In the previous episode I criticized the rationalists/formalists of ASNOVA. This time I’ll discuss the other modernist trend in Soviet architecture, constructivism/utilitarianism, who were organized into the Group of contemporary architects (OSA), led by such people as Moisei Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers. In 1930 OSA changed its name to SASS (Section of Architects for Socialist Construction).
The OSA was also “joined by Ilya Golosov and his brother Panteleimon Golosov (1882-1945). The organization included Mikhail Barshch (1904-1 976), Andrei Burov (1900-1975), Ivan Nikolaev (1901-1979), Georgy Orlov (1901-1985), and Anatoly Fisenko (1902-1983), OSA became the largest and most influential among the innovative associations, extending its activities to many cities of Russia. The Sovremennaya arkhitektura (Contemporary Architecture) journal, which the organization began to publish in 1926, remained till the beginning of the 1930s the only architectural journal published in Russia on a regular basis.” (Andreĭ Vladimirovich Ikonnikov, Russian architecture of the Soviet period, pp. 99-100)
Just like the rationalists, constructivists also rejected past tradition. I’m not going to explain why that’s anti-marxist here, because I’ve already done so in the previous episode.
“Constructivism lead by M. Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers announced a complete break with past architectural traditions (order system, national architect school) and proclaimed utilitarianism and “industriality” of architecture. Creative problem-solving was done by the representatives of the constructivist school by means of merging various rectangular components without decoration.” (A. Bazdyrev, “History of Soviet Architecture: From Palaces to Boxes)
Initially there was a totally bourgeois constructivist trend, which advocated “pure art”, but very quickly after the October Revolution, Soviet Constructivists correctly rejected the bourgeois notion of “art for art’s sake” and instead considered that art must be socially useful. However, their view of the social utility of art was rather warped. They explicitly rejected the strive for aesthetic beauty. The constructivists of OSA believed that form was totally secondary and would emerge from the building’s function. Many of their works were also supposed to be studies revealing properties of materials.
“According to the [constructivist OSA] group’s organizational declaration, form would flow from function, “from a given building’s purpose, and from its material, construction, and other conditions of production.” But whether guided by form or function, the new architecture according to both groups would prove to be the transformer of life. Whereas ASNOVA looked to the psychological effect that new architectural forms would have on a person viewing the structure from the outside, OSA placed its faith in the radical effect that functional design of the work and home environment would have “on the structure of human life—productive, social, and personal,” that is, upon the person within the building.” (Hugh D. Hudson, Blueprints and blood: the Stalinization of Soviet architecture, 1917-1937, p. 24)
What Hudson is trying to say, is that while ASNOVA believed the appearance of the buildings would mentally condition people, OSA believed the functional structuring of the building would alter social relationships. This was their theory of the so-called “social condenser”. There is a grain of truth in both of their positions, but they’re vulgarized and taken to extreme. Both styles think metaphysically, separating form and content.
“Following their “production” principle, constructivists thought that, rather than reflect reality, the new art ought to be production-oriented, creating the material environment for life and even ordering life itself. They advocated utilitarian things, instead of works of art in the traditional sense. Ascetic utility, attributed by constructivists to the form of things, was, in their view, a feature of proletarian culture as opposed to consumerism. This asceticism began to acquire the makings of the style adopted by constructivist architecture. The Palace of Labour, designed by the Vesnin brothers, was an early example of this…
“The building as the social condenser of the epoch” was the declared goal; it was seen as the vehicle for the organization of life. Architecture began with the functional forms of the organization of life, the building thought of as the shell for those forms. Constructivists held that a building’s concept should proceed from inside outwards, a belief in which they actually followed the architects of Art Nouveau, although rejecting the latter trend totally.” (Ikonnikov, p. 99-100)
“Looking at architecture from the inside, OSA (the constructivists, or, as their enemies often referred to them, the “utilitarians”) argued that one transformed people by altering the ways in which they interacted with one another within an environment, within a particular building or assemblage of buildings. They believed that human nature could be transformed by an environment that encouraged rationality, cooperation, and community; the new architecture should produce buildings that maximized efficiency and encouraged social interaction while preserving individuality. The revolution similarly was the result of internal changes within the individual and thereby throughout society; it occurred one individual at a time.” (Hudson, pp. 204-205)
Again, the idea is not totally wrong, but it demonstrates non-dialectical metaphysical thinking. The constructivists don’t look at the community, bloc and city as a whole unit, but instead start from an individual building and an individual person.
Furthermore, while it is true that the built environment does change people’s behaviors and facilitates certain relationships, this theory was often used to justify ultra-left theories that tried to crudely coerce people into the utopian vision of the architect. Some constructivists wanted to design extremely ascetic apartment buildings, which were really dorms where people only had a tiny “cell” with almost no furniture, and nearly all aspects of life besides sleeping were supposed to take place in collective rooms. Or children were to live in a building separated from their parents, being raised “collectively” without a private family, with a tunnel connecting the house of the children and the house of the parents.
What these constructivist architects didn’t realize, is that economic life is what changes the way people live, not simply architectural design or technology. Architecture and technology have an impact, but they usually arise from economics and shouldn’t go against it. Commune houses were popular when people had the economic necessity of sharing the scarce apartment space or of sharing housework, but that was regardless of architecture. The family will also undergo changes, but it cannot be forced by such simplistic design choices.
Like I said in a previous episode, in the civil war and even after it, commune houses were more popular due to the extreme shortage of houses, necessity to share resources and collaborate in house work. Ultra-leftists made a “virtue out of necessity”, claiming that this was not due to poverty but marked a swift march to communism. As the country began to industrialize the situation changed. In the late 1920s and early 1930s the so-called “transitional houses” became more popular. They allowed people to choose how much to collectivize. They made it possible to have a private kitchen, private rooms etc., but also to have communal rooms.
