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At the inaugural festivities of the Moscow Palace of Young Pioneers in 1962, a Soviet news agency enthusiastically reported, “In this house, the walls will teach!” Propagandistic, yes, but this prescriptive attitude about the potential of architecture to shape modern life was implicit in much of the architecture of the 20th century. This collection of 12 essays and 24(...)
Commercial interiors, Building types
January 2015
Walls that teach: on the architecture of youth centres
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At the inaugural festivities of the Moscow Palace of Young Pioneers in 1962, a Soviet news agency enthusiastically reported, “In this house, the walls will teach!” Propagandistic, yes, but this prescriptive attitude about the potential of architecture to shape modern life was implicit in much of the architecture of the 20th century. This collection of 12 essays and 24 case studies from leading architects and academics examines the architecture and programming of mid-century youth centers across Europe, from Utrecht to Manchester. The organization of these centers around leisure activities partially concealed their educational (and ultimately political) goals: their pedagogical power could be found not only in their physical design, but also in the way they were used and inhabited by the children themselves. Contributors include Tom Avermaete, Peter Blundell Jones, Jennifer Mack, Susan Reid, Sue Robertson, Piet Vollaard and many others.
Commercial interiors, Building types
The measure of darkness
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Martin, an acclaimed architect, emerges from a coma after a roadside accident to find his world transformed: not only has the commission of a lifetime been taken from him, but his injury has left him with neglect syndrome, a loss of spatial awareness that has rendered him unfit to practice and unable to recognize the extent of his illness. Despite support from his(...)
The measure of darkness
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Martin, an acclaimed architect, emerges from a coma after a roadside accident to find his world transformed: not only has the commission of a lifetime been taken from him, but his injury has left him with neglect syndrome, a loss of spatial awareness that has rendered him unfit to practice and unable to recognize the extent of his illness. Despite support from his formerly estranged brother and two grown daughters, his paranoia builds, alienating those closest to him. His only solace is found in the parallels he draws between himself and gifted Soviet-era architect Konstantin Melnikov, who survived Stalin’s disfavor by retreating into obscurity. As Martin retraces Melnikov’s life and his own fateful decisions, he becomes increasingly unsettled, until the discovery of the harrowing truth about the night of his accident hurtles him toward a deadly confrontation.
Architecture de Montréal
Two cheers for anarchism
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Having studied how people in marginal societies deal with the state, Yale political scientist and anthropologist Scott (The Art of Not Being Governed) found himself drawn to a study of anarchism. his brief, six-part study is the result. Having concluded that revolution too often leads to such repressive regimes as France's Committee of Public Safety or the Soviet(...)
Two cheers for anarchism
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Having studied how people in marginal societies deal with the state, Yale political scientist and anthropologist Scott (The Art of Not Being Governed) found himself drawn to a study of anarchism. his brief, six-part study is the result. Having concluded that revolution too often leads to such repressive regimes as France's Committee of Public Safety or the Soviet state, Scott began to examine leaderless mass efforts disorganized strivings towards social improvement. Scott recognizes that anarchism is not a panacea and that there are problems that only government can treat. Nevertheless, he expresses a strong dislike for centralized governance and a preference for expanding chaos. He refers to his sections as "fragments," highlighting the book's key shortcoming: every chapter seems rushed and incomplete, as though Scott were hurrying to get his thoughts down on paper before they vanished.
Critical Theory
Unbuildable Tatlin?!
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Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument for the III. International (1919) is certainly one of the most significant projects of Soviet Constructivism. It is, however, not at all certain whether “Tatlin’s Tower” could even be built at all at the time it was originally planned. And whether it would be constructed today with the presently available means and possibilities of planning,(...)
Unbuildable Tatlin?!
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Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument for the III. International (1919) is certainly one of the most significant projects of Soviet Constructivism. It is, however, not at all certain whether “Tatlin’s Tower” could even be built at all at the time it was originally planned. And whether it would be constructed today with the presently available means and possibilities of planning, calculating and processing materials is equally uncertain. The seminar on Structural Design 3 (Prof. Klaus Bollinger) focused on these reflections at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. The preliminary answers and assumptions are summed up in the present volume. Complementing the works by students, texts by Klaus Bollinger, Frank Werner, Florian Medicus, Gabriele Werner, Georg Glaeser and Frank Gruber provide an overview of the theoretical, historical, constructive and geometric relevance of Vladimir Tatlin’s work and the architect’s intentions.
Architecture since 1900, Europe
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Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Cuba found itself solely responsible for feeding a nation that had grown dependent on imports and trade subsidies. With fuel, fertilizers, and pesticides disappearing overnight, citizens began growing their own organic produce anywhere they could find space, on rooftops, balconies, vacant lots, and even school(...)
Farming Cuba : urban agriculture from the ground up
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Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Cuba found itself solely responsible for feeding a nation that had grown dependent on imports and trade subsidies. With fuel, fertilizers, and pesticides disappearing overnight, citizens began growing their own organic produce anywhere they could find space, on rooftops, balconies, vacant lots, and even school playgrounds. By 1998 there were more than 8,000 urban farms in Havana producing nearly half of the country's vegetables. What began as a grassroots initiative had, in less than a decade, grown into the largest sustainable agriculture initiative ever undertaken, making Cuba the world leader in urban farming. Featuring a wealth of rarely seen material and intimate portraits of the environment, Farming Cuba details the innovative design strategies and explores the social, political, and environmental factors that helped shape this pioneering urban farming program.
