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Beauty as a Route to 'the Radiant Future': Responses of Soviet ArchitectureAuthor(s): Catherine CookeSource: Journal of Design History, Vol. 10, No. 2, Design, Stalin and the Thaw (1997), pp. 137-160Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Design History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1316129 .

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Catherine Cooke

Beauty as a Route to 'the Radiant

Future': Responses of Soviet

Architecture

This article seeks to probe behind the verbal criteria in which the brieffor a Socialist Realist architecture was defined under Stalin in order to identify specific designfeatures that were considered successfully to embody them. In particular, it examines the Communist Party's demand that Soviet buildings and urbanforms should be svetloe (radiant), and hence materialize the svetloe budushchee (radiant future) which the Party was promising its citizens.

In defending the Soviet profession of the time against superficial and dismissive judgements by certain recent historians, the article shows the importance of getting closer to the real design oeuvre of Soviet architects at that date (the early 1930S to Stalin's death and the early 1950S) through their more ephemeral (hence now rare) periodicals, and of evaluating these design propositions in relation to the actual theoretical and critical criteria which were shaping them at the time, rather than by later external assumptions about those criteria.

It examines the role of monumental artists in creating the fully expressive architectural work which Socialist Realism demanded, and the role of architectural and planning historians in establishing what it meant to be 'national inform' in the Russian context.

In the last few years there have been a number of problems are more subtle. There is still not the new studies which in differing degrees and from critical distance from traumatic events of the differing viewpoints address the architecture pro- Stalin period itself or from the end of control duced under Stalin. Where these studies have over historical access to it.2 That is one point. revealed writings or drawings from Soviet But overlaid on the wider problem of reopening archives, they have enormously expanded our cultural wounds is a specific problem in judge- factual knowledge. But only to a limited extent ment of their architecture even by architects. After have they expanded our understanding. Indeed, thirty-five years of creating a built environment many have helped reduce that understanding by through standard plans and limited ranges of offering no more than cliched judgements. concrete panels under Khrushchev and his suc-

The reasons for this lack of penetration differ cessors, the once-rich aesthetic culture of Russian according to the authors' origins. In the West and Soviet architecture has been almost totally recent commentaries have come from those who destroyed; the intellectual framework for discuss- know the Russian language but know nothing ing complex design tasks has disappeared with about architecture. Their subjects are political or the experience of tackling them. As a result there social history to which architecture seems a is now no basis for an adequate academic or lightweight appendage. If they have read any professional discussion of the quite subtle aes- properly architectural texts of the time (as thetic tasks that the Stalinist Party threw at their opposed to political or administrative archives), architects, or for critical evaluation of the design it is generally only to scoff at their authors as devices they deemed appropriate for solving /naive'.' them. These are some of the questions I want to

For Russians, whether at home or abroad, the broach in this article.

Journal of Design History Vol. io No. 2 ? 1997 The Design History Society 137



Stalin's Architecture: Context and Programme years of 'thaw' which followed led to a certain liberation in many cultural fields. As Buchli and

Many of the architects who led the profession Reid describe here, aspects of the domestic inter- under Stalin had been amongst the brightest ior were subjected to careful and prescriptive new graduates of the Imperial Academy of Arts aesthetic control under a normative application school just before the upheavals of 1917 which of the notion of 'taste'. In architectural practice, brought in the Marxist Soviet government.3 In the however, these were years of close-down, a period Academy as in the rival Moscow school, the of brutally enforced rejection of that architectural teaching of design precedent, aesthetic criticism, culture and of architecture's subtleties as a lan- and the history of world architecture was strong. guage. To Khrushchev, all debate on such issues This tradition was disrupted amidst the Moder- was squandering time as irresponsibly as the nist explorations of the 1920s but was strongly re- related buildings were squandering resources. established in the early 1930S. At this time the The denigration of professional values and vilifi- Party's final denunciation of Modernism and cation of leading individuals started with his inauguration of Socialist Realism were accompan- speech to the Congress of Soviet Builders in ied by the founding of a Soviet Academy of December 1954. This was a year after he effec- Architecture in 1933 with a strong graduate tively took over national leadership by becoming school. Here leading practitioners supervised First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and research programmes on historical, theoretical, a year before he denounced Stalin himself in a technical and design issues. Most architectural secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress in publishing emanated from the Academy. Like all February 1956.6 Addressing himself directly 'to other Soviet publications the architectural mate- the President of the Academy of Architecture rial only appeared if it had Party censors' comrade Mordvinov' and adducing specific fig- approval but that does not mean it lacked lively ures for costs of decorative elements and energy debate. Through these books and journals the consumed in the Stalinist High Buildings which profession's best talents were developing the Mordvinov and others had just completed, he design devices for an architecture that was attacked the profession which had produced required to contribute 'as an active force' to the such architectural statements 'which were praised larger political and social programme of the before'. It had 'squandered the people's money' Soviet Union.4 on architectural 'over-indulgences' and refused to

Neither the task nor their model of it were adapt itself to the technical revolution he consid- trivial. Socialist Realism demanded that they 'cri- ered essential to solving mass housing needs. This tically assimilate' the total design heritage of the attack left the profession disoriented and world's preceding cultures, as Marxist-Leninism launched the process of architecture's rapid sub- decreed that this legacy of human knowledge and ordination to the construction industry. experience was the foundation on which the Under Stalin individual buildings were still proletariat would build its new society.5 Hence- separately commissioned from the teams under forth all cultural products must be 'socialist in appropriate 'master architects' and most build- content' but the 'realism' meant they must be ings were still considered as individual tasks of /national in form'. Whilst being Soviet they must design. Naturally, this process was not taking work with local traditions to build new languages place on the basis of capitalist concepts of build- and new common myths. For building design as ing ownership or the profit-making commercial for literature or the other arts this was no small design office, but the design process itself was still task in the multi-national Soviet Union. It conceived in terms of the multi-variate task, part required all their resources of inventiveness and technical, part social, and, very importantly, aes- subtlety if the results were not to fall short of the thetic, which Architecture with a capital 'A' has profession's own historically established stan- historically always been. Thirty years later, by the dards of what was 'architecture'. last decade of the Soviet period, it was acknow-

Stalin died in 1953. Under Khrushchev, the ledged as historical fact that Khrushchev's revolu-

138 Catherine Cooke



tion had led architects towards a virtual profes- deceased contemporaries Shchusev and the Con- sional extinction.7 Indeed, by the 198os and early structivist brothers Vesnin. 199os, most people who bore the title of 'architect' 'Due to an oversight by Mordvinov', whose knew nothing of what it was that had been lost. Academy Khrushchev had dissolved earlier that Any history they knew was formulaic and super- year, 'the little ship Theory has been transformed ficial. They had never been exposed to the kind of from a pilot-boat into a floating restaurant which building practice which is required to produce is now being towed by practice', i.e. by Moscow subtly differentiated objects. Architect. On the menu of this restaurant such

This is the same profession which since the 'Regular dishes' as 'What is Architecture?', demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 has been 'Theory of Architectural Composition', and 'His- trying to re-find a lost flexibility in building tory of Soviet Architecture' are marked 'Niet' design and technique and to re-establish a lost signifying 'Off'. Only 'Today's specials' are avail- perspective in historical analysis and criticism. able, namely 'Publishing reviews "in the between- We can best find a mirror back into what had friends style"' and 'scholarly works marinated in gone by returning to that point in the mid-195os saccharine'. Meanwhile this little vessel is half- when the profession first recognized what it was sinking. Theorists are leaping off as the ship's bell being asked to jettison. rings the alarm and architects on the mother-ship

Political censorship has long nurtured in Rus- pump to keep the plucky little Theory afloat. On sians a talent for caricature. In fraternal circles of the quarter deck of Moscow Architect a discordant the small and artistically talented architectural orchestra plays 'The Mosproekt March'. 'The profession, a gentle self-satire with pen-and-ink leading clarinet of Iofan', formerly architect of was common. One year after Khrushchev's attack Stalin's now-aborted Palace of Soviets, 'sounds the first shockwaves had been absorbed and the weakly' against 'velvety murmurings from the profession was demonstrating its willingness to miniature double-bass of Alabian' who had led conform. At the same time his increasingly open the vicious anti-Modernist attacks at the height of regime permitted freer commentary upon itself Stalin's purges in the mid-1930s. At the stern, the whilst still demanding a healthy 'self-criticism' inveterate Palladian 'Zholtovsky completes the from individuals and groups. Thus the November embarkation of his pupils; the mischievous boys 1955 issue of the official architectural journal Arkhi- have promised not to take their expensive toys on tektura SSSR (Architecture of the USSR) featured a board, but to make up for it they have openly large fold-out cartoon entitled 'To a new shore' carried their proportional compasses past the man which highlighted their own uncertainties [i].8 who is checking for unnecessary weight.'

