Constructivism(translated from Latin “construction” – building) originated in Russia in 1917 and became a trend in Soviet art in the 1920s. His ideas matured within the traditions of pre-revolutionary Russian avant-garde and merged with the utopia of the society of this era.

The ideas of visual design were perceived as a revolution in the consciousness of the people and the existence of the public.

The definition of constructivism was introduced at a meeting of the youth group of the Institute of Artistic Culture in 1921.

The followers of this style launched an active activity in various fields of artistic creativity. They contrasted the pompous luxury of the life of the bourgeoisie with utilitarianism and the simplicity of the latest objective forms - this is how they personified democracy in people's relations.

This style was formed at the beginning of the Soviet rule, thanks to the interaction of a number of architects and designers representing avant-garde movements (Suprematism and Futurism).

As a result, the formal-aesthetic search of the followers of this trend - A. Rodchenko, V. Tatlin, E. Lissitzky - grew significantly.

In the 20s. critics noted the turn of painting towards realism.

The latter, above all, showed interest in figurativeness (instead of abstraction) and classical foundations in painting. The requirements of the ideology explained the emphasis on the classics: the art of the Soviet country enjoyed the best that had been achieved by world culture. This is what determined the need for a clear and precise form of this style.

Constructivist artists

Constructivism imitated the methods of the then technological processes.

Painting realized this principle in accordance with the two-dimensionality of space: the abstractness of forms and structures were located on the surface, like an architect's drawing and machine technology.

The works were free from the content of objects, in particular from the expressiveness of subjects.

Composition determined the elements of formal technique and their interaction with the outside world.

Painters were limited to the basic palette and texture of impersonality. Graphic elements played a key role in this. For example, V. Tatlin embodied in his works, most often in counter-reliefs, the foundations of rationalism, using "non-artistic" material.

Model of the monument of the III International, V. Tatlin New man, E. Lissitzky Books, A. Rodchenko

At the same time, K. Malevich creates Suprematism, thanks to the use of the simplest forms - traditionally a circle and a square. He believed that the true content of fine art is complete non-objectivity.

Turning to these two directions, M. Larionov from 1909 began to create "lined" structures. Brothers N. Gabo and N. Pevzner since 1917 were considered the main adherents of constructivism. The use of modern means (metal and celluloid) led to the formulation of the problem of the movement of light rays and space.

In 1920, the brothers outlined the theoretical basis of their pictorial manner in the Realist Manifesto. Since 1922, the Soviet government proclaimed "socialist realism", which forced most of the masters of the brush to emigrate. One of them was El Lissitzky, who went to Bauhaz to teach drawing.

The ideas of the Dutch constructivists were promoted by the De Stijl movement, which was represented by P. Mondrian and Theo Van Doesburg. The first, when creating his paintings, used a horizontal-vertical grid. The second, in turn, introduced dynamic elements by applying a diagonal.

F. Kupka in the 1930s gave constructivism a different impetus and gave it a precise definition. He believed that a work of art is itself an abstract reality and consists of many elements generated by the imagination.

In his opinion, the meaning of constructivism lies in the unification of the archetypal form with archtectonic conditions.

Posted: November 26, 2007

CONSTRUCTIVISM(lat. - building) - a direction in the art of the 20th century, successively associated with cubism and futurism and giving rise to its own artistic style, which affected Soviet ARCHITECTURE, painting, applied art and poetry of the 20s-beginning. 30s; main installation constructivism there was a convergence of art with the practice of industrial life along the line of form: the geometrization of contours and the exposure of the technical basis of construction in architecture, functionally justified design in applied art and architecture.

Constructivism- This is the style of architecture of the Soviet Union of the period of the 1920s and early 1930s. This style combines advanced technology, engineering systems and a clear communist social focus. Although this style was divided into several competing directions, many interesting projects were created, some of which were realized. In the early 1930s, this style fell out of fashion among those in power. Constructivism had a great influence on the further development of architecture.

House of the Chekist (Nizhny Novgorod) - a typical example, © site

The term "constructivism"

Constructivism came to architecture from a broader direction of constructivist art, which itself came out of Russian futurism. Constructivist art attempted to apply a three-dimensional cubist vision to absolutely abstract non-objective constructions with a kinetic element. After the revolution of 1917, all attention was turned to the new social requirements and industrial tasks of the new time. Two clear directions emerged: the first - in the realistic manifesto of Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo, dedicated to space and rhythm, and the second - represented the struggle in the Enlightenment commissariat between those who defended pure art and prodactivists (constructivist practices), such as Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova and Vladimir Tatlin, a group of socially oriented artists who believed that art should also participate in industrial production. Applied constructivism.

The split occurred in 1922 when Pevzner and Gabo emigrated. Now the movement developed with a socially utilitarian focus. Most of the product activists won the support of Proletkult and the LEF magazine (Left Front of the Arts) and later became the dominant force in the OCA architectural group.

Revolution in architecture

The first and most famous constructivist project was presented in 1919 for the Comintern in St. Petersburg by the futurist Vladimir Tatlin. This project is often called the Talin Tower. And although it remained unrealized, the materials - glass and steel - and its futuristic character and political background (the movement of its internal volumes symbolized revolution and dialectic) set the tone for all projects of the 1920s.

Another well-known project in the style of constructivism is the Lenin Tribune (author El Lissitzky (1920) in the form of a moving podium for a speaker. During the civil war, the UNOVIS group (Affirmative New Art) was formed, headed by Kazimir Malevich and Lissitzky. The creators of Suprematism built utopian cities. Components of constructivism can be clearly seen in Western high-tech projects, such as Gustav Eiffel and the skyscrapers of New York and Chicago.

ASNOVA and Rationalism

Immediately after the civil war, the treasury of the USSR was empty and there was nothing to build new houses. And yet, in 1921, the Soviet avant-garde school Vkhutemas (Higher Art and Technical Workshops) appeared, headed by the architect Nikolai Ladovsky, who organized ASNOVA (association of new architects). The teaching methods were fantastic; elements of the psychology of form (Gestalt psychology) were used, bold experiments with form were carried out (for example, Simbirchev's glass hanging restaurant). Among the architects included in this association were: El Lissitzky, Konstantin Melnikov, Vladimir Krinsky and the young Bertold Lyubetkin.

Working Club. Zueva, 1927.

Projects from 1923-1935, such as the horizontal skyscrapers of Lissitzky and Mart Shtam, pavilions by Konstantin Melnikov, demonstrate the originality and ambition of this group. Melnikov designed the Soviet Pavilion at the 1925 Paris Fine Arts Exhibition, where he promoted the new style. Its rooms were designed by Rodchenko. Another example of constructivism can be seen in the film Aelita (1924), where Alexander Exter's exteriors and interiors are modeled in an angular geometric form. The 1924 Mosselprom State Store was also built in early modernist style for a new generation of New Economic Policy shoppers; Mostorg architects Vesnin brothers, built three years later. Modern offices for the public were also popular, such as Izvestia's head office. It was built in 1926-1927 by Grigory Barkhin.

