Soviet Constructivist Architecture...and Its Influences

Architecture in the 1950s was representative of the conformity caused by the Cold War. McCarthyism and the Red Scare were some of the major sources of this conformity. McCarthyism was the persecution of innocent people assumed to be communist and the forced conformity that the practice aroused in American public life. As the government grew more and more concerned with the development of communism in the United States, the country became extremely against communism and with the help of John McCarthy, the government set out on a mission to find all the communists hiding in the depths of America; many people were questioned and hundreds were either killed or exiled, even those that were wrongly convicted. With the threat of being removed from

Architecture should not be separated from the political and social life of human-beings. On the contrary, “throughout the history, architects have always been involved to some extent in politics, and have a nearly always sought positions of power and influence’’. Communist ideology in the Soviet Union had a huge impact on the architectural development of many modern nations: Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Tadzhikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Azerbaijan. The amount of affected countries makes the topic of my analysis relevant and worth-discussing. My essay will be structured in a following way. I argue that communist ideology had an

In the last years numerous debates and talks (most of them very superficial) took place about Moscow’s recent developments that are awful both in form (like badly made bike paths, absence of drainage, and bad-taste floristics) and content (such as

A lot has happened in architecture since Louis Kahn death in 1974, some of it are really good, some are dreadful and we have different preferences about which is which. However, Kahn’s work look better than ever on its own terms. Better in its solidity and gravity. He was an architect of beautiful contradictions and one of the few to create architectural elements out of scale with the human figure. His buildings are very elegantly designed but are constructed of basic, often crude materials. Consisting of

It was found during the census of 1930 that construction within “principle cities” was “61.3 percent of all construction business was in the home city” as well as “Thus it appears that establishments in the larger urban areas had a border field of activity” (PIO,1930). This conveys the point that America was changed greatly due to the Great Depression and illustrates the point of the influence that the fiscal economy and resource allocation has on a population. Large firms and offices all became common to be in high density urban areas due to trend of cities during this time. This changed the dynamic greatly. Private work began to increase the demand of professionalism within the Landscape Architecture field because of the huge economic inequality between the classes and the separation of the public and private spaces projects due to shift of demand in the field of Landscape

The St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts stands out from its surrounding with is dimensions alone, being only two-stories it is dramatically shorter than any other building and its width covering near a city block makes it wider than any other building in the vicinity. The exterior of the museum constructed in a similar design to that of Greek

At the end of World War 1, people came to the realization that the values they held did not seem to correspond to what they believe in anymore because of what they experienced during the war; so, they decided to explore new ones. The 1920’s was an era of breaking social norms in America and adopting new ones that not everyone agreed with. This rebellious nature sparked an energetic and dynamic expression throughout the country. Architecture played an important role in contributing to the 1920’s that still reflects in the present.

In all, the elements that primarily distinguished architects from builders are mainly economic standing and rhetoric of taste and invention, and education. Due to this, Upton believed master builders were prosperous and were typically motivated by “social distinction as a component of their professional success. In like manner, rhetoric of taste and invention differentiated architects from builders in that “taste might be acquired through ‘toil and study’..., but not in drawing school” (Upton, 61). Moreover, the key factors that contributed to the increasing professionalization of architects in eighteenth-century America are. Education, coherence in work, and the ability to communicate. With education, many were introduced to a “liberal-arts education, and eventually by moving professional education to the university, architects hoped to shake off their pesky rivals”(Upton, 63 ). For the socialization aspect of increasing professionalization of architects in eighteenth-century America, the

The time between World Wars was a tense and significant point in the history of humanity, especially for the European continent. France had suffered immensely during the First World War, and the psyche of the nation was deeply shaken. The result was, for some, a desire for a return to the comparatively peaceful state felt prior to the War. The “Call to Order” as it became known embodied this effort. Many artistic movements were abandoned, temporarily or permanently. Such was the fate of the Futurist movement, which somewhat naively glorified all of the things that had made World War I so incredibly destructive to the continent, technology, and violence. A resurgence of classical styled art followed. Just as the populous sought

