Architecture should not be separated from political and social life of human-beings. On the contrary, “throughout the history, architects have always been involved to some extent to politics, and have a nearly always sought positions of power and influence’’. Communist ideology in the Soviet Union had a huge impact on 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 enormous impact on architecture …show more content…
However, ideological competition with the United States of America, has forced Stalin to partly betray his pragmatic access of urban planning. Stalin’s wanted to respond to the American skyscrapers and ordered to build seven, unusually progressive tall buildings - Stalin’s Sisters. It is claimed that after the Second World War Stalin said that the USSR has won the big war, foreigners are going to come to Moscow, but what will they look at if there is still no tall buildings? We have a moral responsibility to build ones. In accordance with the statistics of Russian architectural historian Sergey Gorin, the resources used for the construction of those buildings (cost per meter) was much larger than the resources employed for the construction of buildings throughout the big country. It shows that for Joseph Stalin, it was important to show that his political ideology is also capable of constructing tall buildings (which was an innovative feature of 20th century). In other words, his aim was to show that a country did not have to adopt liberal ideology to build such …show more content…
He made a decree about eliminating all excessed luxury in urban planning. Furthermore, he established many programs, which were based on several factors: rapid industrialisation, the improvement of the average quality of buildings and the reduction of the money spend on construction. On November 1945 he famously pushed a new initiative “On eliminating the excesses in design and construction” It was the beginning of a complete restructuring of the Soviet architecture and building branch, which was a transition to the wide industrialisation, standardization and unification that were needed for the quicker country satisfaction of housing and public institutions. By this time Stalinist architecture has reached it’s crisis. A huge change of Soviet urban planning paradigm made a conversion to a higher quality structuring of residential areas. The appearance of new design and engineering methods has accelerated the tendency of replication the same decorations. However, this tendency has not only made the appearance of facades much worse, but also made the work on the construction of building increased(?) in price that was appraised in a negative way, because of the planning transition to a massive housing development. The realization of this program made a large-scale simplification of projects, the declining of their aesthetics and the actual contraction of space for the
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
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?
This paper will explore Vladimir Tatlin and Naum Gabo differences on the role of the Avant-Garde artists and how their beliefs influence the kind of work they produced. A pioneer of Russian design Vladimir Tatlin is a representative of Russian Realism. He left home when he was fifteen and served on the shipboard. When he became a painter, he often represented sailors in his pictures Art and culture in Russia after Revolution was a tool for creating industrially aesthetical reality. Tatlin’s project The Monument to the Third International (1920) one that so much can be considered an architectural work as a sculptural piece, it constituted by a spiral of iron that is expanded diagonally and enclosed by walls of glass of a much higher height
The Russian architectural profession was relatively intact after the revolution in October 1917, at least compared to the other arts in this unstable time. Foreign architects worked freely in the larger cities and the demand for private building was relatively high. This period was short lived as civil war wreaked havoc with the economy and infrastructure of the country. A major turning point for the profession, and the Russian people as a whole, was Act passed by the Bolsheviks, repealing the right for private ownership of urban real-estate. This ‘socialisation of Soviet soil’ set the framework for the ill prepared architects of the time, with a new regard for projects not as just
Postmodernism is a universal movement, present in every art and discipline. In architecture, postmodernism is precise as well as ambiguous thereby in need of an explorative pursuit for a consensus of what is meant by the movement in this perspective - between the works of Charles Jencks, a primary theorist of this architectural turn; Heinrich Klotz, a leading architectural critic; and William Curtis, an architectural historian. The progression of this paper is highly influenced with Jencks’ studies as his works are often times referenced as well by both Klotz and Curtis in their individual interpretations and further accompanied with either supporting statements or contradictions.
The quality of architecture in the early ages therefore was determined by the skills acquired from an informal training specifically offered by the elderly and experienced men in a certain society. Infrastructural development at this ancient age dealt with the basic knowledge of building small scale structure to support the daily requirements of a specific society. Architecture at this dispensation dealt with the simple small scale issues as per the demand of a certain society (Margolin, 1989). The demand of improved infrastructure and the increase in population however led to massive demand of architectural services.