OCA (organization of contemporary architects)

A colder and more technological style of constructivism appeared in 1923-24, as an example, the project of the office building of the Vesnin brothers for Leningradskaya Pravda. In 1925, the OCA group was founded by Alexei Vesnin and Moisei Ginzburg, which was associated with Vkhutemas. This group had much in common with Weimar German functionalism (Ernst May's building designs). Residential buildings (commune houses) replaced nineteenth-century cohabitation buildings. Term "social condenser" described their goals, which were based on the ideas of Lenin.

Houses of joint residence, for example, the house of the commune of the Ivan Nikolaev Textile Institute (Ordzhonikidze St., Moscow, 1929-1931) and the Gosstrakh apartment building built by Ginzburg, and the Narkomfin house, also built according to his project. Apartment buildings in the constructivist style were built in Kharkov, Moscow, Leningrad and other cities. Ginzburg designed the government building in Alma-Ata. The Vesnin brothers - a film actor school in Moscow. Ginzburg criticized the idea of ​​building the buildings of a new society on the old principles: the attitude towards shared houses is the same as towards bourgeois apartments. The constructivist approach is to take into account as much as possible all the changes in everyday life ... our goal is to work together with the proletariat to create a new way of life. The OSA published the journal SA (Modern Architecture) from 1926 to 1930. The rationalist Ladovsky designed his own original cohabitation house in 1929. Extravagant project: Chekist village in Serdlovsk (today Yekaterinburg) designed by Antonov, Sokolov and Tumbasov. A residential complex in the form of a sickle and a hammer was designed for members of the Cheka, today it is a hotel.

Everyday life and utopia

Constructivism in Moscow Architecture

Constructivist work settlement - st. Korolenko - Kolodeznaya street (VAO Moscow)
photo: @ site

Constructivist dormitory complex B. Pirogovskaya, 5 - Constructivism in the architecture of Moscow

Public buildings in the style of constructivism in Moscow

Palace of Culture. I. V. Rusakova, photo: @ site

Constructivism is a trend in Soviet art of the 1920s. (in architecture, design and theatrical and decorative art, poster, book art, artistic design). Proponents of constructivism, putting forward the task of "designing" the environment that actively guides life processes, sought to comprehend the shaping possibilities of new technology, its logical, expedient designs, as well as the aesthetic possibilities of such materials as metal, glass, wood. The constructivists sought to oppose the ostentatious luxury of everyday life with the simplicity and emphasized utilitarianism of new objective forms, in which they saw the reification of democracy and new relations between people (the Vesnin brothers, M. Ya. Ginzburg, etc.). The aesthetics of constructivism largely contributed to the formation of Soviet artistic design (A. M. Rodchenko, V. E. Tatlin and others). In relation to foreign art, the term is arbitrary: in architecture it is a trend within functionalism, in painting and sculpture it is one of the trends of avant-garde. In architecture, the principles of constructivism were formulated in the theoretical speeches of A. A. Vesnin and M. Ya. Ginzburg, practically they were first embodied in the project of the Palace of Labor for Moscow created by the brothers A. A., V. A. and L. A. Vesnin (1923 ) with its clear, rational plan and the constructive basis of the building (reinforced concrete frame) identified in the external appearance. In 1924, a creative organization of constructivists, the OSA, was created, whose representatives developed the so-called functional design method, based on a scientific analysis of the features of the functioning of buildings, structures, and urban complexes. Along with other groups of Soviet architects, constructivists (the Vesnin brothers, Ginzburg, I. A. Golosov, I. I. Leonidov, A. S. Nikolsky, M. O. Barshch, V. N. Vladimirov, etc.) searched for new principles plans of populated areas, put forward projects for the reorganization of life, developed new types of public buildings (Palaces of Labor, Houses of Soviets, workers' clubs, kitchen factories, etc.). At the same time, in their theoretical and practical activities, the constructivists made a number of mistakes (treatment of the apartment as a “material form”, schematism in the organization of life in some projects of communal houses, underestimation of climatic conditions, underestimation of the role of large cities under the influence of the ideas of deurbanism).

The aesthetics of constructivism in many ways contributed to the development of modern artistic design. On the basis of the developments of constructivists (A. M. Rodchenko, A. M. Gan and others), new types of utensils, fixtures, and furniture were created that were easy to use and designed for mass production; artists developed designs for fabrics (V. F. Stepanova, L. S. Popova) and practical models of work clothes (Stepanova, V. E. Tatlin). Constructivism played a significant role in the development of poster graphics (photomontages by the Stenberg brothers, G. G. Klutsis, Rodchenko) and book design (the use of the expressive possibilities of type and other typesetting elements in the works of Gan, L. M. Lissitzky and others). In the theater, the constructivists replaced traditional scenery with "machines" subordinated to the tasks of stage action for the work of actors (works by Popova, A. A. Vesnin, and others on the productions of V. E. Meyerhold, A. Ya. Tairov). Some ideas of constructivism were embodied in the Western European (W. Baumeister, O. Schlemmer and others) fine arts.

As applied to foreign art, the term "constructivism" is largely arbitrary: in architecture it denotes a trend within functionalism that sought to emphasize the expression of modern structures; Pevzner) Constructivism (from lat. constructio - construction) is an artistic trend in the art of a number of European countries at the beginning of the 20th century, which proclaimed not composition, but construction, as the basis of the artistic image. Constructivism found its fullest expression in architecture, design, applied design, theatrical decorative art, printed graphics, book art; expressed in the desire of artists to turn to the design of things, the artistic organization of the material environment. In the artistic culture of Russia in the 1920s, the constructivist architects Vesnin brothers and M. Ginzburg relied on the possibilities of modern building technology.

They achieved artistic expressiveness by compositional means, by comparing simple, concise volumes, as well as by the aesthetic possibilities of materials such as metal, glass, and wood. The artists of this direction (V. Tatlin, A. Rodchenko, L. Popova, E. Lissitzky, V. Stepanova, A. Exter), having joined the movement of industrial art, became the founders of Soviet design, where the external form was directly determined by function, engineering design and material processing technology. In the design of theatrical performances, the constructivists replaced the traditional pictorial scenery with transformable “machines” that change the stage space. The constructivism of printed graphics, the art of the book, and the poster is characterized by stingy geometrized forms, their dynamic layout, a limited color palette (mainly red and black), and the widespread use of photography and typesetting typographic elements.

Characteristic manifestations of constructivism in painting, graphics and sculpture are abstract geometrism, the use of collage, photomontage, spatial structures, sometimes dynamic. The ideas of constructivism matured in the previous directions of the Russian avant-garde. His program, which was formed in the post-revolutionary period, bore the features of a social utopia, since artistic design was conceived as a way of transforming social life and people's consciousness, designing the environment.