“Cubicles and compartments for rooms, with furniture turned into equipment, were aggressively opposed to the personal, the individual. Man found himself dwarfed by a schematized, speculative model of life’s functions. The decision adopted on May 16, 1930, by the Central Committee of the Communist Party on the “Work of Restructuring the Life Style” pointed to the highly dangerous consequences of vulgarizing people’s life style concepts. The decision denounced the “quite unfounded and thus extremely harmful attempts … at clearing ‘at one leap’ the hurdles in the way of the socialist restructuring of the everyday life style” (Ikonnikov, p. 127)
“on May 16 the Central Committee issued an alarming injunction regarding the perestrojka of “socialist settlements.” The injunction stated:
“Along with the advance of the [reconstruction] of the socialist byt, certain unfounded, semi-fantastic and therefore harmful experiments are conducted by some comrades (Sabsovich, in part Larin and others) who want to jump “in one leap” over the obstacles that stand on the road to the socialist reconstruction of the way of life””. The C.C. document warned that “utopian undertakings such as the abolition of the family and marriage, and separating the children from their parents in favor of collective rearing would represent an enormous waste of available resources, and discredit severely the very idea of a socialist reconstruction of the way of life (byt).” The accused architects and planners were chastised for their “opportunism” and “far-leftist phraseology”” (Danilo Udovicki-Selb, Soviet Architectural Avant-Gardes: Architecture and Stalin’s Revolution from Above, 1928-1938, p. 120. The page numbers refer to the ebook version)
In the 1920s and early 1930s public utilities such as kindergartens, schools, laundries, restaurants etc. were built in many apartment buildings. This was a more rational and acceptable way of collectivizing household work without forcing everyone into a commune home. However, during socialist construction what turned out to be the most adequate model, was to include kindergartens, restaurants, sometimes schools and other services, with workplaces instead of apartment buildings.
The family underwent a change, but instead of children being taken away from their parents, the community and state instead helped the family and participated in raising children. These developments put an end to many of the extremist proposals of the constructivists.
Although the constructivists even explicitly rejected beauty, their designs still have a kind of “style” and they often romanticized machines.
“Ginzburg… held that the machine manifested perfection, for in it there were no unnecessary decorative elements. All parts were the products of absolute necessity, from which nothing could be added or subtracted without disrupting their workings.” (Hudson, p. 99)
A marxist critic described the constructivists as “vulgar technicalists” (A. I. Mikhailov, “Formalism in Soviet architecture”, 1932)
A VOPRA declaration states ““We reject constructivism, which falls into an aesthetic relish of structures, into imitation of the external forms of industrial technology, on the one hand, and goes into self-sufficient technicism and machine fetishism, on the other.
We reject the theory of constructivists, built on vulgar materialism, and their formal-technical functionalism as a method of working and analyzing architecture…
Constructivism, which led to the denial of art and its replacement with technology, engineering, was a reflection in the architecture of the psycho-ideology of large-capitalist groups of the bourgeoisie, the conductor of which was the technical intelligentsia with its characteristic machine fetishism… and vulgar materialism.” (K. Mikhailov, “VOPRA—ASNOVA—SASS”, 1931)
“Constructivism, as we know, is a type of formalism, largely artificially transplanted from the field of fine arts*. The common fertile soil of constructivism in both fine arts and architecture is the artistic movements of the pre- and post-war capitalist West.
Constructivism – functionalism in the West – was a natural product of capitalist rationalization, based on a sharp increase in exploitation, the transformation of the worker into a slave and an appendage to the machine, and on the complete rejection of any “fig leaves” of ideology and aesthetics. The transfer of the ideas of constructivism-functionalism to the soil of Soviet art meant a complete misunderstanding of the deepest fundamental difference between capitalist and socialist technology, between capitalist rationalization and the development of the productive forces of the Land of Socialism.” (N. Y. Kolli, “Tasks of Soviet architecture: The main stages of the development of Soviet architecture”, 1937)
*Here Kolli calls constructivism a type of formalism, because marxism generally considers all non-realistic art formalistic. This is not to be confused with ASNOVA’s rationalism.
“It should be emphasized that constructivism in world architecture according to all its ideological meaning directly follows from the content of the decadent bourgeois culture of the period of imperialism…
Constructivism was and remains a type of bourgeois formalism in architecture. The formalistic essence of constructivism consists in that it tries to emasculate the ideological and figurative content of architecture and turn it into an appendage of technology, machines. Thus, constructivism reflects the position in which a person finds himself in the bourgeois society, enslaved by capitalist exploitation, capitalist technology…
So, on the one hand, the anti-people, exploitative nature of capitalistic society, and on the other hand, its complete ideological impoverishment determines the common character of the theories created by bourgeois art critics about “functionality” in architecture, about “rationalism of architectural thinking”, about “super-innovation of architectural images and forms”, etc. In practice, all these theories led and lead to box houses or to modern American trailers, i.e. to those resembling a dwelling for animals to mobile shacks in which American workers are forced to live.” (Mikhail Tsapenko, On the realistic foundations of Soviet architecture, p. 69)
In the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Soviet rationalists and constructivists differed somewhat from their western counterparts:
“constructivists began much earlier to raise deeper questions about a new type of housing, about the connection between architecture and new social relations. The formalists turned out to be more conservative… Constructivists embraced mechanical materialism, while formalists represented the most reactionary tendencies of idealism… only recently have some formalists (in particular, young people) begun to show a tendency towards reconstruction.” (A. I. Mikhailov, “Formalism in Soviet architecture”, 1932)
A constructivist named Gan proclaimed the slogan of “ruthless war against art”. This sentiment was shared by other constructivists too and it was exactly analogous to the slogan of the mechanist philosophers who declared “war against philosophy” and “throw philosophy overboard” (see my post about the debate between the mechanists and dialectical philosophers). Thus the constructivists were both ideologically connected with mechanical and vulgar materialism and not dialectical materialism, but also because of their naturalist fetishization of machines and because of their denial of the psychological and ideological effect of aesthetic forms.
