history of contemporary architecture - 17. Russian-Constructivism.ppt

Constructivism (Russian)
Post Revolution (1917-1932) Constructivism
Arch. Dania Abdel-Aziz 1

Modernism and the Heroic Period of Architecture – Sources of Modernism
The Beginnings – Constructivism
– Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated
in Russia beginning in 1919 and was a rejection of the idea of
autonomous art.
– The movement was in favor of art as a practice for social purposes.
Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the
20th century, influencing major trends such as the Bauhaus and De Stijl
movements.
– Its influence was pervasive, with major impacts upon architecture,
graphic design, industrial design, theatre, film, dance, fashion and
to some extent music.

Architecture
Graphic Design
Russian Constructivism

Industrial design
Theatre, Film, Dance

Fashion and to some extent music.

– Proposed to replace art's
traditional concern with
composition with a focus on
construction.
– Objects were created not in
order to express beauty or to
represent the world, but to
carry out a fundamental
analysis of the materials and
forms of art, one which
might lead to the design of
functional objects.

– Constructivism was a desire to express the experience of modern life with its
dynamism, and its new and disorientating qualities of space and time.

– It was the made to develop a new form of art more appropriate to the democratic and
modernizing goals of the Russian Revolution.

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Arch. Dania Abdel-Aziz
Photomontage of
illustrated Mayakovsky’s
poem, "About This," in
1923.
Alexander
Rodchenko. album
cover by Franz
Ferdinand (2007)
The constructivist are among pioneers of photomontage.
- Collage with photo and painting together

Jean Piaget, founder of constructivism
he is not an architect but a philosopher.

Russian Constructivism (Malevich, Tatlin):
– Later the Russian revolution was in 1917.
– Stalin was in power and he damaged the Avant-Garde architecture of
Russia.
– He Reused the Neo-Classical architecture and refused the International
style.
– During the heroic period, there was the Russian constructivist movement
that some called it Architecture of the Metaphor, which was during the era
of Lenin as an Avant-Garde movement.
– It reflected the politics effect on architecture.
– After Lenin died, the constructivism came to an end.
– constructivist architecture was used to build utilitarian projects for the
workers
The new religion is the science and rationality, and architecture must represent
this metaphor to prove the power of science.
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– The engineer is the master using cantilevers and hard structures to improve
architecture.
– It is a school of thought that was based on industry, arts, and science.
– It depended on:
• Structural forces and skeletons.
• Dynamic architecture.
• Rules creating for generating forms.
• Importance of Graphic arts for the first time where you can convey the idea
to others and spread the messages of the revolution easily.
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CHARACTERISTICS of CONSTRUCTIVISM:
- Geometric abstraction & pattern.
- Experimental geometry with universal meaning.
- Minimal, basic elements.
- Industrial material; glass, steel and plastic.
- Clearly defined arrangement.
- Machine-made building parts.
- Technological details such as; antennae, signs and projection screens
- A sense of movement.
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1. Vladimir Tatlin (Father of Constructivism).
2. El Lissitzky.
3. Konstantin S.Mel’nikov.
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Examples:
– Architect: Valdimir Tatlin 1919-20:
– A tower structure that shows the time of his model
and evolution in structure:
• Metaphor for Social Order and importance of
Time, and for worshiping science and
engineering using intellectual material and
construction
• Celebrating industry and engineering power.
• Cantilevered structures
• 313m high
• Large transparent volumes
• Rotating objects that each rotates after a
certain time: Trusses that are all moving
together
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Valdimir Tatlin

Monument to the Third
International,
St. Petersburg, Moscow 1920
Monument, Tower (never actually built).
Vladimir Tatlin (Father of
constructivism)
Constructivist art is committed to complete
abstraction with a devotion to modernity,
where themes are often geometric,
experimental and rarely emotional.
a 22-ft-high (6.7-m) iron frame on which
rested a revolving cylinder, cube, and
cone, all made of glass which was
originally designed for massive scale.
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• “The monument consists of three great rooms of glass, erected with the help of a
complicated system of vertical pillars and spirals.
• These rooms are placed on top of each other and have different, harmonically
corresponding forms. They are able to move at different speeds by means of a
special mechanism.
A. The lower storey, which is in the form of a cube, rotates on it’s axis at the speed of
one revolution per year. This is intended for legislative assemblies.
B. The next storey, which is in the form of a pyramid, rotates on its axis at the rate of
one revolution per month. Here the executive bodies are to meet (the International
Executive Committee, the Secretariat and other executive administrative bodies).
C. Finally, the uppermost cylinder which rotates at the speed of one revolution per day
is reserved for information services: an information office, a newspaper, the issuing of
proclamations, pamphlets and manifestos – in short, all the means for informing the
international proletariat.
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Konstantin Melnikov
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Rusakov Workers’ Club (1890-1974)
Konstantin Melnikov
Melnikov House
(1927-1929)

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Wolkenbügel (Cloud-iron). 1925 A
photomontage of a building designed, but never
built, by Lissitzky.
El Lissitzky

Konstantin Melnikov:
• The USSR Pavilion in the World Exposition in Paris
(1925):
 It is a propaganda for the idea of the revolution
 He broke the box in a weird way
 A dynamic architecture
• A market in Moscow
• Lenin Institute in Moscow:
 A metaphor of Linen enlightment
 Use of Glass and transparency as a metaphor
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Rusakov Workers Club, 1927-8

Alxendar vesnin
- Russian architect, (1883 -1959 ).
- theatre designer, artist.
- worked with his brother (Leonid Vesnin, Victor Vesnin).
- Braced Avant- Garde concept.
- followed constructivism, which is :
• Modern architecture.
• Flourished in the soviet union.
• combined advanced technology and engineering.
• Had an avowedly Communist social purpose.
• produced many pioneering projects and finished buildings.
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His supporters’ ideas :
• Moving away from formal issues in art.
• Direct interest towards actual prodection.
• Dealt with in procedural design.
His ideas :
• Hadn’t given up his interest in formal technical
issues.
• Development of forms which determine the spatial
space.
• Facilitate the organization of vital humanitarian
operation.
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Abstract composition

Vesnin’s works:
• Commissariat of Heavy Industry Project
• Oilworkers' Club, Baku
• House of Film Actors, Moscow
• Likachev Palace of Culture, Moscow
• Palace of Labour project
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Palace of labour
• Designed on the end of 1922.
• For a national competition of a palace in the down town Mossco
Characteristic :
• Purely technical work.
• A new social solution.
• Free of metaphors and historical references.
• Steel and glass elevation.
• Basic abstract shapes.
• Flat roof
• The facades are massive and glazed
• Various heights.
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Thank you 
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