Constructivism. The direction of abstract art, which originated in Russia in 1913. Constructivism discarded traditional ideas about art in the name of imitation of the forms and methods of the modern technological process. This was most clearly manifested in sculpture, where the structure was created directly from the products of industrial production. In painting, the same principles were implemented in a two-dimensional space: abstract forms and structures were placed on a plane like an architectural drawing, reminiscent of elements of machine technology. Although constructivism existed in Russia only in the first post-revolutionary years, its influence was felt throughout the 20th century. see Gabo, Lissitzky, Mohoy-Nagy, Popova, Rodchenko, Tatlin About the poetic movement In terms of its principles, theoretical platform, the breadth of the creative views of its participants, and, finally, in terms of the duration of its existence, constructivism could well claim to be considered an independent literary movement . The poetic principles declared (and implemented) by the constructivists in practice, unlike many pseudo-independent poetic groups of that time, really differed in “faces with a non-general expression”.

In addition, constructivism put forward many well-known names. And yet, it is usually not customary to single out constructivism as a separate poetic trend. Perhaps because he was too utilitarian (meaning "applied") character. In contrast to the tasks of this trend in other areas of art, which put forward the idea of ​​constructing the material environment surrounding a person in order to create simple, logical, functionally justified forms (architectural projects of the Vesnin brothers, M. Ginzburg, I. Leonidov; posters, books, theatrical scenography of artists A. Rodchenko, V. Tatlin, L. Lissitzky), in poetry, constructivism manifested itself in an orientation towards a rational “construction of material” instead of an intuitively found style. However, another explanation is possible. It has already been said above that one of the "mandatory" conditions for the formation of a new poetic trend was the presence of an "external enemy" - the point of application of the creative efforts of the members of the group, in the struggle against which the formation took place. The constructivists, by and large, had no one to argue with, except themselves. Sluggish attacks on futurism could hardly deceive anyone, since the “construction” of a poetic text goes back to the principles proclaimed by the ideologist of futurism F. Marinetti, who sought to reflect the dynamism of modern machine civilization and technical progress. True, for this purpose the futurists used somewhat different means, resorting more to experimenting with vocabulary and syntax. However, the methods were very similar - the transfer of the center of gravity from the image of a person to the image of his material and technical environment.

The constructivists as an independent literary group first announced themselves in Moscow in the spring of 1922. The first members were poets A. Chicherin, I. Selvinsky and critic K. Zelinsky (group theorist). Initially, the program of constructivists had a narrowly formal focus: the principle of understanding a literary work as a construction came to the fore. In the surrounding reality, technical progress was proclaimed the main one, the role of the technical intelligentsia was emphasized. Moreover, this was interpreted outside social conditions, outside the class struggle. In particular, it was stated: “Constructivism, as an absolutely creative school, affirms the universality of poetic technique; if modern schools, separately, cry out: sound, rhythm, image, zaum, etc., we, emphasizing and, say: And the sound, And the rhythm, And the image, And zaum, And every new possible device in which the real necessary when installing a structure Constructivism is the highest skill, deep, exhaustive knowledge of all the possibilities of the material and the ability to thicken in it. But in the future, the constructivists gradually freed themselves from these narrowly defined aesthetic frameworks and put forward broader justifications for their creative platform. It was the representatives of modernism who took the most active part in the literary and artistic life of the country in those years, and many of them turned out to be by no means unwitting conductors of the political ideology that dominated that era. Here, for example, is the opinion of a well-known illustrator from the association of the so-called “production book” O. Chichagova: “In essence, constructivism denies art as a product of bourgeois culture. Constructivism is an ideology that arose in proletarian Russia during the revolution, and like any ideology, it can be viable and not built on sand only when it creates a consumer for itself; and therefore - the task of constructivism is the organization of communist life through the creation of a constructive person. The means to this are intellectual production - invention and improving production - technology. That is, there was a substitution of concepts: the methodology of constructivism was now placed in direct dependence on ideological principles. Here the first disagreements arose, in connection with which Chicherin departed from constructivism, and a number of authors grouped around Selvinsky and Zelinsky: B. Agapov, Dir Tumanny (N. Panov), V. Inber, E. Gabrilovich. In 1924, the Constructivist Literary Center (LCC) was organized. Later they were joined by N. Aduev, V. Lugovskoy, A. Kvyatkovsky, V. Asmus, E. Bagritsky, N. Ognev, N. Ushakov, as well as a group of young poets: V. Gusev, G. Katz, I. Koltunov, A. Kudreiko (Zelenyak), K. Mitreikin, L. Lavrov, and others, jokingly referred to as "Konstromolets". At first, the meetings of the constructivists took place alternately in the apartments of one of the members of the LCC, and from 1927 they began to gather in the “Herzen House” on Tverskaya Street (d. 25). The Declaration of the LCC first of all stated that “constructivism is thoughts and public mindsets ordered into a system, which emphatically reflect the organizational onslaught of the working class,” and then spoke about the need for art to have the closest possible participation of constructivists in the construction of socialist culture. From this arises the attitude to saturate art (in particular, poetry) with modern themes. Declaration of the Literary Center of Constructivists (LCC) The main provisions of constructivism.

1. The nature of modern production technology, rapid, economic and capacious, also influences the methods of ideological representations, subordinating all cultural processes to these internal formal organizational requirements.

The expression of this increased attention to technical and organizational issues is constructivism.

2. Here, in the USSR, constructivism acquires a broad social and cultural meaning, due to the need in a relatively short time to cover the distance separating the proletariat, as a culturally backward class, from modern high technology and the entire developed system of cultural superstructures, which, in an increasingly throughout the world of class struggle, are used by the bourgeoisie, also as technical instruments of struggle.

3. The organizational design of this task is constructivism.

4. Thus, constructivism is thoughts and social mindsets ordered into a system, which emphatically reflect the organizational onslaught of the working class, forced in a peasant country, after gaining power, to build an economy and lay the foundation of a new socialist culture.

5. This onslaught in the field of culture rushes mainly on its technique in all areas of knowledge and skill, starting with the simple acquisition of literacy.

6. The carrier of the constructivist (i.e., assertive organizational) and cultural movement should be, first of all, the proletariat, and then the intermediate social groups under the ideological and political influence of the proletariat.

7. Constructivism, transferred to the field of art, formally turns into a system of maximum exploitation of the theme, or into a system of mutual functional justification of all the constituent artistic elements, that is, in general, constructivism is a motivated art.

8. Formally, such a requirement rests on the so-called principle of cargoification, i.e., an increase in the load of needs per unit of material.