The organization of proletarian architects VOPRA stated “by “denying art” OSA was “objectively counterrevolutionary” and that OSA’s understanding of “content” as the organization in a given construction of individual life functions, social functions, and productive functions was “pure Menshevik idealism.” OSA’s concern with functionality was merely Bogdanovism and mechanism, sins that OSA continued to defend against Marxist criticism.” (Hudson, pp. 129-130)
It should be mentioned that the positions of VOPRA were also not without problems, and in a later episode I will criticize the position of the vopraists. It should also be mentioned for the sake of clarity that while both ASNOVA and OSA were criticized as Bogdanovist, it was for different reasons. They both advocated views similar to Bogdanov’s proletkult, and ASNOVA held philosophical views analogous to Bogdanov’s empiriocriticism. OSA on the other hand held views similar to Bogdanov’s theory of “tektology”, a mechanist theory which Bukharin tried to use to distort dialectical materialism.
The constructivists were linked with the opportunist Bukharin, an influential supporter of philosophical mechanicism and class conciliation:
“Bukharin’s concept of periods of social harmony gave additional [supposedly] Marxist support to [constructivist] Ginzburg’s “law of the development of style,” according to which NEP Russia was in a period of youthful development leading to its mature period. Ginzburg’s image of society, the clock, could hardly have been more in keeping with Bukharin’s notion of social harmony. Both Bukharin and the members of OSA, who were dependent on his philosophical analysis for the basis of their architectural theory, therefore stressed the need for social order, harmony, and cooperation, and decried the Civil War model of conflict and civil strife that had been pushed by the Stalin leadership since 1927.” (Hudson, p. 82)
Despite their rivalry with the rationalists, the constructivists had much more in common with them than was different. The rationalists largely agreed with idealist suprematism and the suprematist El Lissitzky was a member of ASNOVA. However, El Lissitzky is also often described as a constructivist and he was very influential for constructivism. The leading constructivist designer Tatlin studied under the founder of suprematism Malevich.
Both constructivism and rationalism seem like offshoots of suprematism. ASNOVA supported pure abstraction and “art for art’s sake”. This was also supported by bourgeois constructivists, but most Soviet constructivists started to disagree with it. El Lissitzky himself, although a suprematist, started to think that art must serve an immediate political function, and designed the famous propaganda poster Beat the whites with the red wedge.
A marxist critic wrote that “the closeness of ASNOVA formalism with the formalistic-inventive tendencies of constructivism is revealed. This is all the more interesting because both movements, as already mentioned, view each other as hostile. And yet, [constructivist] Leonidov and his followers have a lot in common with Lissitzky or Melnikov.
This closeness goes back to the common roots of formalism in ideological terms and to the common continuity with formalistic non-objective movements in fine art.
In this regard, it is interesting that at one time the constructivists tried to protect K. Malevich, one of the most prominent representatives of formalism (Suprematism). Presenting K. Malevich as a master of “pure” quests, who broke away from serving the bourgeois class and did not come to the proletariat, i.e., as a non-class artist, [constructivist] A. Gan wrote: “But if in the volumetric compositions of Suprematism there are no everyday useful properties of a thing, i.e. … his works do not have a socially concrete value, without which modern architecture is not architecture, then in the sense of an abstract search for a new form, as such, they are of great importance…
The novelty, purity and originality of abstract Suprematist compositions will undoubtedly foster a new psyche in the perception of volumetric-spatial masses. This will be a great merit of Malevich. And the inclusion of his practical work in the university will teach our youth to do their academic work in a new way and in terms of quality.” [“S. A.”. 1927, p. 3]” (A. I. Mikhailov, “Formalism in Soviet architecture”, 1932)
And the marxist writer further asks, if constructivists support suprematism, what real difference do they have with rationalism/formalism?
“But, one might ask, is there a fundamental difference between the Suprematist architectons of K. Malevich and the abstractions of the formalists? There is no fundamental difference. Recognizing the “Suprematist architects”, we must also accept the works of the Formalists.
Gan, of course, perfectly understands all the inconvenience of this situation and hastens to assure the reader that the projects of the formalists are “atavistic” and “heavy”, and therefore cannot claim to be close to the works of Malevich. The evidence is clearly strained and inconclusive. In turn, Malevich hastened to dissociate himself from the constructivists: “I find it,” he wrote to the editors of “S. A.”, “that your magazine diverges from the paths of architecture and, being a constructivist magazine, therefore has nothing in common with art.”
He, Malevich, followed the path that led to “modern” art, which is architecture. [“S. A.”, 1928, No. 5]
What conclusions can be drawn from all this? Despite all the divisions, there turned out to be something in common between constructivism and formalism, which forced the constructivists to advertise Malevich so intensely, and on the other hand, they had to indirectly amnesty a number of qualities of architectural formalism.
Malevich himself emphasized his closeness to the formalists, since he brought to the fore the tasks of aesthetic influence.
This example revealed the commonality that connects all these groups: the promotion of formal-abstract quests as a method of resolving architectural (for the formalists and Malevich, primarily aesthetic) problems.
