Vkhutemas Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow. The workshops were established by a order from Vladimir Lenin with the intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of the highest qualifications for industry, and builders and managers for professional-technical education. It was formed by merging the first and second Moscow Free Art Studios. It included an art department (painting, sculpture, and architecture) and an industrial department (printing, textile, ceramics, woodworking, and metalworking). Actually, Vkhutemas’ main function was to train stand painters and architects. At the same time, the industrial departments were given the task of training new kinds of artists, able to work with the traditional forms of plastic arts and to create the entire environment of objects surrounding men, including objects of everyday life and work tools. (Hamilton, G.H., 1993)

1. VKHUTEMAS
Russian state art and technical school
Presentation by: Ata Chokhachian
March 2013

2. Architecture at Vkhutemas, book
cover by El Lissitzky, 1927
Vkhutemas
Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow.
The workshops were established by a order from Vladimir Lenin with the
intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of
the highest qualifications for industry, and builders and managers for
professional-technical education.―(Fry T., 1999)
It was formed by merging the first and second Moscow Free Art Studios. It
included an art department (painting, sculpture, and architecture) and an
industrial department (printing, textile, ceramics, woodworking, and
metalworking). Actually, Vkhutemas’ main function was to train stand painters
and architects. At the same time, the industrial departments were given the task
of training new kinds of artists, able to work with the traditional forms of plastic
arts and to create the entire environment of objects surrounding men, including
objects of everyday life and work tools. (Hamilton, G.H., 1993)

3. At first Kandinsky, returning to the Soviet Union in 1914 had been the school`s guiding
inspiration, envisioning an institution with broad aims: it would focus on experimental, inter-
dependal basis, encouraging a perspective that would emphasize the position of the viewer`s
reaction, both physically and mentally. But his theories were rejected as too romantic and
psychological, and he returned to Germany and the Bauhaus in 1921, bringing with him ideas
from the Russian school.
Gropius states that, Kandinsky, along with Klee and Feininger provided a spiritual
counterpoint to the rational objective teachings that become the hallmark of the Bauhaus.
Vkhutemas was the Russian equivalent of the Bauhaus; Moholy-Nagy, Kandinsky and
Lissitzky were the masters for the affinities shared by the two schools. Like the German
school, Vkhutemas included art and industrial departments. The constructivists like the
teachers at the Bauhaus consider their technical experiments and formal explorations
―laboratory work‖. (Kantor, S. G. 2003)

4. Art faculty
The primary movements in art which influenced education at
Vkhutemas were constructivism and suprematism. although individuals
were adaptable enough to fit into many or no movements—often
teaching in multiple departments and working in diverse media. The
artistic education at Vkhutemas tended to be multidisciplinary, which
stemmed from its origins as a merger of a fine arts college and a craft
school. Vkhutemas cultivated polymath masters in the Renaissance
frame, many with achievements in graphics, sculpture, product design,
and architecture. Painters and sculptors often made projects related to
architecture; examples include Tatlin's Tower. (Siegelbaum H., 1992)
Model of the Tatlin tower, 1919

5. Industrial faculty
The industrial faculties had the task of preparing artists of a new type, artists
capable of working not only in the traditional pictorial and plastic arts but
also capable of creating all objects in the human environment such as the
articles of daily life, the implements of labor, etc. The industrial department
at Vkhutemas endeavored to create products of viability in the economy and
functionality found in society. Class-based political requirements steered
artists toward crafts, and the designing of household or industrial goods.
Tables designed by Rodchenko were equipped with mechanical moving
parts, and were standardized and multi-functional. The products designed at
Vkhutemas never bridged the gap between workshops and factory
production. Furniture pieces constructed at Vkhutemas explored the
possibilities of new industrial materials such as polywood and tubular steel.
(Christina Kiaer, 2005)
Tubular steel chair designed in Tatlin's
atelier , 1927

6. Vkhutemas vs. Bauhaus
• Vkhutemas was a close parallel to the German Bauhaus in its intent, organization and
scope. The two schools were the first to train artist-designers in a modern manner.
• Both schools were state-sponsored initiatives to merge the craft tradition with modern
technology, with a Basic Course in aesthetic principles, courses in color theory,
industrial design, and architecture. (Fry T., 2005)
• The curriculum was similar to that of the Bauhaus, but with a more formalist approach
to things.
• Bauhaus appears to have been more rooted in the idea of craft, and of a sort of melding
of the beliefs of William Morris of the Arts and Crafts movement with industrial
production, ironically, so that industrialism could be made human in a way. Vkhutemas
appears to have worked for goals that are very, very, broadly similar, but from a
completely different perspective. For Vkhutemas, art and design was to serve society,
but it was still going to be art.
• Vkhutemas was a larger school than the Bauhaus, (Wood, Paul, 1999) but it was less
publicized outside the Soviet Union and consequently, is less familiar to the West. (Tony
Fry 1999)
• With the internationalism of modern architecture and design, there were many
exchanges between the Vkhutemas and the Bauhaus.(Colton, Timothy J., 1995)