The commentary gives a superbly accurate and On deck others 'calculate what the voyage will ironic description of the profession's dilemma. cost' and two big names of the early 1920S

The good ship Moscow Architect 'is leaving the 'reminisce about architectural approaches of the island of Over-indulgences [izlishestva] after a era of individual designing and one-off construc- long and expensive stay and finally preparing to tion projects'. At the yard arm Moscow's future sail for the long-awaited shores of Standardization Chief Architect Posokhin 'scours the side horizons and Industrialization of Construction.' On the by telescope' in the hope of spotting an alternative quayside of Over-indulgences at the lower right, destination to the land of factory chimneys ahead. three architects weep as they are dragged away. To the left the critic Yaralov hangs from a deco- They are Dmitry Chechulin and Leonid Poliakov rated balloon as he 'impatiently tries to overtake whose High Buildings in central Moscow were Moscow Architect by blowing hot air into the explicitly denounced in Khrushchev's speech and problem of national form.' There is more of this Alexei Dushkin, star designer of pre-war Moscow sharp observation and anecdote throughout the metro stations. Heavy volumes by such dead drawing. As the commentary concludes, 'Every- masters as Vitruvius and Alberti are being one is certain that the ship will arrive on time at craned ashore with others by the Russian classi- the desired new shore but they are not expecting a cists Kazakov and Voronikhin and by their own smooth voyage.'

Beauty as a Route to 'the Radiant Future' 139



X~ Cartoon showing the Soviet architectural profession setting off to a new shore' from ArkhitekturU SSS~ November 1955

~~~~~~ '1~~~~~~~~~~~~~~7

iL Cartoon showing the Soviet architectural profession setting off 'to a new shore' from Arkhitektura SSSR, November 1955

The Soviet profession's sojourn in the land of central party leadership's rather pedestrian con- Standardization and Industrialization of Con- cerns with "beauty" in architecture' merely struction was no happier for architecture than 'translated into a fascination with classical struc- the equivalent voyage was for architecture in the tures';"1 or that 'the victory of Socialist Realism West. But looking back into the twenty years of was the death of an architecture of hope, of professional work from the mid-1930s to the mid- human cooperation, and of simple human 1950s which this talented shipload were leaving decency'? 12

behind, can it really only have operated at such a In the next year, 1995, a massive volume on level of cliche as recent authors claim? Moscow came from a more senior figure in Soviet

Hugh Hudson in his Stalinisation of Soviet Archi- studies, the Director of the Harvard Russian tecture of 1994 from Princeton insists that the Research Centre Timothy Colton, subtitled Govern- architectural theory of this period was purely ing the Socialist Metropolis. Here rich archival work 'defined as what it was not' and was characterized exposes administrative and political decision- only by 'a complete lack of clarity regarding making in new detail. But the architecture through Socialist Realism's form'.9 He would insist that which the major urban transformations were con- 'Socialist Realism was anything Stalin or [Moscow ducted from the 1935 Plan onwards is treated with Party Chief Lazar] Kaganovich said it was' and mockery. Apparently 'magnification and gilding 'there could be no further debate on the matter'.'0 of ordinary pieces of the urban tissue were the Was it really also the case as he claims that 'the main ways in which the monumental principle

140 Catherine Cooke



was flaunted."3 Metro station designs are dis- ones. The design of buildings, as of other every- missed as resulting from a process in which 'Kaga- day artefacts, is deemed unproblematic because novich encouraged splurging with escalators, its products are physically familiar. In design chandeliers, muscular proletarian statuary, fields even more than in the fine arts, the political stained glass panels, fittings of brass and chrome, or social historian is generally unfamiliar with the and walls of marble in twenty different kinds."4 languages involved or internal discourses being Such judgements are not purely attributable to an pursued. Indeed, few even recognize that there are American contempt for the failed 'evil empire': any theories or discourses here, far less under- British examples differ only by being less ful- stand how they relate to those in such cognate somely expressed.'5 fields as philosophy, public policy or mythology.

To Colton the raising of building heights to six In design theory and design history we are all storeys on the city's main arteries is simply a aware of this secondary status. pomposity 'to present the passer-by with walls In the writing of Soviet history, however, this of harmonious facade in proportion to [the new failure to see material culture as part of the social width of] the thoroughfares'.' One is at a loss to holism leads to a fatal structural misrepresenta- know what associations of form with politics tion. When the political philosophy governing all underpin his assertion that 'at the level of street decision-making about state production was ma- composition the inspiration seemed closer to terialist, neither the form of objects of material Haussmann than to anything Russian or Marx- culture nor the means of their production was to ist."7 Were Soviet architects so devoid of historical be determined casually. Day-to-day reality was knowledge or theoretical engagement as not to chaos, but theoretically nothing should be explore precisely what these two traditions might designed without reference to materialist concep- mean for their work? And was it really the case, as tions of the how the object helped shape economic Hudson concludes, that by the time of the First and political relations and the individual social Congress of Soviet Architects in 1937, 'Alabian consciousness, and vice versa. and the Party group had succeeded in destroying Theoretically based practice of any kind requires the spirit of experimentation and creativity that the feedback loop of continuous debate about had marked the years of modernism in Soviet success or otherwise of particular solutions. architecture. As in all areas of culture, the curtain Soviet politicians' formulations of philosophical had closed on the dreams of the revolution. Only or aesthetic principles, like any true design brief, the nightmare of Stalinism remained.' only specified the requirements to be satisfied and

In my reading of the buildings and the profes- the criteria by which a proposed 'solution' would sion's own critiques this was not the case. The be judged. It might require for example that a spirit of experimentation and the creativity were design should 'draw upon the progressive heri- addressed to different problems as the aesthetic tage of the Uzbek people' and be 'monumental'. objectives changed. But an examination of how But it does not describe the forms that solution the Soviet profession tried to use the means of might take. Generating possible solutions for criti- architecture-space, scale, personal identification cism is the job of the architect. In some show-piece with a cultural myth-to create 'hope' or address architectural competitions like that for the Moscow problems of 'simple human decency' does not Palace of Soviets in 1931, a brief with aesthetic lead a fellow-designer to deride it. On the con- requirements and criteria is available to us, but trary, it leads one to value rather positively the usually it is not.'9 In general therefore we depend debates actually being conducted in both design on the architectural commentaries of the time for work and critical commentary. knowledge of what the requirements of the aes-

Why then have the cliches been considered an thetic solution were, of the criteria that were adequate judgement upon architecture, when applied, of what forms were deemed to fulfil such historical commentators would not pass them or not, and crucially why. There follow two such confident judgements on other fields of simple examples of how serious the errors can be social production? The reasons are the usual without that contemporaneous critique.




In almost any study of this period, two buildings Manizer's figures of revolutionary fighters were prominently featured as canonical examples of widely applauded. In declaring them kak zhivye, Socialist Realism are Ivan Zholtovsky's apartment 'as if alive', Stalin accorded them his highest building of 1934 so-called 'On the Mokhovaia', and personal accolade as art.23 But the critics recog- the Revolution Square metro station of 1938, nized that the sculptures stood in a static archi- designed by Dushkin in collaboration with the tectural space which neither acknowledged their sculptor Matvei Manizer [2-31.2O In the criticism presence nor reinforced their dynamism. The of the time, however, neither of these was seen as result was not a 'synthesis of the arts'; the total contributing to the canon. On the contrary, both work did not transmit to the metro-traveller any were pilloried as examples of failure to fulfil sensation of the 'revolutionary action' of 1917 important demands of Socialist Realism. The Zhol- which the thematic station at that site was tovsky was consistently slammed as a mindlessly intended to mythologize.24 Today the sculptures literal copying of Palladio without even a gesture to remain as attractive for their naturalism as they the principle of assimilating history 'critically'. The were to Stalin. Only the criticism of the time giant order, absurdly unrelated to the building's reveals that the aspirations underlying such exe- internal spaces, was deemed entirely inappropriate cuted works were considerably more sophisti- as a solution to 'monumentality' in a residential cated. building, where this quality should grow out of the There is another important dimension of this real functional elements of housing.2' situation in the Stalinist profession whose omis-

The Revolution Square metro was an equally sion has tended to distort the historical account. prestigious project on an equally central site. This That is the counterbalancing effect on Party-based was seen as an example of failure to achieve that power which is exerted in a professional peer synthesis of the depictive arts with architecture group by sheer creative originality. The Party which made the building ideologically 'active'. politics behind Alabian's denunciation of Moder- This was another key principle of Socialist Realist nists like Vesnin at the First Congress of Archi- architecture that emerged from the cycles of tects in 1937, for example, were indeed vicious, project critique that accompanied the Palace of and Hudson documents them in fascinating and Soviets competition during 1931-2.22 important new detail.25 But playing against that

2 Ivan Zholtovsky, apartment building 'on the Mokhovaia', Moscow, 1934, with elevation based on Palladio's Loggia del Capitaniato in Vicenza, of

4571iC