This commonality also finds its expression in architectural practice. If we take the works of [OSA member] Leonidov, [ASNOVA member] Melnikov [who is still often called a constructivist], [ASNOVA leader] Ladovsky and others, we will see that, despite all the differences, they are united by highlighting the form, reducing the architectural task to achieving a visual and aesthetic sensation from the combination of structures and forms (their lightness or heaviness, spatiality etc.).
The subordination of all aspects of architecture to preconceived form or design is also clearly revealed in their work.
For example, [ASNOVA member] Lissitzky, in the project of the Pravda plant, aims to symbolize the proletariat of five countries through the alternation of five identical buildings and sacrifices all aspects of design and expressiveness to this abstract symbol.
Melnikov sacrifices the content of the architectural task to the game of volumes and masses (for example, bulging cubes), which apparently also symbolize and express something.
Leonidov (project of the Lenin Library, the Palace of Culture of the Proletarsky District, etc.) also reduces the architectural task to some preconceived forms (ball, vertical, etc.).
The difference is that Leonidov preserved the form of machines and things of “industrial culture,” while the formalists prefer to start from the form “in general,” from the impersonal geometric form.
But, we repeat, this difference does not destroy their connection with a common formalist basis.
Thus, the front of formalism is not closed by one association (ASNOVA); in its various manifestations it also finds a place in the ranks of constructivists.” (A. I. Mikhailov, “Formalism in Soviet architecture”, 1932)
“One of the most striking examples of these kinds of absurd formalistic exercises was the project for the “Monument to the Third International”, the so-called “Tatlin Tower”, in the form of a spiral composition. Lower floors of this tower had the shape of a cube, which, according to the author, were supposed to rotate around its axis at the rate of one revolution per year. Middle floors were arranged like a pyramid and had to rotate at the rate of one revolution per month, and the upper cylinder at a speed of one rotation per day… The author (Tatlin) pompously wrote in the explanation to his project that “a spiral is a line of movement of a liberated humanity. The spiral is the perfect expression of liberation.”” (Tsapenko, p. 112)
Here Tatlin, one of the most famous constructivists, actually fully agrees with ASNOVA.
As Ikonnikov states, it is hard to see meaningful difference between the productions of the two warring groups:
“The OSA adherents regarded the organization of the life style as the basis for the architectural concept, while for the ASNOVA adepts it was the form meeting the system of visual perception and expressiveness. In the final analysis, the constructivists strove for expressiveness within the exigencies of the functional method, while the rationalists adopted a serious attitude to the functional organization and the design of the structure. For this reason, the results turned out to be similar, the differences revealing themselves mostly in the methods employed. In their debate, however, the constructivists and rationalists tended to take a recalcitrant attitude towards each other, and today their acrimonious debates may appear inexplicable.” (Ikonnikov, p. 100)
The OSA member Ivan Leonidov was condemned by VOPRA as the representative of the most reactionary tendency in left-wing architecture. Leonidovishness was described as encompassing all the negative qualities of both rationalism and constructivism:
“VOPRA’s Mordvinov succeeded in obtaining a resolution from the Graphic Arts Section of the Communist Academy on “The Petit-Bourgeois Trend in Architecture (Leonidovshchina).” According to the academy, “Leonidovishness” had emerged and taken shape as a consequence of incorrect architectural education in a number of faculties and institutes in the Soviet Union. Because of a lack of proletarian pedagogical forces in architecture, the leadership in these schools had fallen in to the hands of fellow-traveler constructivists and formalists. As a result, the negative sides of both of these deviations had taken root in the petit-bourgeois part of the student body, who took up, further developed, and eventually synthesized these errors in Leonidovishness, “the synthesis of all that is negative in constructivism and formalism.”… The root of Leonidovishness, the resolution decried, was a metaphysical-idealistic worldview and bourgeois individualism: “Leonidovshchina reflects the psycho-ideology of that part of the petite bourgeoisie that is displeased with Soviet reality, who have slid down in to a position foreign and hostile to proletariat construction, and who are objectively devoted to the camp of the class enemies of the proletariat.” (Hudson, p. 130)
El Lissitzky, who by now had started to take a position more in line with socialist construction “had beaten into the drum of Leonidov’s denigration… Lissitzky criticized in Arhitektura SSSR the young architect’s 1934 competition entry [the heavy industry comissariat] as a mere “theatrical stage set.”” (Danilo Udovicki-Selb, Soviet Architectural Avant-Gardes: Architecture and Stalin’s Revolution from Above, 1928-1938, p. 162)
The reactionary capitalist author Udovicki-Selb praises Leonidov and states that his absolutely best work is the competition entry for the Heavy Industry Comissariat. The enormous building in question is particularly horrific, and would’ve totally ruined the architectural landscape of the whole city. The monstrous building consists of two towers, one looking like an unfinished concrete bloc, the other like a tree trunk with mushrooms, while also looking like a factory chimney:
Along with him was also criticized “OSA’s Mikhail Okhitovich, whose arguments regarding the necessity of choice and respect for the individual drew the greatest fire: “Okhitovich is terribly concerned about individuality: the freedom of the individual—there one has his usual argument. But on the other hand he is very little concerned with the collective, with class (we have not forgotten that classes still exist, and those who ignore this fact unavoidably arrive at opportunism and petit-bourgeois utopia).” Okhitovich’s plans for individual workers’ homes were expressions of petit-bourgeois idylls. And his views on the significance of technology in determining the nature of socialist housing approximated those of the “social fascists”: he believed, Mikhailov claimed, that the proletarian revolution, in essence, was merely the completion of the technological revolution, thus completely ignoring the social revolution and the destruction of capitalism.” (Hudson, pp. 130-131)
The views of Okhitovich will be further discussed later, when I talk about the debate about city planning between “urbanists”, “anti-urbanists” and marxists. Okhitovich wasn’t wrong in demanding individual homes as opposed to apartment houses, although this is clearly wrong if it is seen as the only way to live, but Okhitovich advocated basically a far-right agrarian utopia where everybody lives in a little cottage far from everything.
