Soviet Avant-Garde 1

11 – The Soviet avant-garde

URSS Pavilion

In the fair of decorative arts of 1925 in Paris, le Corbusier espirit nouveau was an innovation. But also, another pavilion was relevant, the Soviet Union one. It was built in 1925 by Melnikov, representation of the new forces and ideas emerging in the Moscow artistic and architectural environment. The planimetry is rectangular cut in the middle by the diagonal stairs. The entrance to the pavilion is therefore a diagonal walk. It is a skeleton structure which gives the possibility, as clear in the façade, to freely design the relationship between interior and exterior. The diagonal cut performed by the stairs divides the rectangular plan into two triangular parts. Another peculiarity are the wide spaces, the free ground floor and the kind of pergola created by the diagonal beams recalling the plan of the building. It was built completely in timber, which makes it cheap and easy to construct.

Art and Politics, Tatlin

Another important topic is the soviet relationship between art and politics, which In the socialist club of Paris, the meeting social space for workers of Lenin, is extremely strong. Art is in a way devoted to the construction of the new society of URSS in the system of propaganda. Artists were serving the new regime with their art, and transforming the political ideas in a new art. This relationship, this marriage was a unique situation of Russia since in the rest of Europe, often avant garde was subversive and against the contemporary society. Every time we analyse this phenomenon is also important to consider the spread of ideas trough art, trough geometrical figures, colours etc. when we are looking at pure geometries, pure colours, something already experienced in the collages by Le Corbusier, this corresponds fundamentally to the new political order which came in 1917, during the first Russian civil war. The revolutionary movements transform the entire

society and erase the secular relationship between the different classes that characterized the post feudalist czarist Russia. with 1917 we have the erasing the division of classes which characterized the Russian society. The encounter with avant garde happens in this phase of transformation, art has the important role of contributing to this transformation.

Le Corbusier in the 1929s describes the city of Moscow, via a sketch, as a chaotic city characterized by isolated monuments without an urban structure.

Vladimir Tatlin, one of the pioneers of avant gard, in 1912 travels and meets in Paris many avant garde artists. He immediately recognises the potentiality of collage, a series of pieces of everyday life collected and assembled together in order to create a new shape. This is typical of avant garde, to use meaningless objects and to change their semantic meaning putting them on a canvas. Avant garde is also based on the act of destruction of everything which had been the model and the methods of art before. Collage is the solution and the new practice.

Tatlin comes back to Russia in 1913 and starts to work with several objects creating collages which are rather three-dimensional with objects suspended in space with a strong sense of structure. In the corner counter relief this is clear. Often the interior of bars started to be decorated with these new techniques. Also, scenography is an important field for avant garde. In The man who was Thursday, an urban situation is represented on different levels. Theatre is the space where performance changes the perception of reality. El Lissitzkij creates a stage with stairs changing positions and implying a non-fixed position of the characters.

Monument for The Third International

Tatlin in 1919 realizes the monument for the Third International, a 5 m sculpture. Russia promotes itself and its revolution as the centre of communism. In the third international, all the nations which until the year before had fought against each other in the WW1 are brought together for the reunion of the communist party. Tatlin was asked to design the sculpture for the manifesto of this event. It was a tangible sign of avant garde art. It is an extremely dynamic sculpture that is somehow between sculpture and architecture. This monument is based on a sequence of spirals leading to the ending top part. Two geometries are crucial, one is the cone, and the other one is the reticular beam. It represents dynamism in three-dimensional space. Women, men all dressed in working suite work and assemble the model, is all part of the performance. The monument is the result of the collaboration between artists and workers. The architecture taken as a model was the Eiffel tower, with its iron engineering.

Dom Narkomfina

One of the most interesting research on new typologies is by Mojsej Ginzburg. He realized an experimental 5 stories building for the workers of the ministry of finance. It reflects on the different functions which can be combined into a residential building. It is clear the sublimation of some ideas taken from Le Corbusier. About the articulation of the interior, a long corridor connects the long terraces and the apartments, which are all arranged based on the modules of the structures. some of them are organized on a double floor. From the back faced we can perfectly read the internal typologies. Also, this idea of a building that can accommodate different functions and activities through time, will be extremely influential to Le Corbusier.