Soviet and Post-soviet Architecture

“COLOURED” ARCHITECTURE IN THE SOVIET UNION
Architecture of 1960-70ies brings novelty and relative freedom to by-then Soviet Georgia. Heaviness and solemnity of “Soviet Empire” style constructions were replaced with buildings full of light and ease. The “new architectural wave” is represented by the Sports Palace, Hotel “Iveria”, Philarmonic Hall, Road Construction Ministry (currently Head Office of the Bank of Georgia). After a little, coloured mosaic enters the Georgian architecture, having a solid artistic impact on a number of architectural compositions. Mosaic was quickly mastered in the Soviet architecture (e.g. Stalinist period metro stations in Moscow), and in 1970ies, mosaic almost became mandatory for the new constructions. It was observable everywhere: apartment blocks, pavilions, factories, kindergartens as well as walls of other public facilities. The majority of the mosaic is of a low quality and fail to reflect appropriate artistic level.
However, there are a number of distinguished pieces of work of a high artistic value, created within the Georgian art as a result of creative cooperation between the talented architects and the painters – among them Batumi café “Phantasy”, bus stop pavilions in Abkhazia, seaside resorts with parks and fountains and other art compositions. Their study and comparative analysis with contemporary Soviet and international architecture proves their peculiar artistic nature. These constructions are works of art full of creativity, professionalism, phantasy and knowledge of subject matter, thus representing important cultural heritage of Georgian architecture of Soviet times.

The Narkomfin, the building for the staff of the USSR People's Commissariat of Finance built between 1929 and 1930 by Moisej Ginzburg and Ignatij Milinis, is a complex consisting of a block of centralized services (the common kitchen, the gym, the library) and a linear one, originally on pilotis, containing the lodgings distributed by galleries. The Narkomfin  has been many things in the course of its troubled existence: a laboratory of avantgarde Soviet building technology, the "House of Sleep"  for the vaguely hospital aspect of its architecture and for the silence of its inhabitants , an "archeology of Socialism", the "Utopia Station", the "wreck of a social condenser", even an "example not to be repeated". After decades of decadence, this famous building, after an integral restoration by Aleksej Ginzburg (Moisej's nephew), he is returning to a splendor that it perhaps had never had in any of his many lives. But how can a restoration, as far as possible philological, preserve the aura contained in this casket of the material culture of sixty years of Soviet history?

This article proposes that the Fordist model of industrial standardization enabled and empowered the Soviets to enact distinctly socialist, decentralized, urban patterns. It follows the design of the Kharkiv Tractor Factory (KhTZ) and the socialist city (sotsgorod) to house its workers, built outside of the first capital of Soviet Ukraine between 1930 and 1931. The near-impossible schedule of Stalin’s hyperindustrialization drive, known as the first Five-Year Plan (1928-1932), limited the options both tractor factory and sotsgorod designers could pursue, which made easily replicable architectural types and models particularly attractive. Once tested on an experimental site like KhTZ, a type deemed successful joined the ranks of those ready for slight adjustment—a process known as priviazka in Soviet architectural discourse—and export to far-flung sites in the Soviet sphere.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werde ich mich mit den Arbeiterklubs in Russland beschäftigen. Die Arbeit gliedert sich in zwei Teile. Im ersten Teil werde ich die Geschichte der Arbeiterklubs als Kulturinstitution bis zu den dreißiger Jahren, und zwar ihre Entstehung im zaristischen Russland, ihre Umwandlung am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts und ihre Entwicklung nach der Oktoberrevolution, behandeln und auf das Kulturprogramm, d.h. die theoretischen Richtlinien und die konkreten Angebote der Arbeiterklubs, eingehen. Im zweiten Teil werde ich mich mit den Arbeiterklubs als architektonisches Phänomen beschäftigen. Nach einer kurzen Einführung über die architektonische Stilrichtung des Konstruktivismus und über das Leben und das Werk des Moskauer Architekten Konstantin Melnikow, werde ich die wichtigsten von ihm entworfenen Arbeiterklubs vorstellen und schließlich ihre gemeinsamen Merkmale darstellen. Gestützt habe ich mich vorwiegend auf zwei deutschsprachige Monographien zum Thema Arbeiterklubs, und zwar die von Christiane Post und von Gabriele Gorzka. Dazu habe ich zwei Monographien über Konstantin Melnikow verwendet, wo u.a. seine Arbeiterklubs analysiert werden. Für die photographische Dokumentation habe ich Internetquellen verwendet.