~~~~~~~~- .

142 Catherine Cooke



3 Alexei Dushkin, architect, and .-; ..... ! 111Matvei Manizer, sculptor, Revolution

Square metro station, Moscow, 1935-8

11'

31.. . --.. _-;. ....

.~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ *._ .....

political hostility in such a situation was the was crucially about the constant invention of new almost involuntary respect for the sheer talent obrazy, new 'images' to embody and transmit on which the profession's collective status ulti- messages and myths to audiences who were mately depended. In a professional culture as themselves always 'moving forward' as their sophisticated as this was, the front line of innova- political consciousness and aesthetic sensibilities tion and critique is a brutally meritocratic terni- developed. The role of the artist as vedyshchyi, as tory. Thus, much remains inexplicable in such a literally 'leading forward' this mass conscious- situation if research uses only written archives ness, derives directly from this vision of art as and neglects the battles to out-do each other being 'active' in this ideological advance. Such a role conducted in the design work. was sharply contrasted to the avant-gardist's pur-

This is particularly important here because it suit of personal whims. In this catalytic vision of bears on the issue of 'originality' which is central art's role, each work must be contextual: it is to the aesthetic programme of Socialist Realism, designed to have a certain effect in the particular Socialist Realism was not about regurgitation. It cultural and ideological context into which it will




4 Ilia Golosov, Zuev Workers' Club,

-_ Moscow, 1927-9, on a Soviet picture postcard of 1931

be dropped. This was why Socialist Realism was the drawing board were not necessarily those 'a method not a style'.26 It was also the reason why with Party-political power. Hence 'power' in the true originality was valued so highly, whether as profession was an equilibrium between these two formal innovation within a national language or factors. This accounts for the positions which such as the spiritual originality of samobytnost': of a former leading Modernists as Ilia Golosov or thing 'being itself'. Andrei Burov occupied in the Stalinist profession

Those who produced this richer innovation on [4-51. Their sheer fecundity and originality, in the

5 Ilia Golosov, headquarters building for Soviet news agency, TASS, at

ll .Nikoisky Gates, central Moscow: a 4 Ida ~~~~~~~project of 1935 featured in the official

* His \> ~~~~book on the Moscow 1935 Plan

144dropped. his was why ocialist Rea Cath was t drawing bor wr no erine hooke

Ths1h4rdcdti4ice noaino 45. hi he eudt n orgialty, nn thoe



6 V. Kalmykov, standard design for a two- screen cinema for Nukus, Central Asia, published in Arkhitekturnaia gazeta supplement, 1935, no. 6o

As oA

. M .

new aesthetic as in the old, assured them leading pupil Lev Bruni and his students to decorate positions in the new hierarchy of official design Stalingrad Tractor Factory for its fifth birthday. studios.27 Their brief was to convey how socialism 'made

Often, of course, these reputations and roles labour easy, attractive and joyful-that labour depended on designs never actually erected. which, in a Soviet factory, is filled with positive Hence accounts that proceed only from 'built content by its very essence.'29 This work in turn works' are also flawed by the unspoken but followed Bruni's collaboration with the older mistaken assumption that even under a centra- Vladimir Favorsky on thematic interior murals lized dictatorship it was the best and most ideo- for the Museum of Maternity and Childhood in logically 'correct' designs that got built. Many Moscow in 1932-3. Headed by these two artists superbly inventive applications of the Socialist through its whole existence from 1935 to 1948, the Realist method were never built [6]. Of that studio became a crucial collaborator in producing which was built, much of the less monumental that synthesis of architecture with the depictive work in local community buildings for example, arts which made it 'active' [7S-]. Some fifty-five or in smaller-scale housing, has inevitably been principal artists led the work on nearly fifty major altered or demolished. Hence an ideologically projects, including such vast tasks as the perma- important layer of design work has gone that nent Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow for which was often amongst the most original. It is two thousand artists were employed and virtually recorded only in the publications of the time.28 nothing remains of their work.30

Another seriously distorted perception of the For all these reasons the extensive project pub- collective oeuvre of this period arises through lishing of the period presents a very different defacement or destruction of the mural paintings view of the range and originality of architectural and reliefs which were integral to the ideological work at this time from that suggested by the few potency to so much of the built environment at prominent built works which remain in the city that time. (The Moscow metro is now a rare centres. Much of this publishing was in the remaining example.) Much of this work was pictorial supplements to the thrice-fortnightly done by the Academy of Architecture's special Arkhitekturnaia gazeta (Architectural Newspaper). Studio of Monumental Painting. Like so much else The supplement was flimsy but the low-grade this was originated by highly talented former paper used for the Gazeta itself made it even Modernists. It started in 1935 when ex-Construc- more ephemeral. This part contained the news tivist architect Ivan Nikolaev, teaching in Moscow and criticism. Few copies went outside the USSR Architectural Institute, asked one-time Tatlin and precisely because it contains the sharpest




8t Vladimir Favorsky, ceiling fresco on the t oe

theme onteaatetbidnMo mlye fth os fYugPoerMso,13-

Pe1 # .. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.. ....