9. Right-wing social strata, intellectual and petty-bourgeois groups adapt the formal requirements of constructivism as aesthetic trenches for sitting out in them from the onslaught of revolutionary modernity, seeking to gain a foothold in the artistic theme. Then constructivism turns into a special easel genre, that is, an unmotivated demonstration of the technique. This is equally true of painting and poetry. For the left social strata, this demand for maximum exploitation is naturally merged with the search for a great epochal theme and a tight form for it, which, by the logic of the plot, introduces prose techniques into the realm of poetry.

10. The principle of cargoification, as applied to poetry, turns into a requirement for the construction of verses in terms of local semantics, i.e., the deployment of the entire texture of the verse from the main semantic content of the topic.

11. The Literary Center of the Constructivists (LCC), which has made the aforementioned provisions its banner, is an organizational association of people united by the common goals of communist construction and whose task, through joint, practical study of the formal-technical and theoretical aspects of constructivism, is to give literature and, in particular, poetry, in today's cultural environment, effective meaning. Constructivists consider it necessary in their literary work to actively reveal revolutionary modernity both thematically and in its technical requirements.

In order to give this topic maximum effectiveness, constructivists put forward the principle of “cargoification” of the word, i.e., its maximum “densification”. This is achieved with the help of “local semantics”, which consists in concentrating all the visual and expressive means of the verse around the main semantic content of the theme “[B. Agapov in the poem“ Typist Topchuk ”comparisons, epithets, etc. are taken from clerical life:“ eyebrows , as the signature of the director of the trust”; in N. Panov’s poem about General Kornilov, the rhythm imitates a drum march, etc.], as well as by “introducing prose techniques into the field of poetry”, if this is dictated by the logic of the plot (for example, Selvinsky’s “Report”, or he has a series calculations and technical terms in "Pushtorg"). It also sharply criticized "right-wing social strata, intellectual and petty-bourgeois groups that adapt the formal requirements of constructivism as aesthetic trenches for sitting out in them from the onslaught of revolutionary modernity." Such a slide from the realm of art into the realm of ideology could not but affect the fate of constructivism as a poetic movement.

And although the LCC still claims a leading role, declaring: “Constructivism is replacing futurism both as a literary school and as a nihilistic worldview. Futurism has done its job. He was the grave-digger of bourgeois decadentism in the pre-revolutionary years. In its new guise - LEF, futurism continues its old work - the fight against the rotten rump. But the new literature, the new socialist culture will no longer be created by his hands. This new culture creates its own new style, its own new methods, and these are the methods of constructivism,” but in recent years the program of the constructivists in many ways resembled the program of the LEF they criticized.

The constant sharp criticism of the constructivists by Marxist theorists led in 1930 to the liquidation of the LCC and the formation of the M.I. and those who believe that our literature is called upon to play one of the responsible roles in this area. In 1930, the Constructivist Literary Center, sensing the coming harsh changes, disbanded itself. In the early 1930s, the political situation in the country, and, consequently, in art, changed to a large extent. Innovative currents were first subjected to sharp criticism, and then they were completely banned, like ... bourgeois ones. As the constructivist M. Ginzburg correctly wrote, each era has its own style of art. The romantic-utopian, strict and revolutionary asceticism was replaced by the magnificent forms of the totalitarian baroque and the arrogant redundancy of Stalin's neoclassicism. The following fact seems strange - in the USSR there was a struggle against “right angles”, against “bourgeois formalism”, against “Leonidism”, and palaces in the style of Louis XIV began to be considered completely proletarian. The constructivists were in disgrace. Those of them who did not want to "rebuild" eked out a miserable existence until the end of their days (or even were repressed). However, Ilya Golosov, for example, managed to fit into the conjuncture of the 1930s and was able to create really interesting buildings. The Vesnin brothers also participated in the creative life of the USSR, but they no longer had such authority as before. According to some authoritative scientists in the USSR in 1932-1936. there was a "transitional style", conditionally called "post-constructivism". In the 1960s, when the struggle against "architectural excesses" began, they again remembered the developments of the constructivists. The study of their heritage has become mandatory for young architects. And since the early 1990s, many of the unrealized ideas of the 1920s have become a reality. An example is the shopping complex "Three Whales" on the Minsk highway (made in the spirit of the twenties), a variety of luxury housing in Moscow and other buildings of a modern metropolis. constructivism soviet art avant-garde

At the beginning of the 21st century, constructivism returns to architecture again. Now it is called Scandinavian, since its roots lie in the suburban housing construction of the Scandinavian countries. Scandinavian constructivism is characterized by an abundance of space and sunlight, functionality and simplicity, naturalness and naturalness. It has a given rhythm of lines and strict geometry. It is characterized by the aesthetics of expediency, the rationality of strictly utilitarian forms. To date, Scandinavian constructivism has taken root most widely in Russia, in St. Petersburg. The architectural concept of Scandinavian constructivism is considered the most organic for country houses near the Northern Capital.

In St. Petersburg, the predominance of cloudy weather leads to a lack of sunlight. This problem is solved due to the large areas of glazing and spacious rooms in houses characteristic of Scandinavian constructivism. The rhythm of the lines and the emphasized rigor of geometry give the houses made in the style of Scandinavian constructivism their own unique look, while simplicity and naturalness, coupled with the use of natural materials, provide an attractive architectural solution. Such houses organically fit into the country landscape and are close in spirit to the aristocratic Petersburgers.

2. Constructivism in architecture

Significant progress in the 20-30s. 20th century reached architecture. The rapid growth of cities, industry, and the development of transport come into sharp conflict with the layout of old cities, which do not meet the new requirements, with their narrow, winding streets. The need to solve the complicated problem of transport services and provide normal sanitary and living conditions for the population, give rise to urban planning projects and new forms of resettlement of people. They are characterized by a desire to soften social contrasts in cities and eliminate excessive concentration of the population. Around large cities in some countries garden cities with individual residential buildings, industrial cities, workers' settlements, etc., with a strictly functional division of the territory, arise. The attention of architects was attracted by the tasks of not only industrial, but also mass housing construction, the development of residential complexes with economical standard apartments designed for the middle and low-paid category of people. More attention is paid to the design of districts, the architectural design of landscapes. A universal classification of streets and the principles of their combination are being developed, networks of city highways are being created, independent of transitional streets and cutting the city into a number of separate spaces. In the design of cities of a new type and large industrial enterprises, the principles of the functional-constructive system, which originated at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, are increasingly being established. This style of architecture is called constructivism. In the history of Russian constructivism, professional architects designed all kinds of modular structures of residential units, interconnected into large complexes, elevators moving along the outer walls, etc. Konstantin Melnikov is considered the coryphaeus of Russian (Soviet) constructivism. Starting with the construction of Russian pavilions at International Exhibitions in the style of traditional wooden architecture, thanks to which he gained international fame, Melnikov moves on to designing very relevant buildings of a new (revolutionary) type and purpose - workers' clubs. Club them. Rusakov, built by him in 1927-28, has nothing in common either with the architecture of the previous century or with Art Nouveau architecture. Here, purely geometric concrete structures are organized into a certain structure, the shape of which is determined by its purpose.