The memorial complex of Tsitsernakaberd in Yerevan is  analysed as an architectural and symbolic entity in relation to the Armenian national identity in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide. How does this Soviet­ era structure fulfil its role as a genocide memorial today, including its function as a forced substitute for the hundreds of holy places and the culture and life connected with them?

From the end of the First World War Kaunas, second biggest city of Lithuania, developed thanks to urban enlargements during Interwar, soviet and post- soviet period.
The modern part of Kaunas, outside the historical centre, was built mainly during the 1920s and the 1930s, when it was proclaimed new temporary capital of Lithuania after the polish occupation of Vilnius. In this period, following international artistic waves born in Western Europe and America, like Modernism, Functionalism and Art Deco, the most symbolic buildings of Kaunas were realised, still considered heritage of national importance and promoted by the municipality.
After the Second World War, Lithuania became a soviet republic and Kaunas was transformed in industrial centre; by the way, soviet regime could never impose itself totally in the field of architecture, since the bond with pre- war culture was too strong. So, together with examples of "pure socialist architecture", even soviet buildings influenced by interwar period and western- origin artistic movements were created.
The post- soviet period, from 1991, has been characterised by a return to Interwar architecture; many contemporary buildings are inspired to Interwar ones, while soviet heritage is under process of demolition or transformation, raising debates between schools of thought about preserving or erasing it.
The previous century and the beginning of the 21st century have left interesting architectural heritage rich in symbology and transmission of values; sometimes it is appreciated, sometimes hated and deleted, sometimes criticized but conserved. Kaunas, city of a democratic republic not oppressed anymore after the fall of the Soviet Union, is trying to rebuild its past, overcoming its "trauma" and showing its history to the international scenario.

This study is motivated by the lack of literature available on the photography of late Soviet architecture. The aim of the dissertation is to guide the reader through the history and architectural aspirations of the Eastern Bloc, debunk its western stereotypes that it was mass-produced and lacked creativity, and to understand the motivations behind the recent fascination with socialist architecture in photography. This will be accomplished through analysis of the work of photographers such as Frederic Chaubin, Jan Kampeaners, Christopher Herwig and original postcards from the era. Their work provides a retrospective and is a crucial documentation of a period that is slowly decaying. These photographers had different approaches to the late Soviet architecture and its legacy. I’m going to analyze the work of these photographers in relation to ‘Late Photography’ a term introduced by David Campany.

На основе впервые вводимых в научный оборот архивных источников и расширенной базе материалов специализированной современной событиям периодической печати, автор предлагает по-новому взглянуть на такой малоизученный аспект истории отечественной архитектуры, как строительство автомобильных гаражей в Москве в 1920-е гг. Автор рассматривает утраченные и практически неизвестные сегодня объекты и производит их атрибуцию, уточняя местонахождение, авторство и датировки строений. Также будет уделено внимание процессу функциональной трансформации и укрупнения советского гаража и рецепции зарубежного опыта развития автомобильной инфраструктуры.

Dealing with the socialist urban legacy proved to become one of main challenges for the cities of Eastern Europe in the last decades. The fall of socialism found most of the socialist urban areas either as "rejected" heritage or as a sort of "devastated" spaces which had lost their functional meaning, symbolic significance, and any clear narratives. In such conditions, it is particularly important to watch out for those processes, which enable socialist urban legacy to acquire new languages and symbols in order to be included into the current social dynamics. This article explores the potential of the world modernist heritage discourse in giving a new approach to interpreting urban legacy of socialist era. Over the past decade, the sharp increase in the activities around rethinking and revitalization of modernist heritage turned into a global trend. For Eastern Europe modernist legacy appeared to become a certain lens, through which it is possible to explore various visions of the Eastern European urban past within different contexts. The article seeks to reveal how the global discourse of modernist heritage influences current perceptions and attitudes towards the socialist urban legacy in the Eastern European countries, and aims to find out to what extent it facilitates integration of this legacy into changing symbolic contexts.