[.; ! ' a _ _ it';'~~~~veloe o 'radiant'.,,

~~~ ijJE ^iS _ w;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"N N - : A _ |s s

debate many Soviet librariesdi laterrsk relegatedsco n te thme itth to conr V andir waouldy denyfits dexoaiostesnce Itre isd there- yfyps oe e qaei hhareoh eta foremaraits u onteaatentht vastlyg o expandes our th view. 'Radiant' ArcitnetreMso,13

Throughs oumsait tepofFoessryIonalspriess, inrk Sthemreet formal mopnthlyanmn Arhthektra SSSRenas wrsin ial the nes dehindhi genrally colouredvlanguage Cotonb paeraned wthe abstatooksf three isfescrtclwiig gtclsstoteitnosofhsacietuen

debathne mit hopve linrview ofits rte t o

threr theoretica proess. indecmmnaos eitneItsthr-ASvtaln' 'gaorproects' ashe callens the 'md

foreeatedly u obse that vther wer far too vfew s easia srcecari

Throughout~~~~~~~ ~ Vlaimi professiona ceiling insc the meohmeorteea

prfess on the forwrs t here ildng were empllome' t the inoteionsrof aoscow, ciite'go lif

atoull tryingt and many asherithes mean it poartychie forsth captalent Kagnoihe

used. The aspiration I want to explore here, the equality of these two aspects to the First albeit briefly and provisionally, was the over- Congress of Soviet Architects in June 1937' thus

146 Catherine Cooke



~~*~-~~4j ~ ~ Rz 9 Panneau entitled "The Cross- *1, l lI ' ' Country Race' by Alexander

M.. Deineka in the sports hail of the RIV". ~ Red Army Club, Minsk, C.1936,

with circular bas-relief panels (just viible to either side of the pan

neau), by the studio of sculptor Georgy Motovilov, who also worked extensively on the Moscow metro and the Volga-Don canal. From Arkhitekturnaia gazeta supplement, 1937, no. 71

4 . \~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ....

launching them on the pursuit of 'beauty' in only that it will be 'radiant'. In the society work- architecture that Khrushchev would abort. 'The ing for this svetloe budushchee, a svetloe material proletariat does not just want buildings,' Kagano- environment was both the ideological activator vich declared, 'it does not simply want to live and the ultimate reward. comfortably; it wants its buildings to be beautiful. My aim is to identify some of the specific design And it wants its housing, its architecture, its features that were deemed to make buildings and towns, to be more beautiful than in all the coun- cities svetlye. As a paradigmatic building of the new tries of Europe and America.'33 era, Stalin's show-piece Palace of Soviets was regu-

State and buildings were equivalent as aesthetic larly described thus. Iofan's first approved variant objects here and conceptually interchangeable: the of 1932 was popularly presented as a design 'imme- Stalinist state itself was also regularly described as diately recognized by Stalin and Molotov' to be 'beautiful'. In the standard phrase which encap- 'svetlyi'.3' This is typically explained in the main sulated Stalin's promise to his people, their labour popular book on the project eight years later as would deliver a svetloe budushchee: a radiant meaning it is 'upward-sweeping, monumental, future. It was a future of svet (lightness) in the well proportioned in its parts, open to the sun, sense of being without burdens and at ease with accessible to the ordinary people-a building cele- itself. It was a society comfortable with its histor- bratory of joyfulness, and clear.' The taller final ical legitimacy as well as its historical roots and its version which 'combined architecture and sculp- heritage, certain of its social priorities, confident ture into a monument to Lenin' was described in in the power of its own efforts and the mastery of the same text as 'grandiose, rigorous, radiant and its territory and material resources. It had sublime joyful' [1o].35 Many iterations of critique and re- faith in a leadership guided, as the phrase went, design had taken place to achieve this design and by 'the Stalinist concern for the individual' the process of evolving designs for smaller build- (Stalinskaia zabota o cheloveke). If this sounds like ings, for public facilities, housing, schools, and so medieval Orthodoxy, the continuities are many on, was essentially similar. By this means some including the anti-utopian meta-narrative. An definition emerged of what Socialist Realism optimistic journey is promised but there is no meant in architecture and it is those same charac- utopian description of the destination. We know teristics which were being sought.




10 The clear obraz: Boris Iofan et al., i l dza Palace of Soviets, final version, 1934 in a

of the Party and Government viewing the model', including Stalin, Kalinin,

* Kaganovich, and Gorky. A special fold- j out in N. Atarov, Dvorets sovetov, 1940

The 'upward-sweeping' movement which ele- When the final Palace designs were identified vated the eye was a principal determinant of as being 'clear' this referred to a clearly expressed 'optimism'. As was forcefully explained by entrance and 'front' as well as a clear three- Maxim Gorky at the 1934 Congress of Writers, dimensional shape. Buildings without a 'front' Socialist Realism in the arts was distinguished were bezlikovye: literally faceless. They were a from nineteenth-century Realism by being socially bezobrazie: a 'formless mess' without iconic optimistic rather than socially critical.36 In Stalinist image or obraz. A confident, radiant society literature, architecture is compared to music as reflected its certainties through obrazy of clear being capable of evoking general sentiments but form and clearly understood meaning. According not of communicating specific ideas.37 It was to the Marxist-Leninist principle of cultural con- precisely for that reason that the Palace of Soviets tinuity on which Socialist Realism was based, Committee had insisted in 1931 that Soviet archi- these obrazy were forms that resonated in the tecture must incorporate the other arts, just as the population's consciousness with references to great architectures of antiquity and the medieval cultural myths that were deemed 'progressive' period had done, to give it maximum ideological and therefore served as the crucial bridge between potency.38 their own cultural heritage and the radiant Soviet

A real work of Socialist Realist architecture was future.40 thus a Gesamtkunstwerk, hence the critical failure- This quality of tselostnost', of 'being a whole', of Revolution Square metro station. But 'whole- was equally important as the foundation of stable ness' in a svetloe architecture also signified the and self-confident larger entities at the scale of quality of tselostnost': of being a formal whole in town planning. Unless there was reason to reject which each part is comfortable in its 'right' size it, the plan of the 'radiant' Soviet city should and place. reinforce its historic form. Where this had

At the scale of the overall building this 'whole- evolved over time it was deemed to have been ness' implied prostota-its 'simplicity and clarity' created by 'workers'. The 1935 Plan for Moscow as a total form. Buildings with 'wholeness' were was the prototype for applying 'critical assimila- identifiable as entities; they were simple and tion' to planning.41 It rejected the 'artificial' geo- memorable masses. They were certainly not the metries of Modernist functional planning and fragmented organisms that resulted from expressed the city's new position as radiant Modernist functional planning. This was a deci- light-source to the entire Socialist world by rein- sive criterion for the Palace of Soviets Committee forcing its ancient radial-concentric plan emanat- and it doomed the projects of foreigners like Le ing from the Kremlin. Corbusier, just as it did those of Soviet Modernists Within the overall obraz of the Soviet city plan, like the Constructivist leader Moisei Ginzburg.39 'wholeness' was created by a continuous system

148 Catherine Cooke