The last remark applies to almost all modern and 20th century architecture and is defined as functionalism. In the architecture of constructivism, functionalism leads to the creation of dynamic structures, consisting of fairly simple formal elements, completely devoid of the usual architectural decor, connected in accordance with the organization of the internal space and the work of the main structures. The language of architectural forms is thus "cleared" of everything unnecessary, decorative, non-constructive. It is the language of a new world that has broken with its past.

The emerging architectural image clearly conveys the dynamics of artistic processes and life in post-revolutionary Russia, the rapture of modern technical possibilities. The architects of the constructivism style believed that all elements of the building, even such as signs, clocks, billboards, loudspeakers, elevator shafts, etc., should take part in creating the architectural image of a modern building, so the architect should also design all of them. Soviet constructivists concentrated their efforts on two major tasks: designing an exemplary socialist city and communal multi-apartment housing for workers - communal houses. Meeting the new needs of the socialist state, the constructivists were engaged in the design and construction of such types of buildings as offices, department stores, sanatoriums, printing houses, research centers, plants and factories, workers' clubs and hydroelectric power stations. The young Soviet architecture of the first post-revolutionary decades was really at the forefront of world architecture, implementing or creating on paper the most daring projects, including the famous Palace of Soviets, which could not be built on the site of the destroyed Cathedral of Christ the Savior. With the advent of Stalinist totalitarianism in the 30s, Russia is gradually losing its positions in architecture, and so far they have not been restored. An important milestone in the development of constructivism was the activity of talented architects - the brothers Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin. They came to realize a laconic "proletarian" aesthetic, already having a solid experience in building design, in painting and in book design. (They started their career back in the Modern era).

For the first time, constructivist architects loudly declared themselves at the competition for projects for the building of the Palace of Labor in Moscow. The Vesnins' project was distinguished not only by the rationality of the plan and the correspondence of the external appearance to the aesthetic ideals of our time, but also implied the use of the latest building materials and structures. The next stage was the competitive design of the building of the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" (Moscow branch). The task was extremely difficult - a tiny piece of land was intended for construction - 6 × 6 m on Strastnaya Square. The Vesnins created a miniature, slender six-story building, which included not only an office and editorial premises, but also a newsstand, a lobby, a reading room (one of the tasks of the constructivists was to group the maximum number of vital premises in a small area). The closest associate and assistant of the Vesnin brothers was Moses Yakovlevich Ginzburg, who was an unsurpassed theorist of architecture in the first half of the 20th century. In his book Style and Age, he reflects that each style of art adequately corresponds to "its" historical era. The development of new architectural trends, in particular, is due to the fact that "... continuous mechanization of life" is taking place, and the machine is "... a new element of our life, psychology and aesthetics." Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers organize the Association of Contemporary Architects (OSA), which includes leading constructivists. Since 1926, the constructivists began to publish their own magazine - "Modern Architecture" (or simply "CA)". The magazine has been published for five years. The covers were designed by Aleksey Gan. In the late 1920s, constructivism began to spread outside the Soviet Union, becoming most widespread in Germany and the Netherlands. In the mid-60s - 70s, the traditions and ideas of constructivism found an unexpected continuation in the architecture of the so-called "high-tech", a direction that demonstratively exposes not only the work of architectural structures, but also engineering communications.

3. Constructivism in design and photography

Constructivism is a direction that is primarily associated with architecture, however, such a vision would be one-sided and even extremely wrong, because, before becoming an architectural method, constructivism existed in design, printing, and artistic creativity. Constructivism in photography is marked by the geometrization of the composition, shooting from dizzying angles with a strong reduction in volume. Such experiments were carried out, in particular, by Alexander Rodchenko.

In graphic forms of creativity, constructivism was characterized by the use of photomontage instead of hand-drawn illustration, extreme geometrization, subordination of the composition to rectangular rhythms. The color scheme was also stable: black, red, white, gray with the addition of blue and yellow. In the field of fashion, there were also certain constructivist trends - in the wake of the global passion for straight lines in clothing design, Soviet fashion designers of those years created emphatically geometrized forms. Among fashion designers, Varvara Stepanova stands out, who, since 1924, together with Lyubov Popova, developed fabric designs for the 1st cotton-printing factory in Moscow, was a professor at the textile faculty of VKhUTEMAS, and designed models of sports and casual clothes. The most famous fashion model of those years was the notorious Lily Yuryevna Brik.

Style Features

It is characterized by rigor, geometrism, conciseness of forms and monolithic appearance. In architecture, the principles of constructivism were formulated in the theoretical speeches of A. A. Vesnin and M. Ya. Ginzburg, they were practically embodied for the first time in the project of the Palace of Labor for Moscow created by the brothers A. A., V. A. and L. A. Vesnin (1923 ) with its clear, rational plan and the constructive basis of the building (reinforced concrete frame) identified in the external appearance. In 1926, the official creative organization of constructivists, the Association of Modern Architects (OSA), was created. This organization was the developer of the so-called functional design method, based on the scientific analysis of the features of the functioning of buildings, structures, urban complexes. Typical monuments of constructivism are kitchen factories, labor palaces, workers' clubs, communal houses.

In relation to foreign art, the term "constructivism" is largely arbitrary: in architecture it denotes a trend within functionalism, which sought to emphasize the expression of modern structures, in painting and sculpture it is one of the avant-garde trends that used some formal searches for early constructivism (sculptors N. Gabo, A . Pevzner).

During this period, the constructivist literary movement also existed in the USSR.

The emergence of constructivism

Constructivism is considered to be a Soviet phenomenon that emerged after the October Revolution as one of the directions of the new, avant-garde, proletarian art, although, like any phenomenon in art, it cannot be limited to one country. So, the forerunner of this trend in architecture can be considered, for example, such structures as the Eiffel Tower, which used the principle of an open frame structure and demonstrated structural elements in external architectural forms. This principle of revealing structural elements became one of the most important techniques of architecture of the twentieth century and was the basis of both the international style and constructivism.

The birth of the term

The constructivists saw it as their task to increase the role of architecture in life, and this should have been facilitated by the denial of historical continuity, the rejection of the decorative elements of classical styles, the use of a functional scheme as the basis of spatial composition. The constructivists were looking for expressiveness not in the decor, but in the dynamics of simple structures, verticals and horizontals of the building, freedom of the building plan.

Early constructivism

A great influence on the design of constructivist public buildings was exerted by the activities of talented architects - the brothers Leonid, Viktor and Alexander Vesnin. They came to realize a laconic "proletarian" aesthetic, already having a solid experience in building design, in painting and in book design.

