Constructivism
Art as engineering: form follows structure, and buildings and posters build a new way of life
How to recognise it
- Exposed frame, steel and glass on show
- Ribbon windows and cantilevers over the street
- Cylinders, cubes and beams combined
- Posters with diagonals, photomontage and block type
Why it emerged
The Revolution called for new building types — workers' clubs, communal houses, factory kitchens — amid severe shortages of money and materials. VKhUTEMAS artists rejected museum art and turned to industry and architecture.
Examples
Tatlin's Tower (Monument to the Third International)1919–1920 · Vladimir TatlinAn unbuilt 400-metre steel-and-glass spiral that became Constructivism's manifesto
Shukhov Radio Tower1920–1922 · Vladimir ShukhovA hyperboloid lattice radio mast of straight steel rods, using minimal metal in a famine year
Rusakov Workers' Club1927–1928 · Konstantin MelnikovThree cantilevered auditoriums jut out like gear teeth, the form spelling out the function
Narkomfin Building1928–1930 · Moisei Ginzburg, Ignaty MilinisA 'transitional' communal house with shared kitchen and duplex flats, a model for Le Corbusier's Unité.jpg?width=640 "Anna Leonenko · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons")
Derzhprom1925–1928 · Serhiy Serafimov, Samuil Kravets, Mark FelgerThe first Soviet reinforced-concrete high-rise: linked blocks joined by bridges over the streetsMore in this style
- 1927–1929 Melnikov House — Konstantin Melnikov
How it spread
- 1920 Moscow
- 1922 Berlin
- 1925 Paris
- 1925 Kharkiv
- 1929 Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg)
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Peredvizhniki (The Wanderers) Eastern Europe & Russia
- Expressionism Europe
- Cubism Europe
- Russian avant-garde Eastern Europe & Russia
- Harlem Renaissance Americas
- Modern architecture (International Style) Whole world
- Art Deco Europe
- Mexican muralism Americas
- Surrealism Europe
- Socialist realism Eastern Europe & Russia