A VOPRA declaration stated that Leonidovists consisted of rationalists and constructivists, who were starting to form a stable group holding a “positions hostile to proletarian construction” (Resolution of the Fine Art Section of the Institute of Lithuania and the ComAcademy on the petty-bourgeois direction in architecture (Leonidovism), adopted on December 20, 1930)
The declaration explains:
“Leonidovism, in its theory and practice, is a synthesis of everything negative that exists in constructivism and formalism. From constructivism, it learned the theory of the negation of architecture as art and the negation of art in general, thereby disarming the proletariat in the field of art. It mastered and deepened constructive arbitrariness and abstract invention. From the formalists – the fetishization of architecture, the abstraction of architectural forms, their separation from utilitarian content, ignoring in the design work the issues of the actual implementation of the structure, complete disregard for the efficiency of structures… This method grows out of the metaphysical-idealistic worldview and bourgeois individualism characteristic of the Leonidites.”
In other words, it includes the denial of aesthetics, taken from constructivism, but also takes the total abstraction and worship of pure form without function or social purpose, from the rationalists.
““Leonidovism” in architecture, by its inability to organically participate in socialist construction, by its flight from genuine work into illusory worlds (fetishization of one’s specialty) created for oneself, reflects the psycho-ideology of part of the petty bourgeoisie…
“Leonidism” is especially harmful in the field of personnel training. Instead of genuine study, persistent overcoming of difficulties in mastering technical and scientific material in the study of production and everyday life, it leads to the path of abstract-formalistic quests… to the path of baseless fantasy.
This leads to the fact that some of the graduating specialists, infected with “Leonidism”, reveal a complete inability to technically competently design even a small structure…
Thus, “Leonidism” not only brought great damage to the state in the matter of personnel training, but also objectively contributed to sabotage in production.” (Resolution of the Fine Art Section of the Institute of Lithuanian Languages of the Comacademy on the report of Comrade Mordvinov on the petty-bourgeois direction in architecture, adopted on December 20, 1930 // Soviet Architecture: No. 1-2: 1931. – P. 18.)
The OSA architects were not only philosophically linked with Bukharin, but also with Trotsky, who also supported the philosophical mechanists.
“the architects of OSA echoed their old theme that socialism depended upon internationalism , and in direct challenge to Stalin’s theory of “socialism in one country,” they thundered, “Socialism cannot be built upon ‘Russian’ technology”” (Hudson, p. 69) Here we can see how the bourgeoisie support Trotsky, claiming that Stalin’s theory goes against internationalism while Trotsky supposedly agrees with it.
Constructivists “Barshch, Vladimirov, Okhitovich, and Nikolai Sokolov attacked the notion, soon to be codified by Lazar Kaganovich, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, that Russia’s cities automatically had become socialist with the October Revolution… The authors went so far as to label traditional urban planning merely a “peculiar variant of bourgeois socialism” that intensified the contradiction between the city and the village.” (Hudson, p. 69)
Anti-communist Hudson naturally tries to ridicule marxist-leninist Kaganovich. The cities of the Soviet Union were socialist in the sense that power belonged to the workers, and they became socialist when the country became socialist. The cities were all reconstructed during the five year plans and later on, because Kaganovich and the Soviet government was well aware of the capitalist remnants. However, the trotskyists in OSA attacked Soviet cities as capitalist, because they wanted to deny that it was possible to build socialism in the Soviet Union, or because they considered that all tradition and history must be destroyed and that socialist cities have nothing in common with historical cities, or because many of them actually wanted to completely destroy all cities. This is the position known as “anti-urbanism” or disurbanism.
Some of them took the “urbanist” position, that people should live in extremely dense cities, where the whole city is fitted into 5 or 10 gigantic buildings housing tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In their view the old cities should be abandoned and people should move into these new ultra-dense, supposedly socialist cities.