For the first time, constructivist architects loudly declared themselves at the competition for projects for the building of the Palace of Labor in Moscow. The Vesnins' project was distinguished not only by the rationality of the plan and the correspondence of the external appearance to the aesthetic ideals of our time, but also implied the use of the latest building materials and structures.

The next stage was the competitive design of the building of the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" (Moscow branch). The task was extremely difficult - a tiny plot of land was intended for construction - 6 × 6 meters on Strastnaya Square. The Vesnins created a miniature, slender six-story building, which included not only an office and editorial premises, but also a newsstand, a lobby, a reading room (one of the tasks of the constructivists was to group the maximum number of vital premises in a small area).

The closest associate and assistant of the Vesnin brothers was Moses Ginzburg. In his book Style and Age, he reflects that each style of art adequately corresponds to "its" historical era. The development of new architectural trends, in particular, is connected with what is happening "...continuous mechanization of life" and the car is "... a new element of our life, psychology and aesthetics." Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers organize the Association of Modern Architects (OSA), which includes leading constructivists.

Rise of constructivism

Architects of mature constructivism used a functional method based on a scientific analysis of the features of the functioning of buildings, structures, urban complexes. Thus, ideological-artistic and utilitarian-practical tasks were considered together. Each function corresponds to the most rational space-planning structure (the form corresponds to the function).

On this wave, the constructivists are fighting for the "purity of the ranks" and against the stylistic attitude towards constructivism. In other words, the leaders of the OCA fought against the transformation of constructivism from a method into a style, into external imitation, without comprehending the essence. Thus, the architect Grigory Barkhin, who created the Izvestia House, was attacked.

In the same years, the constructivists were fascinated by the ideas of Le Corbusier: the author himself came to Russia, where he fruitfully communicated and collaborated with the leaders of the OCA.

A number of promising architects are being promoted among the OCA, such as the brothers Ilya and Panteleimon Golosov, Ivan Leonidov, Mikhail Barshch, Vladimir Vladimirov. Constructivists are actively involved in the design of industrial buildings, factory-kitchens, cultural houses, clubs, residential buildings.

The most common type of public buildings, which embodied the basic principles of constructivism, were the buildings of clubs and houses of culture. An example is the houses of culture of the Proletarsky district of Moscow, better known as the Palace of Culture ZIL; construction was carried out in -1937 according to the project of the Vesnin brothers. When creating the project, the authors relied on the well-known five principles of Le Corbusier: the use of pillars instead of massive walls, free planning, free design of the facade, elongated windows, and a flat roof. The volumes of the club are emphatically geometric and are elongated parallelepipeds, into which the projections of stairwells, cylinders of balconies are embedded.

A characteristic example of the implementation of the functional method was communal houses, whose architecture corresponded to the principle expressed by Le Corbusier: "a house is a machine for living." A well-known example of buildings of this type is on Ordzhonikidze Street in Moscow. The author of the project, implemented in -1931, was Ivan Nikolaev, who specialized mainly in industrial architecture. The idea of ​​a communal house presupposed the complete socialization of everyday life. The concept of the project was proposed by the students themselves; the functional scheme of the building was focused on creating a rigid daily routine for students. In the morning, the student woke up in the living room - a sleeping cabin measuring 2.3 by 2.7 m, containing only beds and stools - and headed to the sanitary building, where he passed successively showers, charging rooms, and locker rooms as if on a conveyor belt. From the sanitary building, the tenant went down the stairs or ramp to a low public building, where he went to the dining room, after which he went to the institute or to other premises of the building - halls for team work, booths for individual studies, a library, an assembly hall. In the public building there were also nurseries for children under three years old, and an open terrace was arranged on the roof. As a result of the reconstruction of the hostel carried out in the 1960s, the original plan of a strict daily routine was violated. Another well-known example is the house of the People's Commissariat of Finance in Moscow. It is interesting as an example of a “transitional type” house from traditional apartment housing to a communal house. Six or four similar houses were built in Moscow, one each in Yekaterinburg and Saratov; not all have survived to this day.

A special figure in the history of constructivism is considered to be A. Vesnin's favorite student - Ivan Leonidov, a native of a peasant family, who began his career as a student of an icon painter. His largely utopian, future-oriented projects did not find application in those difficult years. Le Corbusier himself called Leonidov "a poet and hope of Russian constructivism". Leonidov's works still delight with their lines - they are incredibly, incomprehensibly modern.

Leningrad constructivism

Leningrad constructivists:

Kharkov constructivism

Being the capital of Ukraine in 1919-1934, Kharkov turned out to be one of the largest centers of constructivist development in the Soviet Union. The generally recognized symbol of constructivism in Kharkov is the ensemble of Svoboda Square (until 1991 - Dzerzhinsky Square) with the dominant building of Gosprom  (Derzhprom). Numerous buildings in the constructivist style occupy the area around the square (the so-called "Zagospromie"); among them is the house "Word", built in 1928 by a cooperative of writers and having a symbolic shape of the letter "C" in plan ( glory."word"). Bright constructivist buildings in Kharkov are the house of culture of railway workers, the post office, the hostel of the Kharkov Polytechnic Institute "Giant".

In 1931, the Kharkov Tractor Plant was built in the southeastern part of the city. Sotsgorod KhTZ (architect P. Aleshin) is an outstanding example of residential development in the constructivist style.

Minsk constructivism

An example of constructivism in Minsk is the house government of the Republic Belarus - the largest public building of Joseph Langbard, one of the best monuments of constructivism, which marked the beginning of the formation of a new city center.

Constructivism in design and photography

Constructivism is a trend that is primarily associated with architecture, however, such a vision would be one-sided and even extremely wrong, because, before becoming an architectural method, constructivism existed in design, printing, art. Constructivism in photography is marked by the geometrization of the composition, shooting from dizzying angles with a strong reduction in volume. Such experiments were carried out, in particular, by Alexander Rodchenko.

In graphic forms of creativity, constructivism was characterized by the use of photomontage instead of hand-drawn illustration, extreme geometrization, subordination of the composition to rectangular rhythms. The color scheme was also stable: black, red, white, gray with the addition of blue and yellow. In the field of fashion, there were also certain constructivist trends - in the wake of the global passion for straight lines in clothing design, Soviet fashion designers of those years created emphatically geometrized forms.

Among fashion designers, Varvara Stepanova stands out, who, since 1924, together with Lyubov Popova, developed fabric designs for the 1st cotton-printing factory in Moscow, was a professor at the textile faculty of VKHUTEMAS, and designed models of sports and casual wear.