Architecture is a medium to give creativity and phantasy full scope. Different styles are contained and combined in sometimes only one building. To trace the origin of Europe’s architecture, on have to look in times before Christ. What is proved is the use of columns and stonework in cultures like the Egyptian, which might have influenced the Greek’s culture, who subsequent spread their style in Europe. Therefore Europe gained the most diverse styles and eras whereas American architecture had a modest beginning. It started with the Native American architecture. After Christopher Columbus found the North American continent, colonist, during the great colonial times, fought the Indian Americans and demolished not only their architecture but also
Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism in early 20th-century Europe. Nazism is the ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and Nazi state. The architecture of both political movement has placed essentially in their ideology. This essay will demonstrate fascist architecture’s characteristics first, followed by characters of nazi’s architecture; lastly illustrate the similarity of the place of architecture in the two political movement.
As Winston Churchill once said “History is written by the victors”. When looking into past events there will always be more than one side to a story, yet for many centuries the study of history concentrated on the retail of an specific person or group who would generally impose their own ideas and perspective of the past. This creates something called historical bias which in term makes most of the historical documents fallacious. Architectural history is no stranger to this trend; since most of of our records come from Western historians (Greek, Roman, European). Western movements and architects are depicted as artistic and influential architecture while Eastern architecture is rarely credited or talked about. The Ottomans had equally significant contributions to architecture development thanks to architects such as Koca Sinan (1538-1588). While western architects such as Michelangelo are commonly known as some of the greatest architects of the century,
Choose an architect or practice whose work is covered by or relevant to this course and discuss critically one or more of their design projects or drawings or urban proposals as precedent case-studies. Selectively situate this work in relation to their body of work, and against the practices and concerns of the period. Focus on the architectural qualities of a specific key aspect of the design of the projects. Selectively consider how they might relate to the historical situation, cultural values, theoretical concerns and design practices of the time. This may involve a selective analysis of compositional design practices, material fabrication production and the experiential reception of built outcomes of the projects.
It can also be compared to Hitler’s use of national building material to convince the public of a new Nazi German archetype however, it was clearly less difficult for Stalin to achieve this because of the current state of affairs within architecture at the time (Doordan,
This book was written by Juhani Pallasmaa with regard to ‘Polemics’, on issues that were part of the architecture discourse of the time, i.e. 1995. It is also an extending of ideas expressed in an essay entitled “Architecture of the seven senses” published in 1994.
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
Architecture in every life reflects the culture of every society interacting closely with the history, politics and social feature of the society. Change in the cultural or social attitude has greatest impact on architecture. Thus it would be generic to conclude that the role of culture in promoting an architectural style or era is an essential part of its existence.
To understand the rise of the prefabricated tower block it is important to recognize that their existence came about as a reaction to contemporary architecture which was codified at the state level. During and after the Second World War, Soviet Realism became the dominant force in urban architecture in the Soviet sphere, especially as Moscow installed puppet states throughout the Eastern Bloc which copied the policies of the USSR. This development was not accepted well by architects and intellectuals, especially in Germany, where the legacy of pre-war modernism was very obvious in cities like Berlin, but also in cities like Moscow, Prague, and Sofia where the classicism endorsed by Stalin was like going back a century. Stalin’s preference for a building style highlighting the power of the Soviet people resulted in a complete stagnation of other forms or architecture, and although very solidly built, his buildings were built on mostly important thoroughfares as prestige projects since the state could hardly pay for every building to fit this style, making its impact on most citizens negligible unless they were privileged enough to get an apartment in one of these buildings. So, rather than to further soviet goals of housing for all, these buildings made social stratification very obvious, as homeless laborers would walk down streets past new buildings with ornate stonework in which they had little hope of ever stepping inside, let alone living. In terms of interior program,