of balanced compositions or ansambly. Like the now called a 'profile', but through secular func- English word 'ensembles' this Russian term tions and on a Stalinist scale.' usually refers to a group producing music and it For the devastated Soviet nation, the radiant implies an 'orchestration'. The ansambl' is a public future due to them in victory was genuinely felt to space composed of sober and simple individual be incarnate in these extraordinarily radiant struc- buildings which form a distinctive obraz as node tures which gradually emerged from the veils of or local centre within the urban matrix. In the scaffolding in 1947-51: light, gleaming, dappled Western literature Imperial St Petersburg is often with colour and topped with gold.45 To the quoted as the model for a city of ansambly, but as populace they were recognizably Russian both usual this is an incomplete account of the ration- in their church-like form, and in their equally ale. The Soviet city was in fact always sharply traditional three-dimensional placing within the contrasted to this example of the capitalist city city [ti]. In detail they were highly 'critical' and 'riddled with contradictions'. Such a city might original assimilations of historical models. They indeed contain 'great state ensembles', but they were conceived to be foci for new ensembles could not form a wholeness when they were 'lost around them and there was much criticism of in a sea of petit-bourgeois mercantile chaos'.42 the failure to execute the new building required

According to this logic the Soviet city was a to complete the concept.46 When this building 'radiant' experience for the ordinary proletarian form was exported to the Soviet Union's satellite inhabitant because it provided the elevating and states in Eastern Europe like Poland, as Crowley confidence-building experience of moving as describes here, its very Russianness made the 'owner' through a continuous planned hierarchy Imperialism explicit and produced a complete of ever-larger ensembles. They started from the negation of Socialist Realism's fundamental prin- harmoniously composed building in which he or ciples. she lived and extended out into the city and At the scale of the whole USSR there could be no conceptually to the whole socialist world. radiant future without internal cohesion. For

In this great space the city itself must also architecture as for the other arts and above all present a distinctive obraz externally. In Russian for politics, the relationship of individual national culture towns had historically done this through traditions to the greater Soviet whole was always a developing a unique silhouette of churches and vexed question. Whilst publicity for the Archi- bell-towers that was recognizable to the traveller tects' Congress of 1937 stressed the participation approaching across the landscape and of course of non-Russian Soviet republics, its sessions did was 'beautiful'. This key feature of specifically little more than settle political scores within the Russian traditions was heavily stressed in the profession's central core. The 'multi-national' attempt to distinguish their own national tradi- quality of Socialist Realism had been much more tions from the larger Soviet concern with 'nation- seriously discussed by Gorky, Radek, Bukharin, alities', particularly after the war.43 At this time, and others in speeches to the Writers' Congress of every scholarly book on the historical form of 1934 which addressed substantive creative Russian towns opened and concluded with quo- issues.47 In the republics themselves, principles tations from Party statements which explained its established here for application in literature were professional purpose. Restoration to Moscow of a translated into the language of architecture. In silhouette was the rationale for constructing the republics with strong architectural traditions and seven so-called High Buildings (Vysotnye zdaniia) talent like Georgia, Armenia, and the Ukraine, the around its centre from 1947 to 1951. Through principle of 'National in form, Socialist in content' developments executed under the 1935 Plan, the produced some satisfying and appropriate public general height of Moscow's fabric had risen buildings before the war, and some good low-rise, above the medieval cupolas and bell-towers locally built housing just after it.48

which formerly gave the city its distinctive The radiant confidence being pursued in Soviet three-dimensional obraz. The High Buildings cultural construction and thus also in architecture would give the city back what planning jargon was premised on the belief that Soviet socialism




11 Rare popular postcard of 1957 depict- ing Moscow citizens on a river boat passing the High Building of apartment housing on Kotelnicheskaia Embank- ment by Chechulin et al., completed 1952

A.A,

was a unique historical epoch and uniquely pro- social or functional relevance to Moscow's Palace gressive. According to Leninist principle it 'built of Soviets. Still less did the Venetian city state upon the totality of humanity's past achieve- have a relevance that could justify copying the ments', but it was not in any sense conceived as Doge's Palace or Palladio's palazzi in the Veneto. a historical re-mun of something else. Architectural Such precursors must be drawn upon critically implications of this were already being opened up and creatively, through more subtle architectural in the more perceptive discussions of competition transformations which Voblyi enumerated with entries for the Palace of Soviets competition new directness. entries back in 1931-2, importantly by the young This issue of the relevance of a historical motif critic Ivan Voblyi.49 As he spelt out, the Soviet leads to the question of what was understood by Empire had some attributes akin to those of Rome 'Realism' in this context. It was not unrelated to but the much copied Coliseum had no technical, the notion of decorum: in Socialist Realism a thing

150 Catherine Cooke



. .... ... ~~~~~~~~~~12 Alexei Dushkin, Palace of Soviets (later Kropotkinskaia) metro station, one of the first-stage stations opened on 15 May 1935. Photograph of the central platform hail published in the

. . .. .... ~~~~~celebratory supplement of Arkhitek- turnaia gazeta, 1935, no. 13

must be what it really is, not pretend to be In Socialist Realism it was thus an important otherwise. Least of all therefore was Soviet archi- principle that architectural elements must be used tecture to be ironic.50 (This is one important for their proper tectonic or structural functions. difference from the historicism of Western Post- Arches must span, columns must bear loads. Modernism.) 'Irony' was declared not to be a Citations accompanying the highest state accolade natural mind-set of the simple hard-working of a Stalin Prize often referred to this as did those people. It was alien to 'honesty' and it reduced for lesser awards and critiques of metro station that conceptual, as well as physical 'approach- designs.5" Those taking Stalin Prizes were models ability' (dostupnost') identified as positive in the of such directness [12]. Dushkin's Palace of low, expansive ground-level wings of Tofan's Soviets station (later Kropotkinskaia) of 1935

Palace of Soviets, was praised as manifestly and coherently a

..... ..... -winning apartment build- ~~~~~ in nZaporozhe (Ukraine), 1949

or 1950, by Georgy Vegman, formerly housing specialist of the Constructivists: an example that was praised for creating a Realist

o w architectural expression out of the Well-proportioned elements of housing itself and an upward 'lightening', rather than by 'applied monumentality'. Photograph from

[ ' m~.u , ~ * ~ Arkhitektura SSSR, February 1951




.... .: . :.: ..... .:. . : al : ..::.:.:14 Ivan Zholtovsky, apartment block on Smolenskaia Square, Moscow, originally designed in

zm, i .;:::.1.1 .1.11. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 190, omleted 1951: his coloured. Al >sti 'perspective published in Arkhitek-

tura SSSR, January 1951, showing Hi :Id Ax: - = : golden facing of lower storeys and

white facing of top in accordance ma.' $,<#.:2fft '' Zj;; ' * ''' rem '' with his principle of 'lightening',

also the gold and blue decoration of tower and polychrome decorative framing of windows. The apartment

''___---i > i0}. A5 *'''l7'; e.. ^>'*b->@ ~plan in [24] is typical of those

which Zholtovsky used in this block

vaulted solution and Chechulim's Komsomolskaia he designed the cornices in living rooms specifi- as consistently trabeated cally to heighten the sense of 'elevation' in these

In housing this Realism meant elevational treat- spaces [15 :.

ments which created 'an architectural expression' In an influential paper on architecture of 1834