Constructivism in literature

A. Mosolov became the most important representative of this trend in Russian music. His symphonic episode "The Plant" from the unrealized ballet "Steel" became a symbol of constructivism in Russian music. Constructivism also manifested itself in such works as the foxtrot "Electrificat" (), orchestral "Telescopes" (4 pieces, -) L. Polovinkin; piano piece "Rails", opera "Ice and Steel" by Vl. Deshevova and others. It is customary to attribute the ballets of the great Soviet composers Bolt () Shostakovich and Steel Jump () Prokofiev to constructivism. However, neither the authors of Prokofiev's biographies, musicologists I. V. Nestyev, I. I. Martynov, I. G. Vishnevetsky, nor the composer himself characterized the music of the ballet "Steel Skok" as constructivist, while the scenery for the ballet was called constructivist

It is characterized by rigor, geometrism, conciseness of forms and monolithic appearance.

In architecture, the principles of constructivism were formulated in the theoretical speeches of A. A. Vesnin and M. Ya. Ginzburg, practically they were first embodied in the project of the Palace of Labor for Moscow created by the brothers A. A., V. A. and L. A. Vesnin (1923 ) with its clear, rational plan and the constructive basis of the building (reinforced concrete frame) identified in the external appearance.

Owenhatherley, Public Domain

In 1926, the official creative organization of the constructivists, the Association of Modern Architects (OCA), was created. This organization was the developer of the so-called functional design method, based on the scientific analysis of the features of the functioning of buildings, structures, urban complexes. Characteristic monuments of constructivism are kitchen factories, labor palaces, workers' clubs, communal houses.

In relation to foreign art, the term "constructivism" is largely arbitrary: in architecture it denotes a trend within functionalism, which sought to emphasize the expression of modern structures, in painting and sculpture it is one of the avant-garde trends that used some formal searches for early constructivism (sculptors I. Gabo, A . Pevzner).

During this period, the constructivist literary movement also existed in the USSR.

The emergence of constructivism

Constructivism is considered to be a Soviet phenomenon that emerged after the October Revolution as one of the directions of the new, avant-garde, proletarian art, although, like any phenomenon in art, it cannot be limited to one country. So, the forerunner of this style in architecture was the Eiffel Tower, which combines elements of both Art Nouveau and naked constructivism.

As Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote in his essay on French painting: “For the first time, not from France, but from Russia, a new word of art flew in - constructivism ...”

In the context of the ongoing search for new forms, which meant the oblivion of everything "old", innovators proclaimed the rejection of "art for art's sake". From now on, art was supposed to serve production, and production - the people.

Most of those who later joined the constructivist movement were ideologists of utilitarianism or the so-called "production art". They called on artists to "consciously create useful things" and dreamed of a new harmonious person who uses convenient things and lives in a well-organized city.

Thus, one of the theorists of "production art" Boris Arvatov wrote that “... they will not portray a beautiful body, but will educate a real living harmonious person; not to draw a forest, but to grow parks and gardens; not to decorate the walls with paintings, but to paint these walls ... "

“Production art” became nothing more than a concept, but the term constructivism itself was uttered precisely by theorists of this direction (in their speeches and brochures, the words “construction”, “constructive”, “construction of space” were also constantly encountered).

In addition to the above direction, the formation of constructivism was greatly influenced by futurism, suprematism, cubism, purism and other innovative trends in the fine arts of the 1910s, however, it was precisely “production art” with its direct appeal to modern Russian realities of the 1920s that became the socially conditioned basis. (epochs of the first five-year plans).

The birth of the term

The term "constructivism" was used by Soviet artists and architects as early as 1920: Alexander Rodchenko and Vladimir Tatlin, the author of the project of the Third International Tower, called themselves constructivists. For the first time, constructivism was officially designated in the same 1922 in the book of Alexei Mikhailovich Gan, which was called “Constructivism”.

Gosznak, Public Domain

A. M. Gan proclaimed that "... a group of constructivists sets as its task the communist expression of material values ​​... Tectonics, construction and texture are the mobilizing material elements of industrial culture."

That is, it was explicitly emphasized that the culture of the new Russia is industrial.

Constructivism in architecture

In 1922-1923, in Moscow, which began to recover after the Civil War, the first architectural competitions were held (for the projects of the Palace of Labor in Moscow, the building of the Moscow branch of the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper, the building of the Arkos joint-stock company), in which architects, Moisei Ginzburg, the Vesnin brothers, Konstantin Melnikov, Ilya Golosov and others, who began their creative path even before the revolution. Many projects were filled with new ideas, which later formed the basis of new creative associations - constructivists and rationalists. Rationalists created the ASNOVA association (Association of New Architects), whose ideologists were architects Nikolai Ladovsky and Vladimir Krinsky. Constructivists, on the other hand, united in the OCA (Association of Modern Architects), headed by the Vesnin brothers and Moses Ginzburg. The key difference between the two currents was the question of the perception of architecture by a person: if the constructivists attached the greatest importance to the functional purpose of the building, which determined the design, then the rationalists considered the function of the building to be secondary and sought to take into account, first of all, the psychological characteristics of perception.

The constructivists saw it as their task to increase the role of architecture in life, and this should have been facilitated by the denial of historical continuity, the rejection of the decorative elements of classical styles, the use of a functional scheme as the basis of spatial composition. The constructivists were looking for expressiveness not in the decor, but in the dynamics of simple structures, verticals and horizontals of the structure, freedom of the building plan.

Early constructivism

The activity of talented architects - the brothers Leonid, Victor and Alexander Vesnin - had a great influence on the design of constructivist public buildings. They came to realize a laconic "proletarian" aesthetic, already having a solid experience in building design, in painting and in book design.

For the first time, constructivist architects loudly declared themselves at the competition for projects for the building of the Palace of Labor in Moscow. The Vesnins' project was distinguished not only by the rationality of the plan and the correspondence of the external appearance to the aesthetic ideals of our time, but also implied the use of the latest building materials and structures.

The next stage was the competitive design of the building of the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" (Moscow branch). The task was extremely difficult - a tiny plot of land was intended for construction - 6 × 6 meters on Strastnaya Square. The Vesnins created a miniature, slender six-story building, which included not only an office and editorial premises, but also a newsstand, a lobby, a reading room (one of the tasks of the constructivists was to group the maximum number of vital premises in a small area).

The closest associate and assistant of the Vesnin brothers was Moses Ginzburg. In his book Style and Age, he reflects that each style of art adequately corresponds to "its" historical era. The development of new architectural trends, in particular, is connected with what is happening "...continuous mechanization of life" and the car is "... a new element of our life, psychology and aesthetics." Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers organize the Association of Contemporary Architects (OSA), which includes leading constructivists.

Since 1926, the constructivists began to publish their own magazine - "Modern Architecture" ("SA"). The magazine has been published for five years. The covers were designed by Aleksey Gan, Varvara Stepanova and Solomon Telingater.