OSA further attacked Kaganovich, trying to claim he supported the marginal utility theory and associate him with the far-right “Austrian school of economics” (Hudson, p. 69)
“members of OSA adopted their own version of Trotsky’s “law of combined development.” As early as 1926 Ginzburg wrote that although revolutionary Russia now led the world with ideas on new architecture, Western Europe and America still excelled with respect to technique, mechanization, and standardization. Dialectically, however, precisely because of Russia’s poverty and technological illiteracy, the country could jump immediately to the level of development pioneered in the West and then lead the world beyond the limits that bound the latter’s individualistic, unplanned, eclectic work. Such would be possible only, he continued, provided social planners made a radical break with past traditions and attitudes, with Russia’s old “atavistic perceptions.” The government’s response was crucial, for continued bureaucratic support of the old, traditional methods and forms would destroy the new architecture. Unless state and Party leaders encouraged Soviet architects to study the achievements of the West, progress could not be achieved… Russia was doomed if it had to rely solely upon its own technological and intellectual resources. For the architects of OSA, socialism remained as inseparable from internationalism as it was from experimentation. There could be no social reconstruction in an isolated Russia, no “socialism in one country.”” (Hudson, pp. 54-55)
OSA had claimed architecture must be “non-dogmatic” and experimental. Trotsky himself had claimed that marxist architecture cannot be created at all:
Trotsky said “War is not a science; war is a practical art, a skill… War is a ‘profession’ for those who correctly learn military business… How can the maxims of the military profession be determined with the help of the Marxist method? That would be the same thing as to create a theory of architecture… with the help of Marxism.” (Quoted in E. H. Carr, Socialism in one country, 1924-1926. Vol. 2, London: Macmillan, 1959, p. 414)
The constructivists constantly made reactionary attacks against marxism. On January 29, 1930 at a discussion conference Leonidov attacked realistic architecture as eclecticism, attacked Shchuko’s realistic design for the Lenin library and said the Bolshevik party has become senile:
“LEONIDOV: “If someone cannot figure out what our task is supposed to be, he should drop out. To deal in our time with eclectic architecture is simply counterrevolutionary. Everything is old in Shchuko’s project. […] The old Bolshevik guard that has spoken here, is young no more, and has simply gone astray. What is clear to me is that the old men at this meeting are afraid to confront [the new generation’s] socialist challenge.”” (Udovicki-Selb, p. 107)
Reactionary capitalist author Udovichki-Selb praises constructivist Higer. He quotes from Higer’s articles, where Higer attempts to prove he is not really a mechanist. Higer uses a vulgarized reading of Pavlov and also refers to mechanist reflexologist Bekhterev who only believed in reflexes and denied the existence of the mind. Higer supports vulgar utilitarianism and artistic nihilism and says that supposedly “From this scientific-materialist point of view, the artistic activity caused by conditioned reflexes derived from vital social “irritants,” are physiological in nature, and therefore narrowly “utilitarian”” (Udovicki-Selb, p. 132)
He also “redoubled his efforts to demonstrate that [architectural] formalism too had a scientific basis in neurophysiology” (Udovicki-Selb, p. 132)
Higer also completely denied that architecture should be art or have any aesthetic function. He upheld vulgar utilitarianism and nihilism:
“Higer finally turned to architecture as a “visual art,” in response to claims that the modernists had “expunged art” from architecture, and thus denied art to the proletariat. [but instead of being able to deny this claim] Higer insisted that it was wrong to cultivate architecture as a “visual art” at a time when “we are seeking highly industrialized building technologies; when it has become imperative to devise new social types of buildings; to organize new forms of social housing; and plan new socialist settlements.” He underscored the need to create an architecture that was “not based on style, but on science” (Udovicki-Selb, p. 132)
Although the constructivists tried to be marxists and one of their main leaders M. Ginzburg used Plekhanov as his source, they (and Ginzburg in particular) were very much influenced by the ultra-reactionary idealist philosophy of Oswald Spengler. (Anatole Senkevitch Jr., “Introduction: Moisei Ginzburg and the emergence of a constructivist theory of architecture” in M. I. Ginzburg, Style and epoch, 1982, Cambridge, MA. : Published for the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Chicago, Ill. and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies New York, N.Y. by MIT Press, p. 23, p. 25). See also “Oswald Spengler” in Short Philosophical Dictionary, 1954.
“The most prominent theorist and practitioner of constructivism was M. Ginzburg; his book “Style and Epoch,” published in 1924, became a gospel of the constructivists.” (Tsapenko, p. 129)
Ginzburg “borrowed many of his “ideas” from… such pillars of reactionary-idealistic philosophy as Spengler – a fashionable idealist philosopher at the time, one of the spiritual forerunners of fascism, Wundt and Freud – reactionary idealist psychologists, as well as Welsh Flynn – a formalist art critic. These were the leaders of the reactionary camp in philosophy and art, apologists for the decaying capitalist culture. The works of these authors, especially Spengler, were distinguished by mysticism, vicious hatred of the materialistic worldview.” (Tsapenko, p. 132)
The constructivist Ginzburg also utilized similar ideas to ASNOVA, saying that geometric shapes create “psychophysiological” reactions on people which are non-historical. He wrote: “Modern psychophysiology has established that various elements of form (line, plane, volume), themselves, and especially their relationships generate in us emotions of pleasure or displeasure.” (Quoted in Tsapenko, p. 135)
Constructivism was defeated in debate by the marxist-leninist socialist realists. Their linking themselves with the mechanist philosophers and the Trotsky-Bukharin oppositions did not help them. However, they couldn’t help it. Their anti-marxist views were the same as those of Trotsky and Bukharin.
However, constructivism was not totally dismissed by marxist architects and the communist party. The Soviet government viewed constructivism more favorably than rationalism, and even rationalism had at least certain merits. OSA’s mechanist philosophy, anti-dialectical methods, their advocacy of class collaboration and denial of the possibility to build socialism were denounced. But increasingly their aesthetic nihilism, or the denial of art and denial of beauty, came under attack:
“Speaking in 1926 to the State Academy of Artistic Sciences (GAKhN), Lunacharsky declared that OSA’s fascination with the machine was a reflection of bourgeois culture, pushing the proletariat toward individualism. The true basis of proletarian creativity was “vernacular, peasant art,” which, Lunacharsky averred, was based on collective principles.” (Hudson, pp. 139-140)
“The bete noire of Soviet architecture, Lunacharsky declared, was utilitarianism, that is, constructivism, which was alien to tradition and devoid of “an idea.”” (Hudson, p. 140)
That being said, Kaganovich said that constructivism had developed building technology and many people lived in the houses they had built. They were more praxis oriented than rationalists, and had actually built some things.
With the exception of the Trotskyist saboteurs, Okhitovich, Leonidov etc., their correct attitude towards wishing to help with socialist construction, facilitated most of the constructivists accepting correct marxist positions and remaining some of the leading architects in the country. Ginzburg held many important building positions in the USSR throughout the Stalin era, and designed many useful projects, for example schools and sanatoria.
