Perfectionist’s Heaven: The Constructivist Architecture
There are a lot of worth seeing places in the world. Today we are going to talk about buildings; particularly those one that were meant to astonish, serve and be useful. But the history had a different plan for these unconventional structures. We are talking about soviet constructivism and its creations — fantastic geometric buildings, that were meant to replace old traditional architecture. But let’s start from the beginning and get the glimpse at the essence of this fascinating movement.
It all begun in the beginning of 20th century. During 20–30, at the time of establishing the new-born USSR, the October Revolution changed not only the political and social structure, but also the directions of art and culture in the country. With the new era and all the technical advances came the new notion in art, that crossed out the historical and decorative values of architecture and art. In the constructivist reality buildings were supposed to be functional and useful, have mathematically calculated forms and serve to the convenience of the people. During that period the idea of very functional art was among the most popular and innovative ones. Art should not be conceived in the name of visual satisfaction, but to serve city dwellers and productions, to have practical applications. For instance, one of the theorists of this kind of art, Boris Arvatov, wrote: “artists will not depict beautiful bodies, but nourish real harmonious people; will not paint a forest, but plant parks and gardens; will not decorate walls with paintings, but paint those walls instead.” So the architecture of that period was built under the influence of such ideas. Initially, all of these buildings seemed like miracles of the bright future and technical progress.
They were bold, daring and unusual. As time went by, these architecture became less and less advanced in the terms of creativeness and design and moved towards more typical, simple, yet still geometrical forms.
Nowadays, most of these buildings serve as the sights of the utopian soviet times of the past and peculiar views on the “progressive architecture”. Some of them are in good condition and functioning, some of them are abandoned and remind of the soviet pathos. The attitude towards constructivist buildings varies from the pure admiration to the complete antipathy. Despite this, constructivism is a big part of the culture inheritance and influenced many further generations of artists. We are quite lucky to have a chance to observe the changes and impact constructivist style had in progression. And today, most of the buildings gained that special charm, that is so common to the objects that indicated grand utopian ideas.