Rise of constructivism

Architects of mature constructivism used a functional method based on a scientific analysis of the features of the functioning of buildings, structures, urban complexes. Thus, ideological-artistic and utilitarian-practical tasks were considered together. Each function corresponds to the most rational space-planning structure (the form corresponds to the function).

novdan , Public Domain

On this wave, the constructivists are fighting for the "purity of the ranks" and against the stylistic attitude towards constructivism. In other words, the leaders of the OCA fought against the transformation of constructivism from a method into a style, into an external imitation, without comprehending the essence. So, the architect Grigory Barkhin, who created the Izvestia House, was attacked.

In the same years, the constructivists were fascinated by the ideas of Le Corbusier: the author himself came to Russia, where he fruitfully communicated and collaborated with the leaders of the OCA.

Among the OCA, a number of promising architects are being promoted, such as the brothers Ilya and Panteleimon Golosov, Ivan Leonidov, Mikhail Barshch, Vladimir Vladimirov. Constructivists are actively involved in the design of industrial buildings, kitchen factories, cultural centers, clubs, residential buildings.

Svetlov Artem, CC BY-SA 3.0

The most common type of public buildings, which embodied the basic principles of constructivism, were the buildings of clubs and houses of culture. An example is the house of culture of the Proletarsky district of Moscow, better known as the Palace of Culture ZiLa; construction was carried out in 1931-1937 according to the project of the Vesnin brothers. When creating the project, the authors relied on the well-known five principles of Le Corbusier: the use of pillars instead of massive walls, free planning, free design of the facade, elongated windows, and a flat roof. The volumes of the club are emphatically geometric and are elongated parallelepipeds, into which the projections of stairwells and cylinders of balconies are embedded.

A characteristic example of the implementation of the functional method was the communal houses, the architecture of which corresponded to the principle expressed by Le Corbusier: "a house is a machine for living." A well-known example of buildings of this type is the dormitory-commune of the Textile Institute on Ordzhonikidze Street in Moscow. The author of the project, implemented in 1930-1931, was Ivan Nikolaev, who specialized mainly in industrial architecture. The idea of ​​a communal house presupposed the complete socialization of everyday life. The concept of the project was proposed by the students themselves; the functional scheme of the building was focused on creating a rigid daily routine for students. In the morning, the student woke up in the living room - a sleeping cabin measuring 2.3 by 2.7 m, containing only beds and stools - and headed to the sanitary building, where he passed successively showers, charging rooms, and locker rooms as if on a conveyor belt. From the sanitary building, the tenant went down the stairs or ramp to a low public building, where he went to the dining room, after which he went to the institute or to other premises of the building - halls for team work, booths for individual studies, a library, an assembly hall. In the public building there were also nurseries for children under three years old, and an open terrace was arranged on the roof. As a result of the reconstruction of the hostel carried out in the 1960s, the original plan of a strict daily routine was violated.

A special figure in the history of constructivism is considered to be A. Vesnin's favorite student - Ivan Leonidov, a native of a peasant family, who began his career as a student of an icon painter. His largely utopian, future-oriented projects did not find application in those difficult years. Le Corbusier himself called Leonidov "a poet and hope of Russian constructivism". Leonidov's works still delight with their lines - they are incredibly, incomprehensibly modern.

Constructivism is banned

Even at that time, when constructivism, rationalism and other innovative trends were dominant, they were already opposed by staunch “conservatives”. They defended their right to speak the language of traditional forms originating in ancient Greece, Rome, in the masterpieces of Palladio and Piranesi, Rastrelli and Bazhenov.

The most famous among them are the Leningrad master Ivan Fomin with his “red dorika” and the Moscow architect Ivan Zholtovsky, an admirer of the Renaissance.

In the early 1930s, the political situation in the country, and consequently in art, changed to a large extent. Innovative and avant-garde movements were first subjected to sharp criticism, and then they were completely banned as bourgeois. As the constructivist M. Ginzburg wrote, each era has its own style of art.

The romantic-utopian, strict and revolutionary asceticism was replaced by the magnificent forms of the totalitarian baroque and the arrogant redundancy of Stalin's neoclassicism. The following fact seems strange - in the USSR there was a struggle against “right angles”, against “bourgeois formalism”, against “Leonidism”, and palaces in the style of Louis XIV began to be considered completely proletarian.

The constructivists were in disgrace. Those of them who did not want to "rebuild" eked out a miserable existence until the end of their days (or even were repressed). However, Ilya Golosov, for example, managed to fit into the conjuncture of the 1930s and was able to create really interesting buildings. The Vesnin brothers also participated in the creative life of the USSR, but they no longer had such authority as before.

According to S. O. Khan-Magomedov and A. N. Selivanova, in the USSR in 1932-1936. there was a transitional style, conditionally called "post-constructivism".

Photo gallery

Constructivism in design and photography

Constructivism is a direction that is primarily associated with architecture, however, such a vision would be one-sided and even extremely wrong, because, before becoming an architectural method, constructivism existed in design, printing, and artistic creativity. Constructivism in photography is marked by the geometrization of the composition, shooting from dizzying angles with a strong reduction in volume. Such experiments were carried out, in particular, by Alexander Rodchenko.

In graphic forms of creativity, constructivism was characterized by the use of photomontage instead of hand-drawn illustration, extreme geometrization, subordination of the composition to rectangular rhythms. The color scheme was also stable: black, red, white, gray with the addition of blue and yellow. In the field of fashion, there were also certain constructivist trends - in the wake of the global passion for straight lines in clothing design, Soviet fashion designers of those years created emphatically geometrized forms.

Among fashion designers, Varvara Stepanova stands out, who, since 1924, together with Lyubov Popova, developed fabric designs for the 1st cotton-printing factory in Moscow, was a professor at the textile faculty of VKhUTEMAS, and designed models of sports and casual clothes.

The most famous fashion model of those years was the famous Lily Yuryevna Brik.

Constructivism in literature

In 1923, a number of manifestos proclaimed constructivism as a trend in literature (primarily in poetry), and the "Constructivist Literary Center" was created. It was attended by poets Ilya Selvinsky, Vera Inber, Vladimir Lugovskoy, Boris Agapov, literary critics Kornely Zelinsky, Alexander Kvyatkovsky and others. Constructivist writers proclaimed the closeness of poetry to “industrial” topics (characteristic names of collections: “State Planning Committee of Literature”, “Business”), essayism, the widespread use of “prosaisms”, the use of a new meter - tactics, experiments with recitation. By 1930, the Constructivists became the object of harassment by the RAPP and announced their dissolution.

Architects

• Vesnin brothers
• Moses Ginzburg
• Alexander Gegello
• Ilya Golosov
• Boris Gordeev
• Boris Iofan
• Joseph Karakis
• Mikhail Kondratiev
• Le Corbusier
• Ivan Leonidov
• Oleg Lyalin
• Konstantin Melnikov
• Vladimir Sherwood - Forerunner of the Constructivists
• El Lissitzky