Leon Krier was criticised for publishing a costly monograph on Albert Speer’s architecture (1985)in which, while acknowledging the crimes of the Nazis and the man, Krier nonetheless claimed the book’s only subject and sole justification was “Classical architecture and the passion of building” (cited by Jaskot, ‘Architecture of Oppression’, 2000). Discuss this claim, the controversy and the issues (historical, philosophical and ethical and possibly others) they raise. Can architecture, Classical, Modern or otherwise, be autonomous from politics and valued independently of the circumstances of politics and history that adhere to it?

Born on September 8, 1914, Sir Denys Louis Lasdun is considered among the most distinguished British architects of the 20th century. He is credited with having contributed to London’s urban landscape. Among the works for which he is best known are the Royal National Theatre at London’s South Banks of the Thames, the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, the Royal College of Physicians in Regent 's Park and the University of East Anglia. The others of Lasdun’s buildings were a building at 32 Newton Road, Paddington, Hallfield Primary School, Usk Street Housing, Keeling House and the Sports Centre at the University of Liverpool. Considering how eminent these landmark buildings are in London’s landscape, it is apparent that Lasdun was a much-sough architect, especially by the British government as well as the local authorities. Lasdun’s architecture falls under the Brutalist architecture of the United Kingdom under which many prominent 20th century British and European architects worked. Among the architects that worked under Brutalism and had great influence on Lasdun’s architecture were Le Corbusier, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Lasdun’s fame as a world class architect could be largely attributed to the fact that his architecture spanned the whole era of modernism in British art.

There is often some confusion when people start talking about the post-modernism and modernism in architecture in terms of  their philosophical terminology differences. Modern architecture is known for its minimalism (Linder, 2004); buildings were functional and economical rather than comfortable and beautifully decorated. The post-modernism architecture, however, is called a “neo-eclectic, significantly assuming the role of a regeneration of period styles for designing houses, and a never-ending variety of forms and characteristics, asymmetrical designs for commercial buildings” (Fullerton Heritage, 2008). An example of these two polar opposites, “Less is more” made by Mies van der Rohe in 1928 (Blake, 1976) and "Less is a bore" made by

Rodchenko overlaps planes of colour, form and texture in an architectural way. His design includes a large clock signifying the importance the Revolution placed on precision and efficiency, as well as a speaker’s rostrum, a huge billboard and a space to sell books and newspapers. Rodchenko became an indisputable supporter of the Bolsheviks after the revolution and held roles within the newly formed Fine Art Department of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment. El Lissitzky was a Suprematist and therefore his goal was to create work that embodied utopian ideals and values. His work was more transcendental and he sort to manipulate space and perspective to shape the new world. El Lissitzky developed Prouns (an abbreviation of Russian words meaning ‘project for the establishment of new art’). These images were meant to move and inspire the masses. El Lissitzky described the ‘Proun’s power is to create aims, this is the artists’ freedom, denied to the scientist’ (Margolin 1997, p. 33). He aimed to create works that would be clear to everyone in an attempt to build a classless society. Despite the isolation of Russia from the rest of the world as a result of the Revolution, El Lissitzky still believed in a utopian world. He chose to recreate form and space from scratch. The Proun brought together architecture and painting. Proun 1 E, The Town (see figure 2), closely models a town plan. There is volume to the shapes he uses which indicate the form of

Moshe Safdie is an architect who really examines how a building can shape an area. Not only how the space may look but its functionality, impact on the environment, and impact on the surrounding community. He seeks to engage and enrich the communities making unique and inviting spaces to fit the needs of each project. (Safdie Architects)

After 16th century, the traditional European architects began professionalized work dividing with the raising of requirement of civil engineering technology. It divided into design and construction and a part of the architect into teaching skill servicing for society and providing technical advice for the owners to solve problems, moreover, they are hired to supervise and manage of construction so that construction supervision