PARALLEL MOVEMENT-soviet union of 1920s

Russian Constructivism
 A movement with origins in Russia, Constructivism was primarily an art and architectural
movement.

 Constructivist architecture is a form of modern archictecture that started in former USSR in

1920s that emerged from constructivist art.

 It was a movement created by the Russian avant-garde, but quickly spread to the rest of the
continent.

 Constructivist art is committed to complete abstraction with a devotion to modernity, where

themes are often geometric, experimental and rarely emotional.

 New media was often used in the creation of works, which helped to create a style of art that was
orderly.

 Principles of Constructivism came from Suprematism , Newo Plasticism and Bauhaus.

 Constructivist themes are also quite minimal, where the artwork is broken down to its most basic
elements

 The style combines straight lines and various forms such as cylinders, squares, rectangles,
cubes.

 Elements of Constructivst art/architecture are:

Minimal ,geometric ,spatial ,architectonic ,experimental

Constructivism explores opposition between different forms as well as the contrast of different
surfaces: walls and windows. Windows are usually square or rectangular.

 Concstuctivist architecture movement emphasized and took advantage of the possibilites of new
materials. Steel frames were seen supporting large areas of glass. Joints between various parts
of buildings were exposed.
 Many buildings had balconies and sun decks. Large windows in order to let the as much light as
possible.

 Constructivists not only employed the plastic arts as their means of expression, but expanded to
the areas of industry, graphic design and the performing arts

 Constructivists proposed to replace art's traditional concern with composition with a focus on
construction.

 Constructivist art often aimed to demonstrate how materials behaved - to ask, for instance, what
different properties had materials such as wood, glass, and metal.

 The seed of Constructivism was a desire to express the experience of modern life - its dynamism,
its new and disorientating qualities of space and time.

 Constructivism influenced other art movements of the twentieth century, such as Bauhaus and De
Stijl

 Famous artists of the Constructivist movement include Vladimir Tatlin , Kasimir Malevich,
Alexandra Exter, Robert Adams, and El Lissitzky.
EXAMPLES:

TATLIN’S TOWER

 Tatlin’s tower, or the project for the Monument to the Third International was a design for a
grand monumental building by the Russian artist and architect Vladimir Tatlin.
 Vladimir tatlin was a painter and architect.

 He is remembered most for his Monument to the Third International.

 It was a grand un-built monumental building.

 It was planned to be erected in St. Petersburg after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
 This was planned to be taller than that great symbol of modernity, the Eiffel Tower
 In 1919 and 1920, Vladimir Tatlin produced sketches and a model
 Its spiraling structure, however, was to lend the Monument a structural dynamism
 he developed an officially authorized art form which utilized 'real materials in real space'. His
project for a Monument of the Third International marked his first foray into architecture and
became a symbol for Russian avant-garde architecture and International Modernism.
 tatlin's Constructivist tower was to be built from industrial materials: iron, glass and steel. In
materials, shape and function
 It would consist of a mighty steel girder thrusting 400m into the air at a 65 degree angle from
the horizontal.


 the design of the monument consists of three large glass structures, erected by means of a
complex system of vertical struts and spirals.
 The lower storey, which is in the form of a cube, rotates on it’s axis at the speed of one
revolution per year- a venue for lectures, conferences and legislative meetings,
 The next storey, which is in the form of a pyramid, rotates on its axis at the rate of one
revolution per month- venue for executive activities
 Finally, the uppermost cylinder which rotates at the speed of one revolution per day is reserved
for information services: an information office, a newspaper and it will also have a telegraphic
office and an apparatus that can project slogans on to a large screen.
 it would act as a kind of astronomical instrument, with its spine.

 These can be fitted around the axes of the hemisphere. Radio masts will rise up over the
monument. It should be emphasised that Tatlin’s proposal provides for walls with a vacuum which
will help to keep the temperature in the various rooms constant.

 The main idea of the monument is based on an organic synthesis of the principles of architecture,
sculpture and painting and was intended to produce a new type of monumental structure, uniting
in itself a purely creative form.

 the glass structures should have vacuum walls (a thermos) which will make it easy to maintain a
constant temperature within the edifice. The separate parts of the monument will be connected to
one another and to the ground by means exclusively of complexly structured electrical elevators,
adjusted to the differing rotation speeds of the structures.