It should be said that in his 1940 book “Architecture of the sanatorium of the Heavy Industry Commissariat” Ginzburg still advocated his own ideas about Socialist Realism, which contained strong influences of the past constructivism. He criticized using classical models, he advocated simplicity, said the form of the building should grow out of its “inner life” (its function), stated that he disagreed with “false ornamentation” and also claimed that Socialist Realism had still not been sufficiently defined in architecture and therefore there was room for his unorthodox ideas.
Capitalist historian Udovicki-Selb states that the 1932 decision to merge separate competing architectural organizations such as the ASNOVA, ARU and SASS (previously OSA) into one union of architects, was not any kind of dictatorial method. His book “questions the broadly held beliefs that the April 23, 1932 decree came with the imposition of a restrictive style. Quite to the contrary, as this study shows, in party meetings, Kaganovich actually expressed support for the constructivists he saw as a force that “housed millions of people,” and would continue building in the future for “many millions more”” (Udovicki-Selb, p. 50)
Kaganovich had a “tolerant” or “supportive, attitude toward the constructivists” (Danilo Udovicki-Selb, p. 269)
(It says something about the quality Danilo Udovicki-Selb’s research that he claims (p. 281) most people in Finland understood Russian in the early 1900s, which was certainly not true. His anti-communist book is filled with ridiculous speculation, claiming for instance (p. 296) that a station in the Moscow metro makes a reference to Malevich’s painting “Black square”, because the floor has a checker board pattern!)
“Five years later, in 1933, [architect] Burov wrote about this period:
“I moved away from Constructivism in 1927-8 … Constructivism presented the problem correctly at a time when we had to get rid of accumulated concepts in architecture. … It seemed right, then, to have functional buildings as a basis, but, as work proceeded, it became clear that such buildings alone were not enough. . . .”
A decade later, Burov made a further analysis of Constructivism and explained his and many others’ ‘dissatisfaction with this movement..’. His verdict on Constructivism is severe:
“From the point of view of handling material, Constructivism was nothing but archaism… Material and structure prevailed over form. The style was Baroque (without the ornamentation), for the project was planned in an imaginary material (reinforced concrete is not brick). There was a strong Muslim influence and orthodox Mahommedanism at that; by way of decoration only clocks and letters were allowed.”
These words of Burov’s are best illustrated by his own project for a theatre (1924), in which, with the wholehearted enthusiasm of a neophyte, he embodied all the edicts of Constructivism of the 1920s.
Burov was, however, sincere when writing these words; by 1927-8 he was genuinely disappointed in Constructivism. Together with many of his colleagues, he was painfully striving to discover new ways in architecture. The search for the new led him to study the classical heritage. However, for Burov — the theorist — turning to classicism never implied imitation. In 1934 he wrote that:
“in practice, one often finds that, while assimilating a cultural inheritance . . . one assimilates the false procedures of an illusory architecture and tries to achieve an illusion of antiquity with contemporary materials”.” (V. Khazanova, “A. Burov 1900-57” in Building in the USSR, 1917-1932, ed. O. A. Shvidkovsky, pp. 118-119)
At a meeting of Moscow architects in 1936 A. Vesnin said that “What is left [of constructivism] is to fight for the introduction of the latest achievements in building technology.” He went on a criticism of constructivist nihilism and said that “There was an inclination of ours toward oversimplifying the issue of function. In the process of designing, we did not pay sufficient attention to issues of art. All the time we considered that a correct organization of the function would give us the right architectural solution.”
However, he still defended some constructivist ideas saying: “I still think that form has to be derived from function, but not automatically. One needs to approach [the design] from several points of view simultaneously. […] It’s true that in our journal we never called for the ‘death of art,’ but we still weren’t sufficiently adamant in the fight against such tendencies. […] Everything that has been said here about “socialist” realism, that is, that architecture has to be saturated ideologically, grandiose, and so on, is perfectly true and indispensable. But what we consider to be most important in “socialist” realism is to penetrate life itself and work on it, and to remember that the architect is the organizer of life, a conscious builder of socialism […] In that sense we are actively embracing socialist realism.” (Udovicki-Selb, p. 477)
Even Malevich abandoned suprematism in 1932, but writing to Meyerholdt that he was doing it to combat realism more effectively:
“I am utterly convinced that if you keep to the way of Constructivism, where you are now firmly stuck, which raises not one artistic issue except for pure utilitarianism and… completely castrated as regards artistic problems, and forfeits half its value. If you go on as you are… then Stanislavski will emerge as the winner in the theatre and the old forms will survive. And as to architecture, if the architects do not produce artistic architecture, the Greco-Roman style of Zholtovski will prevail, together with the Repin style in painting” (Kazimir Malevich, “Two Letters to Meyerhold,” Kunst & Museumjournaal 6 (1990), pp. 9-10).
Ex-constructivist Daniil Fridman also criticized constructivism saying: “Since the very beginning of the revolution, my comrades and I, we were infatuated with formalism… We understood that if we were to continue on that road, that approach would not let us advance, it would preclude us from reaching a valuable project.” (Udovicki-Selb, p. 477)
Ex-constructivist Kolli criticized constructivism, but constructivist Viktor Vesnin attacked him and said “The speech of Comrade N. Ja Kolli did not give us an accurate view of the important development of Soviet architecture in the twenty years following the October Revolution. While critiquing constructivism, the speaker failed to show the great social significance the phenomenon represented over this long period” he further criticized [marxist architects] Alabian and Mordvinov (Udovicki-Selb, p. 518)
Yet, Viktor Vesnin concluded by saying “Today, when we evaluate that period, what appears perfectly clear to us is that constructivism did not succeed. Constructivism belongs to the past” and the future belongs to socialist realism, which he of course understood in his own way. Viktor Vesnin did not suffer for his erroneous views, but was elected to the Supreme Soviet in 1936 (Udovicki-Selb, p. 524).