Urban Landscapes
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In Imagine No Possessions, Christina Kiaer investigates the Russian Constructivist conception of objects as being more than commodities. "Our things in our hands must be equals, comrades," wrote Aleksandr Rodchenko in 1925. Kiaer analyzes this Constructivist counterproposal to capitalism's commodity fetish by examining objects produced by Constructivist artists between(...)
Design, Periods and Styles
April 2008, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Imagine no possessions: the socialist objects of Russian constructivism
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In Imagine No Possessions, Christina Kiaer investigates the Russian Constructivist conception of objects as being more than commodities. "Our things in our hands must be equals, comrades," wrote Aleksandr Rodchenko in 1925. Kiaer analyzes this Constructivist counterproposal to capitalism's commodity fetish by examining objects produced by Constructivist artists between 1923 and 1925: Vladimir Tatlin's prototype designs for pots and pans and other everyday objects, Liubov' Popova's and Varvara Stepanova's fashion designs and textiles, Rodchenko's packaging and advertisements for state-owned businesses (made in collaboration with revolutionary poet Vladimir Mayakovsky), and Rodchenko's famous design for the interior of a workers' club. These artists, heeding the call of Constructivist manifestos to abandon the nonobjective painting and sculpture of the early Russian avant-garde and enter into Soviet industrial production, aimed to work as "artist-engineers" to produce useful objects for everyday life in the new socialist collective.
books
April 2008, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Design, Periods and Styles
Aldo Rossi: The urban fact
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The great Italian architect, designer, theorist and printmaker Aldo Rossi (1931–97) galvanized the postmodernist architectural movement in the middle of the 20th century with his unique synthesis of influences such as Adolf Loos, Giorgio de Chirico and Soviet architecture. From his publication Architecture of the City (1966) to his 1976 exhibition Analogous City, Rossi(...)
Architecture Monographs
November 2021
Aldo Rossi: The urban fact
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The great Italian architect, designer, theorist and printmaker Aldo Rossi (1931–97) galvanized the postmodernist architectural movement in the middle of the 20th century with his unique synthesis of influences such as Adolf Loos, Giorgio de Chirico and Soviet architecture. From his publication Architecture of the City (1966) to his 1976 exhibition Analogous City, Rossi spent a decade developing a theory of urban design that focused on the “collective memory” of a city as an essential element of its urban planning and gave consideration to how buildings and urban areas age over time. Here, Rossi’s theory is applied to his own works from that period, both built and unbuilt, in a careful selection of 23 projects that express this memory-based paradigm of civic existence and construction. Aldo Rossi: The Urban Fact thus unifies Rossi’s theory and practice, demonstrating the visionary dimension driving his singular brand of postmodernism.
Architecture Monographs
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1 v. (69 p.) : illustrations, couv. illustrations ; 15 cm.
Paris : Editions B2, impr. 2013, ©2013.
Cernés par les images [Texte imprimé] : l'architecture de l'après-Spoutnik / Beatriz Colomina ; [traductrice Hélène Sirven].
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1 v. (69 p.) : illustrations, couv. illustrations ; 15 cm.
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Paris : Editions B2, impr. 2013, ©2013.
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The architecture of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s was integral to shaping 20th-century modernism. Russian architect Konstantin Melnikov (1890–1974) was a key figure of this movement, with many of his realized projects, such as his cylindrical residential house completed in 1929, becoming modernist icons. Because he refused to conform to architectural standards(...)
Konstantin Melnikov: The master of the architectural form
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The architecture of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s was integral to shaping 20th-century modernism. Russian architect Konstantin Melnikov (1890–1974) was a key figure of this movement, with many of his realized projects, such as his cylindrical residential house completed in 1929, becoming modernist icons. Because he refused to conform to architectural standards after Stalin's cultural turn in 1932, his works were largely forgotten for several decades. He was rehabilitated and received public recognition for his imaginative constructions only a few years prior to his death in 1974. This publication presents models of Melnikov's built and unbuilt works, created under the direction of scholar Pavel Kuznetsov by the students of the Accademia di Architettura in Mendrisio. The models are accompanied by photographs, sketches and project descriptions expanding on Melnikov's work. An essay by Kuznetsov situates the architect in his historical context, shedding light on an underappreciated figure of architectural history.
Architecture Monographs
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Across five centuries of Russian history, Russian leaders have used architecture to project unity, identity, and power. Church architecture has inspired national cohesion and justified political control while representing the claims of religion in brick, wood, and stone. The architectural vocabulary of the Soviet state celebrated industrialization, mechanization, and(...)
History until 1900
May 2003, Ithaca and London
Architectures of Russian identity 1500 to the present
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Across five centuries of Russian history, Russian leaders have used architecture to project unity, identity, and power. Church architecture has inspired national cohesion and justified political control while representing the claims of religion in brick, wood, and stone. The architectural vocabulary of the Soviet state celebrated industrialization, mechanization, and communal life. Buildings and landscapes have expressed utopian urges as well as lofty spiritual goals. Country houses and memorials have encoded their own messages. In Architectures of Russian Identity, James Cracraft and Daniel Rowland gather a group of authors from a wide variety of backgrounds—including history and architectural history, linguistics, literary studies, geography, and political science—to survey the political and symbolic meanings of many different kinds of structures. Fourteen heavily illustrated chapters demonstrate the remarkable fertility of the theme of architecture, broadly defined, for a range of fields dealing with Russia and its surrounding territories. The authors engage key terms in contemporary historiography—identity, nationality, visual culture—and assess the applications of each in Russian contexts.
History until 1900