out of the proper elements of the housing itself- that was revived in 1952 on the pretext of his out of balconies, windows, doorways-rather centenary, the writer Nikolai Gogol had insisted than from applied elements of false monumental- that architects must know the history of all archi- ity [13]. Stalin himself was quoted as insisting that tectures, not just their own traditions, in order to workers' housing constructed under the 1935 maximise their creative resources.56 In this spirit Moscow plan must be svetloe,52 and 'the image sound scholarship lay behind the Academy's (obraz) of the housing building' became a central reworkings of history at this time (another con- issue as housing development accelerated trast with Post-Modernism). The sociological com- throughout the city, in particular during 1939.5 mentaries had a Marxist colouration but the depth Zholtovsky made more mistakes, but by 1951, of factual knowledge about the artefacts was with his building on Smolenskaia Square, he impressive. The standard approved textbook was being acknowledged a master for his prin- Tsvetovedenie dlia arkhitektora (Colour Science for ciple of 'lightening and refining the scale of Architects) of 1939, for example, contained precise detailing towards the top' [14]*. description and sample blotches of historical

When combined with marvellous polychrome colour in places like Pompeii.57 Classical texts patterning under cornices and balconies, this prin- like Vitruvius and Vignola were republished ciple which 'he believes should be applied to all with detailed commentaries.58 Most interesting buildings' transformed enormous rectangular however, are the publications of the very early masses into housing that was indeed almost 1950S, published just before Stalin died, which magically 'radiant'. His own descriptions of inter- most clearly and confidently identify where real nal space use also this word frequently: entrance originality lies and the design models they are lobbies to housing blocks, he said, were what gave drawing from the Russian heritage. them their collective social atmosphere and they In the spirit of Gogol, they insisted on a very must therefore be svetloe. Glazed internal walls catholic understanding of the 'classics' of archi- gave maximum daylight penetration into small tecture. In a work like the canonical little study apartments which made them svetloe in both Russkoe klassicheskoe nasledie i sovetskaia arkhitektura practical and psychological senses. In a domestic (The Russian Classical Heritage and Soviet Architec- version of the 'upward-sweeping' monumentality ture) it is explicitly spelt out that Russia's 'heritage

152 Catherine Cooke



books for the development of her provincial administrative centres, a simple Doric neo-classi-

*6~S2 , cism had become so universal that in this closed L,-F-7h nation it had become regarded as the national

Ito {3 At itvernacular [i6]. The special genius of this Russian classicism was deemed (very accurately) to be its flexibility. As a historical model it showed how to combine a clear language with full response to functional complexities. The results were recognized to be very 'human' buildings (the words used are both chelovecheskii, from chelovek: the individual person, and gumanisticheskii: humanis- tic). Such buildings were each appropriate to their place in a hierarchical whole; they were dignified

2 Styi w--t1C and 'elevating' without being overtly monumental except where civic status demanded that.

J t3 P hi |We see these filters of 'flexibility' and 'appro- -fi1 _3 l ax * I priateness' being applied in the official critiques

I~~ I of their own new buildings. Thus a building * a l | which never features now in the so-called

canons, Vladimir Zabolotny's Supreme Soviet of the Ukraine of 1940, was held up as an exemplar of these qualities and applauded with a Stalin prize [17]. On the other hand, Noi Trotsky's Moscow District Soviet headquarters in Lenin- grad of 1936-40, whose accessible location makes it much featured in Western literature,

15 Ivan Zholtovsky, interior of apartments in his building on was slated by critical opinion at the time for a Bolshaia Kaluzhskaia street, Moscow, 1949, awarded a Stalin banal and pretentious applied monumentality Prize in 1950. A photograph showing his use of glazed inter- 'that has nothing to do with the democratic open- nal walls to give maximum light, and broad cornices to increase apparent ceiling height. Published in Gorodskoe kho- ness which should characterize Soviet local gov- ziaistvo Mosktny (The Urban Economy of Moscow), July 1950. emient' [i8].' It won no prizes. The apartment plan in [24] is typical of those which Zhol- Very important to discussion of the svetloe is the tovsky used in this block attitude of Stalinist criticism to Russia's classical

country estates. Not by chance did the superbly of classics' is not just 'classicism'. It embraces with scholarly study of these entitled Arkhitektura pod- equal importance the medieval heritage where moskovnykh usadeb (The Architecture of Country much of her national spirit was formed. The Estates around Moscow) have a concluding chapter town planning concepts, as we have seen, drew entitled 'The architecture of country estates and on this tradition in the plan and the profile. architecture today': no such books were published However, Classicism as developed in Imperial at this time purely as history.61 These estates were Russia of the eighteenth and early nineteenth the backbone of Russian culture outside her few centuries was deemed to offer special lessons for cities. Beyond a few showpieces, most of their two reasons-firstly, 'because it uniquely buildings had no named architects and it was focussed on the issue of public buildings' and, reasonable to view them as more or less vernacu- secondly, because it showed how to create an lar work by local 'craftsmen-workers'. Being pro- environment of originality and richness through ducts of a native sensibility they were considered free composition of simple, 'clear' forms.59 appropriate models for a Socialist Realist

Since Catherine the Great started issuing pattern approach to integrating buildings with nature at




.2 :t~~~~~~~~~~~~6 Building of Civic Administration, >2!t. ', K aluga, western entrance gates, 1796-18

This was published as a model of Russian . .. .... . .. ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~civic architecture in Shkvarikov's history of

Russian towns, published in 1954, explicitly aimed at 'architects working on recon-

-a struction of our old towns and the building of new ones'

17 Vladimidr Zabolotny, Headquarters of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukraine, Kiev, 1940, published in Savitsky's book Russkoe klassicheskoe nasledie i sovetskaia arkhitektura of 1953 as an example of good Socialist Realism

i8 Noi Trotsky, Headquarters of the Moscow District Soviet, Leningrad, 1936-40, published in Savitsky's book Russkoe klassicheskoe nasledie i sovetskaia arkhitektura Of 1953 as an example of failure to understand the priorities of Socialist Realism

154 Catherine Cooke



building lines). The contradictions of this formal concept were conveyed in its name of gorodskaia usadba: the urban country estate. But it was how people liked to live and was functionally ideal for the extended family. When rich families started

4ES' * 1 5 I it giving the cities public complexes like universi- - By -vS i, E | s , ties and their first hospitals the same form was

employed. The result was a distinctively light and open urbanity even in the main cities like Moscow, that was now seen by the theorists as

IA111 I i 14j1 -- = embodying powerfully human-centred (chelove- cheskie) pre-capitalist values.63 In the argument of 'critical assimilation' this usadba-based development was a specifically Russian form of urban- ism whose obraz precisely matched those pre-

19 The usadba (country estate) of Vvedenskoe, near Moscow, capitalist values of the happy collaborative unit late eighteenth century, from Tikhomirov's study Arkhitektura within the larger 'radiant' community which their podmoskovnykh usadeb, 1955 Socialism sought to foster. After the Second the scale of the individual structure and of the World War extensive areas of very pleasant, landscape [19]. low-rise urban housing were derived from this

