documents

Ecochard’s Plan for Casablanca jo pixel No responses 2013-08-13
Novi Beograd The terrain of this modern development, most dramatically beheld from the position of the ancient Belgrade fortress, served for centuries as a no-man’s-land between the borders of the two empires, the Ottoman and the Austrian/Austro- Hungarian. Devoid of any urban structure, it fulfilled the function of a cordon sanitaire, observed and controlled as no-connection- zone between the Orient, where Belgrade, as […] jo pixel No responses 2013-07-03
From Disurbanisation to Hyperurbanisation “Following the Marxist theory of cancelling the difference between city and countryside, de-urbanization called for the abolition of cities in favor of “field urbanism” an evenly distributed industry intermingled of agriculture and residential areas. First imagined by Soviet Constructivist avant-garde in the 1920s, de-urbanization was the red, communist version of Ebenezer’s Howard Garden City.” (Mihai […] jo pixel No responses 2013-06-21
Sotsgorod Sotsgorod, Problems of Building Socialist Cities is Nikolai Milyutin‘s most well known theoretical contribution. Milyutin was a convinced supporter of the radical reform of everyday life and the refusal of bourgeois values, which in his mind still gave form to the majority of post-revolutionary architecture. He advocated the collectivisation and industrialisation of human settlement, with an eye on […] jo pixel No responses 2013-05-05
Disurbanism At the end of the 1920s, the attention of constructivist architects, in particular those of OSA, increasingly shifted toward a radical critique of the city itself, focusing on visions designed to overcome urban concentration, and introducing concepts of diffuse urbanisation, linear and green cities, ultimately theorising the concept of disurbanism. This term was basically the result […] jo pixel No responses 2013-05-03
On the Preservation of Konstantin Melnikov’s Works and Heritage We recently received this petition for the preservation of Melnikov’s works and we are happy to republish it. We are approaching the 40th anniversary of the death of the architect Konstantin Melnikov,and the importance and value of his built works and the projects he drew has not stopped growing over all these years. Melnikov’s visionary […] jo pixel No responses 2013-04-22
SA_1929 Standardisation has been one of the main themes of the architectural debate in the post revolutionary context on Soviet Russia, strongly influenced by the contemporary international debate. Constructivists, and in particular the OSA group and the Sovrmennaja Arkhitektura magazine, identified in the issue of creating modular standardised components which could be industrially produced a key […] jo pixel No responses 2012-04-13
Vladimir Shukhov Vladimir Shukhov is often referred to as Russia’s Edison. He was one of the first to develop stress and deformation calculations, though he is most famous for his creation of double-curving surfaces and the world’s first hyperboloid structures, of which his Shabolovka Radio Tower in central Moscow is a shining example. Shukhov worked in Philadelphia […] jo pixel No responses 2012-04-13
Architecture at Vkhutemas The VKhUTEMAS, or Higher State Artistic-Technical Workshop, was an important centre of experimentation and technical innovation in art education in Moscow during the 1920s. Its importance in developing experimental design and pedagogical innovations rivals that of the Bauhaus in Weimar, although the VKhUTEMAS is far less well known. Inspired by the work of artists such […] jo pixel No responses 2012-02-26
Design for Childrens Games jo pixel No responses 2012-02-26