During the postwar period, the architectural discourses and developments taking place in Estonia, annexed to the Soviet Union in 1940 as the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic (ESSR), were fairly consistent with those of the vast socialist conglomerate. The forcibly introduced, pseudo-classicism of the Stalinist period was followed by a decree of 'abolishing the excesses' from Khruchchev in 1954, implementing a decisive turn towards the rationalization and the industrialization of the building processes in addition to the development of standardized typologies for the cities and in the countryside. Yet beginning in the late 1960s, the growth and economic independence of the collective farms (kolkhozes) in addition to the establishment of a special state design office for them (EKE Projekt) brought about a unique phenomenon of progressive and imaginative rural architecture in Estonia. Here a younger generation of architects found work and were able to experiment with form, spatial program, and materials. Rural architecture was subject to relatively weak ideological controls so it is perhaps not surprising that rural building became the testing ground of innovative ideas and the setting to pursue contextual strategies that explored local identity or expressed a resistant position towards Soviet influence, and engaged in a dialogue with local traditions. The current article discusses four Estonian women architects whose main body of work was realized in rural or kolkhoz environments beginning in the early 1960s and continuing through the 1980s: Valve Pormeister, Ell Väärtnõu, Meeli Truu and Marika Lõoke.

“THE NEW MODERNISM” IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF SOVIET PERIOD GEORGIA

Attention of world architecture magazines suddenly attracted Tbilisi in 1974: A new building was built in Tbilisi this year – The ministry of way construction (architects: George Chakhava, Zurab Jalagania). No one was indifferent to this original and attractive architecture. Many magazine published the photos of Ministry building even in the Soviet period and abroad.
Today even after 40 years passed we can consider it from
the perspective of time as the part of the process of the Georgian
architecture and we can represent it in historical context.
In 1960s appeared a “New Wave” in the Georgian Soviet
architecture: Severity of Stalinist Empire’s building was changed
by airy, light buildings. The 1970s was the logical continuation
of architectural direction of the previous decades.
Sports Palace, the hotel “Iveria”, Philarmonia and other
buildings are the result of the new stage in the history of the
Georgian architecture. Artistic aspirations in this period was
partially connected and is similar to those processes what
was seemed in avant-garde architecture of 1920s and was
dropped because of the political-ideological dictate. 1960-70-
ies architecture introduces the innovation and free approach,
what encourages us to separate this stage in the history of the
Georgian architecture as “the New Period of Modernism”.

Conferencia impartida el miércoles 28 de febrero de 2018 en el IES Antonio Machado de Soria, dentro del curso La Revolución Rusa: evolución, repercusiones y consecuencias". Organizado por el Centro de Formación del Profesorado e Innovación Educativa de Soria.

Factories of Motion: On the Problems of Designing Railway Stations in Poland in the 60s and 70s.

The work of architects employed during the communist regime in Polish state design offices, which significantly influenced the shape of the contemporary built environment, is often perceived as self-evident, worthless, and rarely is a subject of deep analysis and reflection. This text is an attempt to discuss such "dull" state-produced architecture, through the example of late-modern railway stations and stops. Similarities in their design stem from a set of far-sighted rules shaping the design of the railway, which were elaborated in the late 50s but brought widespread effects only in the 60s. At that time a kind of functional canon of railway stations and stops had been established. According to those general functional principles, dozens of railway stations were built in various architectural forms in the period of intense investments during the 60s and 70s. This article analyzes some of the best and most interesting examples of the architecture of railway stations in the People's Republic of Poland. Focusing on objects of small and medium size, it complements the existing research concerning large stations such as in Katowice and Warsaw, with less familiar "peripheral" realizations. These structures appear to be representative of architects' average skill and taste located between architectural conservatism and experimental extremes.

In 1931, the radical architect Ivan Il’ič Leonidov was sent 2800 kilometres northeast of Moscow to take part in the construction of Igarka, the Soviet Union’s new port in the Arctic.  Presented as an inscription of the future in the vast silence of Siberia, the act in fact represented a geographical coincidence of Leonidov and the indigenous language Ket, into whose traditional territory the city had been incised.  Fewer than ten fluent speakers of Ket remain today.  The language is an isolate, whose grammatical structures offer a model of reality unrelated to those of the Indo-European languages hegemonic in canonical discussion of Leonidov’s work.  Ket has not previously been employed as a medium of academic architectural interpretation.  This is an omission.
Orbiting an encounter between Ket linguist Dr Zoâ Vasil’evna Maksunova and Leonidov’s architectural fantasy The City of the Sun, this transdisciplinary work focuses on the uncertain and creative processes of hybridisation, fiction-making and translation as both its subjects and its means of research practice.  Linguistic theory is fused with historical eclecticisms to question diverse interpretations of Siberia, Igarka’s landscape and indigenous positionality, while the work’s graphical elements and lyrical prose challenge conventional ways in which architectural history and knowledge are constructed.

