elements, is also the forerunner of the constructivist style in architecture.

Such a flow arose in the conditions of a continuous search for something new. The innovators of the time praised the rejection of "art for art's sake", and believed that it should serve production. The adherents of this opinion urged artists and architects to create only useful things, thereby ensuring a good life in comfortable cities. The term "constructivism" was introduced into the Russian language by theoreticians of "industrial art", the main reason for this was the frequent use of the words "constructive", "construction", "construction" in brochures and speeches by architects.

The architecture of constructivism, like any other direction, has its bright representatives. These are brothers Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin, who realized the laconic aesthetics of this direction, being already experienced specialists in the field of building design, painting and book design. The brothers' project stood out in the competition for the projects of the building of the Palace of Labor in Moscow. The rational plan, the correspondence of the external appearance to the aesthetics of modern times, the use of the newest structures and building materials - all this became the impetus for the development of the direction of "constructivism".

Architecture is a very difficult concept, and the next stage for the Vesnins turned out to be somewhat more difficult than the previous one. So, they had to design the building of the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" on a tiny piece of land. The brothers created a small six-story building, but everything was here: office space, editorial rooms, a newsstand, a lobby, and a small reading room, because the ability to group many necessary rooms in one is the main task of constructivists.

As mentioned above, constructivism in architecture had its own functional method. According to constructivists, the most rational structure corresponds to each function.

There was a time when the movement was criticized by conservatives who defend the right to use traditional forms, later it was banned. In the Soviet Union, an active struggle was waged against bourgeois formalism and right angles. When the Constructivists fell into disgrace, some of the architects forgot, and some - adapted to the changes. Some Soviet scholars argue that "post-constructivism" has replaced the current.

Constructivism in architecture again made itself felt in the 60s, when the struggle against "architectural excesses" began, and in the early 1990s, some non-embodied ideas of the 20s became reality. Today, this trend is increasingly manifested in the architecture of large cities.