'Spaciousness' had been the ideal of Soviet model [2o]. Unfortunately later pressures mean cities since the 1935 Moscow Plan. 'Lower den- that most of it is now gone. However, even some sity' was part of the political brief for the prole- of the giant blocks of the 1950S in 'suburban' tarian city, sharply juxtaposed by Kaganovich in districts attempted to maintain this open court- his seminal speech of 1931 to 'the overcrowding yard form and it was one of the spatial features of buildings, people and activities onto single initially continued under Khrushchev though in a sites' which characterized the exploitative culture different architecture [21i{

of capitalism.62 In Russia the neo-classical co m Russia's expansive country estates also pro- plex of a country house with its wings and out- vided models for the compositional placing of buildings, the usadba, had long been the model for buildings to 'control' great spatial expanses in residences in the city (except in St Petersburg, Stalinist projects. The combination of classical where Peter had insisted on tight European and picturesque composition that characterized

...... . . .. ~ ~ 20o Evgeny Levinson and Vladimir Ass, apartment housing on Moscow High- way, Leningrad, 1948: a model of new Soviet housing from Tsapenko's book 0 realisticheskikh osnovakh sovetskoi arkhitektury (On the Realist Principles of Soviet Architecture), Moscow, 1952

11 1 I r E F icily ~~~~~~~~~~~mo- i-X r

' . : .... __.__ ..IL - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~~~. , .wiv~,.DtiFF . ...

L~~~~~~~~~




21 Ivan Zholtovsky, competition design for n1-storeyed housing to be constructed on the 'large panel' system, 1952, closely related to various schemes of similar court d'honneur form that he was already building from con-

W, 1

, ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~vnioa masonry locks _; in Moscow

A. E -i i; -2*Ml-i;22 Number lo Locks on the Volga-Don -, D ; _.' . ' .-vf-' ' ......... ship canal: perspective. This is a typical

t4 Brm ?s|i;~e5 element of the whole scheme, executed - I *^. r H!!ff ts1950-2 by a team under chief architect

* g r~ij _S-; A;-= r Leonid Poliakov with extensive sculp- tural work by Georgy Motovilov and a team from the Moscow College of Applied Arts. From Yaralov, Arkhitek- tura Volgo-Donskogo sudokhodnogo kanala imeni V. I. Lenina (The Architecture of the Volga-Don Ship Canal namedfor V. I.

*4 Lenin), Moscow, 1955

_ | w 1 1 _ * l i s _ _~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0 g

the placing of secondary houses, out-buildings, strong, simple vessels for that occupancy, were temples, follies across the parks of these estates the almost primal psychological foundation of was usually done (it was said), like the buildings the 'radiant future' as a social and an architec- themselves, by peasant-serf 'designers'. These tural project. Mastery of nature and of history therefore offered a design precedent for overall through an essentially simplifying model was the landscape composition of the proletariat's great essence of Stalin's strategy for power and may be acts of conquering nature, most notably for the appropriately censured, but the architectural Stalinist hydraulic projects like the Volga-Don devices of a very talented generation are not so canal, or in extensive holiday sanatoria where easily dismissed. In Alexander Deineka's 'Relay nature re-energized the workers for further Race on the Sadovaia Ring' of 1947 we see the labour [22].65 post-war workers of Moscow taking ownership

This bold confidence in their occupancy of of their city [23]. The root problem was that too space, on whatever scale, and the creation of few of them could be provided with graciously

156 Catherine Cooke



04

's X~~~~~~~~~~~~E - - as

23 Alexander Deineka, 'Relay Race on the Sadovaia Ring', :1947. This new inner ring road was one of the new show-piece arteries of Moscow created under the :1935 Plan

24 Ivan Zholtovsky, standard 'one-bedroom' apartment initially designed in 19g40 used in sev- eral of his housing blocks including those on Bol- shaia Kaluzhskaia Street (built 1t949-50) and Smolenskaia Square (built 1951): see [14-15]

age. above. A compact and elegant plan with rooms

all ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~maximally inter-connecting through glazed &>K) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~doors. In Soviet-style living, other family mem- 1] bers would have slept on the settee by the oval

table in the living room and on the divan in the

K>K> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~hallway

C1

0 | I " t.-SAS .. I_




svetloe 'one-bedroom apartments' of the kind with which Zholtovsky and his pupils were framing the wide new Moscow streets around them [24].

CATHERINE COOKE

The Open University

Notes

i In chronological order examples include: M. Cul- lerne Bown, Art under Stalin, Phaidon, Oxford, 1991; C. Ward, Stalin's Russia, Edward Arnold, London, 1993; H. Hudson, Blueprints and Blood: The Staliniza- tion of Soviet Architecture 19:17-1937, Princeton Uni- versity Press, Princeton, 1994; T. Colton, Moscow: Governing the Socialist Metropolis, Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995; R. A. French, Plans, Pragmat- ism and People: the Legacy of Soviet Planningfor Today's Cities, UCL Press, London, 1995.

2 V. Paperny, Kultura dva, Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1985, expected shortly in English; A. Tarkhanov & S. Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architecture, L. King, London, 1992; articles by Russian authors appeared in P. Noever (ed.), Tyrannei des Schdnen: Architektur der Stalin-Zeit, Prestel, Munich, 1994. This exhibition catalogue is the best source for original architectural drawings of major state schemes like Moscow metro, High Buildings. Many similar drawings from Moscow archives were shown in three exhibi- tions of 1995 but few were reproduced in the catalogues: I. Antonova & J. Merkert (eds.), Berlin- Moskau 1900-50, Prestel, Munich, 1995; J.-L. Cohen, Scenes of the World to Come 1893-1960, Flammarion, Paris, 1995; D. Britt (ed.), Art and Power, 1930-45, Hayward Gallery, London, 1995.

3 For typical early biographies, see C. Cooke, Russian Avant-Garde: Theories of Art, Architecture and the City, Academy Editions, London, 1995, Ch. 4.

4 The indispensable reference work is A. Senkevitch, Soviet Architecture 1917-62: A Bibliographical Guide to Source Material, University Press of Virginia, Char- lottesville, 1974.

5 For theoretical background, see C. Cooke, 'Socialist Realist architecture: theory and practice', in M. Cullerne Bown & B. Taylor (eds.), Art of the Soviets, 1917-92, Manchester University Press, 1993, pp. 86- 105.

6 N. S. Khrushchev, 0 shirokom vnedrenii indus- trial'nykh metodov, uluchshenii kachestva i snizhenii stoimosti stroitel'stva, Gospolitizdat, Moscow, 1955.

7 On this professional situation, see C. Cooke, 'A picnic by the roadside or work in hand for the

future?' in Nostalgia of Culture, Architectural Asso- ciation, London, 1988, pp. 11-25.

8 'K novomu beregu', fold-out cartoon and text, in Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 11, 1955.

9 Hudson, Blueprints, p. 198. 10 Ibid., p. 198. ii Ibid., pp. 190-1. 12 Ibid., p. 208.

13 Colton, Moscow, P. 327.

14 Ibid., P. 327.

15 E.g. Cullerne Bown, Art under Stalin; Ward, Stalin's Russia; French, Plans, Pragmatism.

i6 Colton, Moscow, P. 328. 17 Ibid., P. 328. i8 Ibid., p. 202. 19 For aesthetic criteria, see M. Kriukov (ed.), Biulleten'

upravleniia stroitel'stvom Dvortsa Sovetov pri Prezi- diume TsIK SSSR, no. 2-3, 1931.

20 E.g. Cullerne Bown, Art under Stalin; Hudson, Blue- prints; Tarkhanov & Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architec- ture.

21 D. Arkin, 'O lozhnoi "klassike", novatorstve i tra- ditsii', Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 4, 1939, pp. 12-19; V. Vladimirov, 'Lozhnaia monumental'nost', ibid., PP. 25-6; A. Burov, 'Na putiakh k novoi russkoi arkhitekture', Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 4, 1943, pp. 30- 6. Lunacharsky had already criticized Zholtovsky's Palace of Soviets project for the same 'literalness' in

1933. 22 See A. Kopp, Architecture de la periode stalinienne,

Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, Grenoble, 1978, pp. 237-79; A. Cunliffe, 'The competition for the Palace of Soviets in Moscow 1931-3', Architectural Association Quarterly, vol. 11, no. 2,1979, PP. 36-48.

23 Quoted from archival and other sources in Cullerne Bown, Art under Stalin, p. 74.

24 E.g. Iu. Shaposhnikov, 'Dostoinstva i nedostatki arkhitektury novykh stantsii metropolitena', Arkhi- tektura SSSR, no. 4, 1952, pp. 1-16; Iu. Savitsky, Russkoe klassicheskoe nasledie i sovetskaia arkhitektura, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1953, P. 38.