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En 1931 l’architecte radical Ivan Ilitch Leonidov fut envoyé à 2800 kilomètres au nord-est de Moscou afin de prendre part à la construction d’Igarka, port neuf de l’Union soviétique dans l’Arctique.  Présenté comme une inscription de l’avenir sur le vaste silence de la Sibérie, l’acte représente plutôt une coïncidence géographique de l’architecte et de la langue autochtone ket, sur le territoire de laquelle la ville a été délimitée.  Il reste moins de dix personnes qui parlent couramment le ket aujourd’hui.  La langue est un isolat dont les structures grammaticales donnent un modèle de réalité qui ni concorde avec ni appartient aux celles de la famille indo-européenne, hégémonique dans l’analyse canonique de l’œuvre de Leonidov.  L’interprétation académique d’architecture n’a pas encore eu lieu grâce à l’intermédiaire de la langue ket.  Cela représente une absence.

En décriant une orbite autour d’une rencontre entre la linguiste ket Dr Zoâ Vasil’evna Maksunova et un projet architectural fabuleux d’Ivan Leonidov, « La Cité du Soleil », cette œuvre transdisciplinaire se concentre sur les processus incertains et créatifs de la traduction, la réalisation de la fiction et la créolisation linguistique : celles-ci constituent à la fois les sujets et les moyens de pratique de la recherche.  L’écriture fait fusionner théories linguistiques avec histories éclectiques de la représentation de la Sibérie et des relations autochtones-Soviétiques à l’Asie du nord, alors que le graphisme et la structure de l’argumentation présentent un challenge aux manières conventionnelles par lesquelles les histoires et la connaissance de l’architecture sont construites.

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Im Jahr 1931 wurde der Architekt Ivan Il’icˇ Leonidov 2800 Kilometer nordöstlich von Moskau geschickt, um beim Bau des neuen sowjetischen Arktishafens Igarka
zu helfen. Die Stadt, die als Einschreibung der Zukunft in die riesige Leere Sibiriens propagiert wurde, stand in Wirklichkeit auf dem angestammten Territorium der Sprecherinnen und Sprecher der indigenen Sprache Ket. Heute von weniger als zwanzig Personen  iessend beherrscht, bietet diese isolierte Sprache ein gramma­ tikalisches Modell der Realität, das in keinem Bezug zu den indoeuropäischen Sprachstrukturen steht.

Diese transdisziplinäre Studie nutzt die Ket­Sprache als Medium der wissenschaft­ lichen Auseinandersetzung mit Architektur. Sie entwirft eine Begegnung zwischen Leonidovs fantastischen Architekturzeichnungen (Die Stadt der Sonne) und der Ket­ Muttersprachlerin und Linguistin Dr. Zoâ Vasil’evna Maksunova, um die unsicheren, kreativen Prozesse der Hybridisierung, der Fiktion und der Übersetzung als Gegen­ stände und Mittel des Forschens aufzuzeigen. Linguistische Theorie wird mit histo­ rischen Eklektizismen verschmolzen, um verschiedene Lesarten von Sibirien, Igarkas Landschaft und der indigenen Positionalität zu hinterfragen. Zugleich stellen die gra schen Elemente und die lyrische Prosa der Studie die konventionellen Wege der Konstruktion von Architekturgeschichte und ­wissen infrage.

The plan for modernizing the center of Chisinau elaborated by a project team led by A. Shchiusev after World War Two remained permanently in the agenda of local authorities. It was reconsidered many times, and it was viewed constantly as one of the key elements in the development of the city. Even after the reconstruction of the city, Chisinau is considered as a locality with the largest number of preserved historic buildings. The status of historic city of Chisinau was reconfirmed in 1993, when by the Decision of the Parliament nr. 1531-XII from the 22nd of June 1993 the historic core of the city, together with a large number of historic buildings, separated from now on, was declared as a historic and architectural monument of national importance, being included in the Register of Monuments of the Republic of Moldova protected by the state. Nevertheless, no municipal structures for protecting, restoring and valuing the architectural patrimony of the capital have been created whatsoever.