“Constructivist applied designs had failed utterly to attract the masses.” (Charlotte Douglas, “Terms of Transition: The First Discussional Exhibition and the Society of Easel Painters”, in Bobko Jane, and Dzhafarova Svetlana, ed., The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932, p. 452)
However, as Tsapenko accurately pointed out “it would be wrong to see in it [Soviet architecture] before 1932-1935 only the history of constructivism and see only flaws. The dominance of constructivist form in the architecture of this period was not a defining moment in the process of formation of the Soviet architecture; the main thing was the new, socialist content, which, since 1917, already distinguishes Soviet architecture from architecture of previous eras and other social formations.
It is a fact that under the influence of constructivism during the period of the first five-year plan, entire neighborhoods were built in new cities – Magnitogorsk, Stalinsk (Kuznetsk) and others, as well as a number of city ensembles in Kharkov, Minsk, Sverdlovsk and others… During that period, Soviet architects created a lot that was valuable, especially in the layout of buildings, in the design of new types of housing, public buildings, in the rise of urban development…
The country has just begun economic restructuring based on industrialization, productive forces were just entering the phase of decisive transformation towards socialist principles. The problem of austerity in construction in those years played a decisive role and imposed on the architect the requirement to abandon everything that was not absolutely necessary, from any architectural decorations. This encouraged many to put up with simplified architectural form.” (Tsapenko, p. 70)
“It should be emphasized that even in the years of greatest flourishing of constructivism such experienced architects and builders as A. Belogrud, V. Shchuko, I. Fomin, L. Rudnev, L. Ilyin and a number of others who grouped around the Leningrad Academy of Arts, firmly preserved the realistic Russian understanding of Soviet architecture.” (Tsapenko, p. 144)
As did “N. Markovnikov, I. Rerberg… A. Tamanyan, I. Zholtovsky, A. Shusev… V. Gelfreich and other very experienced architects)… as well as academician I. Grabar, prof. I. Rylsky, prof. D. Sukhov and others who, since the earliest years of the revolution, through Soviet bodies and under their leadership, carried out enormous work on the study, restoration and popularization of monuments of Russian art.” (Tsapenko, p. 142)
“Contrary to the persistent propaganda of constructivists, realistic architecture continued to develop practically both in large centers and on the periphery. In Moscow at this time such significant buildings were built, like the State Bank building on Neglinnaya Street according to the project of I. Zholtovsky, the hospital building on the former Sadovo-Chernogryazskaya street designed by architect I. Ivanova-Shits and others… A large number of structures using local national forms were erected, in particular in Armenia – the building of the Agricultural Bank in Yerevan (architect N. Buniatov), textile factory in Lenin-Akane, a hostel for workers and employees of the People’s Commissariat of Health in Yerevan, etc. A number of buildings in Baku were also erected in the spirit of national forms (building of Sabunchinsky station, architect. N. Baev), in Samarkand (House of the Collective Farm Center), in Kyiv (building of the Agricultural Academy, architect Dyachenko) and others.” (Tsapenko, p. 144)
“not constructivists, but academician Shchusev, a famous master of the realistic school, was entrusted by the party and government with such an exceptional historical construction of great significance, as Lenin’s mausoleum. Shchusev completed this task brilliantly, he created a masterpiece of Soviet and world architecture as a realist architect, as an innovator in the deepest understanding of this word.” (Tsapenko, p. 145)
SOURCES:
Andreĭ Vladimirovich Ikonnikov, Russian architecture of the Soviet period
A. Bazdyrev, “History of Soviet Architecture: From Palaces to Boxes”
Hugh D. Hudson, Blueprints and blood: the Stalinization of Soviet architecture, 1917-1937
Danilo Udovicki-Selb, Soviet Architectural Avant-Gardes: Architecture and Stalin’s Revolution from Above, 1928-1938
A. I. Mikhailov, “Formalism in Soviet architecture”, 1932
K. Mikhailov, “VOPRA—ASNOVA—SASS”, 1931
Mikhail Tsapenko, On the realistic foundations of Soviet architecture
E. H. Carr, Socialism in one country, 1924-1926. Vol. 2, London: Macmillan, 1959
Anatole Senkevitch Jr., “Introduction: Moisei Ginzburg and the emergence of a constructivist theory of architecture” in M. I. Ginzburg, Style and epoch, 1982, Cambridge, MA. : Published for the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Chicago, Ill. and the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies New York, N.Y. by MIT Press.
“Oswald Spengler” in Short Philosophical Dictionary, 1954.
V. Khazanova, “A. Burov 1900-57” in Building in the USSR, 1917-1932, ed. O. A. Shvidkovsky
Kazimir Malevich, “Two Letters to Meyerhold,” Kunst & Museumjournaal 6 (1990)
Charlotte Douglas, “Terms of Transition: The First Discussional Exhibition and the Society of Easel Painters”, in Bobko Jane, and Dzhafarova Svetlana, ed., The Great Utopia: The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde, 1915-1932
Hudson, Udovicki-Selb, Carr, Senkevitch, Khazanova, Malevich and Douglas are anti-communist bourgeois writers, Ikonnikov is a Soviet revisionist writer. All the other sources are recommended reading. Tsapenko, Bazdyrev and Kolli are particularly good sources.
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