7. V. Kolpakova. G. Klutsis's workshop
Color Solution for an Architectural Volume. 1928-1929.
Zal'tsman. A. Vesnin's workshop. Movie Studio.
Last course project. 1926-1927.

8. Vkhutemas, “Model Construction”, c. 1925.
Maquettes from the Vkhutemas schools 1920-30

9. Vkhutemas, “Model Construction”, c. 1925.
Lyubov Popova , The picturesque composition. 1921

10. GEORGE Krutik
City of the Future graduation project. 1928
Vkhutemas Werkstätten , VOLUME-SPACE-MODELS 1920s. by Khan-Magomedov

11. VKHUTEMAS in 2006
In 1920, the school was reorganized and in 1930 dissolved, following political and internal pressures
throughout its ten-year existence. The school's faculty, students, and legacy were dispersed into as many as
six other schools. However, many of the materials produced by students and faculty of VKHUTEMAS
survived and are now part of extensive archives owned by Moscow Architecture Institute, MARKHI

12. Conclusions
• Vkhutemas and Bauhaus created the original model of artistic and industrial institutions, which had no
analogues in the past. Teaching and experimenting in these schools, the Avant-garde painters, sculptors
and architects developed a concept of aesthetic formation and created one of the earliest system of art and
design.
• Universal design method, the theoretical and methodological legacy of the most important centers of
formation of a new style still continue to promote the educational and stylistic processes in the fields of
art, design and architecture in present days.
• Many introductory disciplines of Bauhaus and Vkhutemas now integrated into the curriculum of
architectural, design and artistic institutions worldwide.

13. THANK FOR YOU ATTENTION

14. Refrences
o Sybil Gordon Kantor, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and the Intellectual Origins of the Museum of Modern Art, MIT Press, 2002, ISBN 0-262-61196-1
o Tony Fry, Inc NetLibrary, A New Design Philosophy an Introduction to Defuturing, UNSW Press, 1999, Page 161, ISBN 0-86840-753-4
o George Heard Hamilton, Painting and Sculpture in Europe, 1880–1940, Yale University Press, 1993, page 315, ISBN 0-300-05649-4
o Alexander Rodchenko, Experiments for the Future, Museum of Modern Art, 2005, Page 273, ISBN 0-87070-546-6
o Gilles Néret, Kazimir Malevich 1878–1935 and suprematism, Taschen, 2003, Page 93, ISBN 3-8228-1961-1
o Alan Colquhoun, Modern Architecture, Oxford University Press, 2002, Pages 110, 125–126, ISBN 0-19-284226-9
o Catherine Cooke, Russian Avant-Garde: Theories of Art, Architecture, and the City, Academy Editions, 1995, (Cooke, 1995), pp.168,172–173.
o Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Soviet State and Society Between Revolutions, 1918–1929, Cambridge University Press, 1992, Page 114, ISBN 0-521-
36987-8
o Christina Kiaer, Imagine no Possessions – the Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism, MIT Press, 2005, Page 122, ISBN 0-262-11289-2
o Lesley Jackson, Twentieth-Century Pattern Design: Textile & Wallpaper Pioneers, Princeton Architectural Press, 2002, Page 55, ISBN 1-56898-
333-6
o Paul Wood, The Challenge of the Avant-Garde, Yale University Press, 1999, Page 244, ISBN 0-300-07762-9
o Timothy J. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis, Harvard University Press, 1995, Page 215, ISBN 0-674-58749-9
o Kantor, S. G. (2003). Alfred H. Barr, Jr. and the intellectual origins of the museum of modern art. MIT Press.
o Wood, Paul (1999) The Challenge of the Avant-Garde. New Haven: Yale University Press ISBN 0-300-07762-9, p. 244
o Tony Fry (1999). A new design philosophy: an introduction to defuturing (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=yEc7UGv2xQEC).UNSW Press.
p. 161. ISBN 9780868407531. . Retrieved 15 May 2011.
o Colton, Timothy J. (1995) Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press ISBN 0-674-58749-9; p.215