Институт философии и права УрО РАН, 620990, Екатеринбург, ул. Софьи Ковалевской, 16 Уральский федеральный университет, 620083, Екатеринбург, ул. Ленина, 51 msilchenko@mail.ru Анализируются особенности утверждения конструкта «социалистического города» в интеллектуальных дискуссиях 1920-1930-х гг., рассматриваются его нормативная составляющая, ценностные основания и регулятивные свойства. Особое внимание уделяется символической трансформации образа соцгорода в современном риторическом контексте. Обосновывается существование трёх основных типов дискурса, в которых образ социалистического города воспроизводится в современных условиях. Анализируются логика их использования, ключевые смысловые акценты и общие символические контуры. В частности, отмечается, что утверждение риторики «наследия» было связано с возможностью сохранить символическую дистанцию по отношению к советскому прошлому и вывести разговор о районах советской застройки за пределы социально-политического контекста. При этом если риторика «наследия» позволяла обозначить символические контуры пространства социалистических городов, фиксируя их в общественном восприятии, то «утопический» дискурс смог предложить качественно новые рамки для интерпретации этих пространств, наполнив их новыми смыслами и значениями и тем самым сформировав новый язык описания. На основании анализа дискуссий 1920-1930-х гг. и современных языков описания делается вывод о том, что дискурсивная составляющая стала одним из ключевых элементов, определивших характер развития социалистических городов, не просто играя роль символического сопровождения градостроительных изменений, но и выполняя функцию важнейшего идеологического и социального регулятора.

In 1931, the Soviet architect Ivan Il’ich Leonidov was sent 2,800km northeast of Moscow to help to design the Soviet Union’s new arctic port, Igarka: a pioneering something, inscribed into the vast nothing of Northern Siberia; that, anyway, is how the act was represented.  The Igarka region was, however, traditional territory of the indigenous, isolate Ket language, which is entirely unrelated to the Indo-European family that dominates architectural discourse.  Ket is spoken today – to any degree of fluency – by fewer than 70 people.  When it is used to represent an interpretation of architecture, the structures by which it organises experience, the distinctions it inscribes into the landscape, the specific relationships it establishes between facets of reality – the selections, in other words, that it makes in encoding information – are as with all languages, unique.  Yet until 2013, academic discussion of Leonidov’s fantastical, utopian architecture had never taken place in the medium of the Ket language.  This is an omission.  What alternative insight might be overlooked?
Leonidov’s City of the Sun itself evades certain definition, provoking multiple and irreconcilable interpretations: the obscure drawings of which it is comprised do not show a fixed vision for which to aim, but intricate us in the perpetuated contestation of what the future could, or should, be.  The City is an invitation to cant.  If it be utopia, it is utopia not as destination, but as fractious, negotiated journey.  This same irresolvability emerges in the act of translation, which as a research practice is my attempt to enact Leonidov’s proposed leap into a void of constant, productive uncertainty – to destabilise any ossified perspective or assumptions when approaching his work.  Or to perpetually attempt to.  This paper exposes some of the shards that have resulted from a collision provoked between Ivan Leonidov’s City of the Sun, and the grammar of Ket.

ESCAPE FROM THE PAST OR IN THE PAST
(The period of Post-Soviet Architecture in Georgia)
Almost a quarter of a century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union. It’s quite a long period for history as well as for architecture, which passed the certain stages in Georgia after this historical event and gave us contradictory picture of directions. What does the recent 20 years’ Architecture express in Georgia? What course did it choose? These issues are discussed in this work.When we analyze the architecture of the last decades, we see ideological problem-solving attempts of a new society and search for new target. There is contradictory picture: on the one hand orientation is being on the Georgian architecture of middle centuries, on creation of establishing illusion of traditions in repeating artistic forms of the past epochs. On the other hand, the post-Soviet architecture also reveals that this epoch is striving to enter the Western civilization, escape the Soviet period and its historical and cultural experiences.

Like in many other places, in the USSR the underground pedestrian passages were introduced to facilitate the fluidity of car traffic, following the technological process and modernisation of socialist society. In some cases special attention was given to their aesthetics; it is enough to remember the way they were decorated and maintained during the socialist period, but also to recall the feeling of cleanliness and brightness that the underground passages were irradiating at that time  (image 1, Creanga st). Later on, in the period of the so called transition, along with the collapse or degradation of public services/maintenance, these spaces have turned to decay and became sanctuaries for homeless people, suspicious and “unfriendly zones”, rather to avoid.

A ghost boulevard is haunting the city

A ghost boulevard is haunting the city and it is difficult to anticipate if it will be build as it happen in Yerevan or not. What we certainly could observe is that some building already popped-up along the red lines delimited by planed boulevard in the Master Plan and this are the signs that in fact the boulevard is slowly materializing. Following the fast tempo in which the malls are built for current consumption and the residential blocks – investments that bring profit, we can affirm that the city has many chances to become a dormitory-city with a historic center which gradually transforms into an extended commercial complex and which practically returns to its initial form of provincial fair.
It is clear that D.Cantemir boulevard is not a real necessity for the inhabitants and will affect severely the city center on many levels and the question is what shell we do to stop it?