25 Hudson, Blueprints, Chs. 7-10. 26 For discussion and texts on underlying theory, see

C. Vaughan James, Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory, Macmillan, London, 1973; also Cooke, 'Socialist Realist architecture'.

27 Significantly former Modernists were prominent amongst Heads of Studios for detailed development of the show-piece Moscow Plan of 1935.

28 Apart from Arkhitektura SSSR (Architecture of the USSR) and Arkhitekturnaia gazeta (Architectural News- paper), Moscow and Leningrad had their own journals on their 'urban economy' covering new

158 Catherine Cooke



construction. Titles of periodicals are confusingly similar: three different publications were at times called Sovetskaia arkhitektura (Soviet Architecture), for example, including excellent annual project reviews from 1951. The best guide is Senkevitch's Bibliogra- phical Guide, though detailed references here relate mainly to texts and do not include the Gazeta or its supplement. Large republics like the Ukraine also had their own journals.

29 I. Nikolaev, 'Arkhitekturnaia rekonstruktsiia STZ', Arkhitekturnaia gazeta, 8 July 1935.

30 On the Studio, see E. Shunkova, Masterskaia monumental'noi zhivopisi pri Akademii arkhitektury SSSR 1935-48, Sovetskii khudozhnik, Moscow, 1978.

31 E.g. Editorial, 'K novomu pod"emu arkhitektury Stalinskoi epokhi', Sovetskaia arkhitektura: sbornik, 1951 (1), pp. 1-8.

32 Colton, Moscow, p. 327. 33 Kaganovich's address to the Congress, Arkhitektur-

naia gazeta, i6 June 1937, quoted in Kopp, Architec- ture, p. 291.

34 N. Atarov, Dvorets Sovetov, Moskovskii rabochii, 1940, p. 42

35 Ibid., p. 11. 36 M. Gorky, 'Soviet literature', in Soviet Writers' Con-

gress, 1934 (full texts of main speeches), Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1977, pp. 27-69.

37 E.g. I. Matsa, 'Stroenie arkhitekturnogo obraza', Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 4, 1941, pp. 45-50; V. N. Sarabianov, Arkhitektura i obshchestvennoe soznanie, Gos. izdat. lit. po stroitel'stvu i arkhitekture, Moscow, 1952, pp. 10-12.

38 Kriukov, Biulleten, p. 1; on roles of the arts in final designs, see Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 6, 1939, pp. 1-32.

39 Commentaries on initial schemes, in Kriukov, Biul- leten, op. cit. A paragraph of commentary on each significant entry appeared in Sovetskaia arkhitektura, no. 2-3, 1932.

4o These principles extend from Gorky's exposition on 'Soviet literature' (see note 36) and permeate the whole architectural literature. For examples, see L. Matsa, 'Stroenie arkhitekturnogo obraza', Arkhitek- tura SSSR, no. 4, 1941, pp. 45-50; M. Tsapenko, 0 realisticheskikh osnovakh sovetskoi arkhitektury, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1952; Sarabianov, Arkhitektura; K. Lagutin, Arkhitekturnyi obraz sovets- kikh obshchetvennikh zdanii, Iskusstvo, Moscow, 1953.

41 General'nyi plan rekonstruktsii goroda Moskvy, tom i: Postanovleniia i materialy, Moskovskii rabochii, 1936.

42 Ibid.; N. Poliakov, 'Elementy arkhitekurnogo ansamblia Moskvy', Stroitel'stvo Moskvy, no. 5, 1936, pp. 15-2o; A. V. Bunin & M. G. Kruglova,

Arkhitekturnaia kompozitsiia gorodov, Akademiia arkhitektury SSSR, Moscow, 1940; Editorial, 'K novomu pod"emu', pp. 2-3; K. Trapeznikov (ed.), Problema ansamblia v sovetskoi arkhitekture: sbornik statei, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1951; L. M. Tverskoi, Russkoe gradostroitel'stvo do kontsa XVII veka, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow- Leningrad, 1953, Ch. XII.

43 Bunin & Kruglova, Arkhitekturnaia; A. Bunin, L. Ilin, N. Poliakov, & V. Shkvarikov, Gradostroitel'stvo, Akademii arkhitektury SSSR, Moscow, 1945; Tvers- koi, Russkoe gradostroitel'stvo; V. Shkvarikov, Ocherk istorii planirovki i zastroiki Russkikh gorodov, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1954.

44 The profile issue is stressed by Bunin & Kruglova in 1940. Discussion of this role of the High Buildings is extensive, e.g. in context of their Stalin Prizes, Ia. Komfel'd, Laureaty Stalinskikh premii v arkhitekture 1941-50, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1953, p. 138 et al.

45 Designs and photographs of finished buildings were extensively published with commentaries, most authoritiatively in V. Oltarzhevsky, Stroi- tel'stvo vysotnykh zdanii v Moskve, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1953. Progress photos appeared frequently in journals like Gorodskoe kho- ziaistvo Moskvy. The colour impact intended is indi- cated by the architects' perspective drawings (see note 2 for exhibition catalogues). The psychological impact of their appearance has been widely docu- mented in personal conversations. Their present appearance (c.1991) is shown in colour in Tarkha- nov & Kavtaradze, Stalinist Architecture, plates 132-

4, 157-60. 46 E.g. B. Lebedev & P. Shteller, 'Vysotnye zdaniia i

novye ansambli Moskvy', Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 8, 1952, pp. 6-14.

47 Soviet Writers' Congress, 1934. 48 Buildings completed from 1949 onwards appear in

the project annuals Sovetskaia arkhitektura: Ezhegod- nik, nos. 1-3, Akademia arkhitektury SSSR, 1951, 1953, and 1954.

49 I. Voblyi, 'Dvorets sovetov i arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo', Brigada khudozhnikov, no. 3, 1932,

pp. 23-30. Also P. Novitskii, in 'Problema proletars- kogo stilia', ibid., pp. 14-22. Discussion was sum- marized by Commissar of Education A. Lunacharsky in his '26 theses' from the competition, 1933.

50 Savitsky, Russkoe klassicheskoe nasledie, p. 17. 51 E.g. la. Kornfel'd, 'Stalinskie premii za 1950 god',

Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 1, 1952, pp. 14-18. 52 S. Borisov, Iugo-zapad Moskvy. Sotsialisticheskaia




rekonstruktsiia Moskvy, vypusk 1, Moskovskii rabochii, Moscow, 1937, p. 5.

53 D. Fridman, 'Voprosy zhilishchnoi arkhitektury', Stroitel'stvo Moskvy, no. 5, 1936, pp. 21-4; N. Doku- chaev, 'Ansambl naberezhnykh reki Moskvy', ibid., pp. 2-9; Iu. Shass, 'Obraz zhilogo doma', Arkhitek- tura SSSR, no. 4, 1939, PP. 22-4, and other articles in this issue.

54 G. Oshchepkov, 'Masterstvo zodchego', Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 1, 1951, PP. 25-7.

55 I. Zholtovsky, 'O rabote arkhitektora na stroitel'stve', Sovetskaia arkhitektura: sbornik, 1951 (1),

PP. 43-8. 56 M. Tsapenko & Iu. Kliucharov, 'K ioo-letiiu so dnia

smerti . . . Nikolaia Vasilevicha Gogolia', Arkhitek- tura SSSR, no. 2, 1952, PP. 17-21.

57 S. S. Alekseev et al., Tsvetovedenie dlia arkhitektora, GONTI, Moscow-Leningrad, 1938.

58 L. B. Alberti, Desiat knig o zodchestve, 1935; Vitruvii, Desiat knig ob arkhitekture, 1936; D. B. Vignola, Pravila piati orderov arkhitektury, 1939 were just a few of the classic European texts published by the Academy of Architecture which also included Viollet-le-Duc. A full record is contained in the publishers' Annotat- sionnyi katalog 1934-1944, Moscow, 1944 to mark their tenth anniversary.

59 Arkin, 'O lozhnoi "klassike"'; Burov, 'Na putiakh'; Savitsky, Russkoe klassicheskoe nasledie, pp. 5-7.

6o Savistky, Russkoe klassicheskoe nasledie, pp. 13-15. 6i N. Tikhomirov, Arkhitektura podmoskovnykh usadeb,

Go. iz. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1955. 62 L. Kaganovich, 'O Moskovskom gorodskom kho-

ziaistve i o razvitii gorodskogo khoziaistva SSSR', Pravda, 4 July 1931, PP. 3-4; General'nyi plan.

63 General'nyi plan; Arkin, 'O lozhnoi "klassike"'; Burov, 'Na putiakh'; Tikhomirov, Arkhitektura podmoskovnykh usadeb; A. Fedorov-Davydov, Arkhitek- tura Moskvy posle otechestvennoi voiny 1812 goda, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1953.

64 See journals of the period. For Zholtovsky's schemes for the 1952 competition for housing built by the 'large-panel' technique, see G. D. Oshchepkov, I. V. Zholtovsky: proekty i postroiki, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1955, pp. 127-31; for early Khrushchev period in Moscow, see V. Shkvarikov et al. (eds.), Moskva: Planirovka i zastroika goroda 1945-57, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1958.

65 Editorial, 'Velikaia Stalinskaia stroika', Arkhitektura SSSR, no. 7, 1952, pp. i-10; Wu. Yaralov, Arkhitektura Volgo-Donskogo sudokhodnogo kanala im. V. I. Lenina, Gos. izd. lit. po stroi. i arkh., Moscow, 1955.

160 Catherine Cooke



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